My 10 Best Episodes of "The West Wing"
I love TV. It's been a constant companion through the years when I've needed one and had nothing else around to be there for me. Comedies can make me forget about my troubles and make me laugh when I need to the most. Dramas can bring me inside a world I don't know while making me feel emotions and contemplate issues I might not otherwise. I am going to be making some lists of what I think are the 10 best episodes of various comedies and dramas I love. If you haven't watched some of these series, I hope I give you some ideas for episodes you can watch that may make you love them.
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- DirectorMichael LehmannStarsRob LoweMoira KellyDulé HillAfter a speech touting the success of a gun control bill, the team learns they are actually five votes short. The fight to get them back puts a strain on Leo's marriage and Josh's relationship with numerous Senators. Toby finds out he may have accidentally participated in insider trading.
- DirectorThomas SchlammeStarsRob LoweMoira KellyDulé HillA drug dealer's appeal of the federal death penalty is rejected by the Supreme Court, which upholds the death sentence with execution scheduled for the following Monday. One of the defense lawyers on the case is Sam's old high school bully, and he appeals directly to Sam to involve the president. During a weekend in which he was supposed to be in a yacht race, Sam opts to stay at the W.H. and try to convince his fellow staffers and ultimately Bartlet that the president should commute the sentence. Meanwhile Josh, after a night of heavy drinking at a bachelor party, meets congressional campaign manager Joey Lucas while is hung over. She assails him for having the DNC cut off funding for her candidate, but the decision was deliberate, as the W.H. likes the conservative nutjob currently holding the Calif. seat. Opinions on the death penalty are exchanged throughout the weekend, including those of Quaker Joey Lucas and Toby's rabbi, and Bartlet winds up calling both the Pope and his old parish priest from N.H. for counsel.
- DirectorChristopher MisianoStarsRob LoweMoira KellyDulé HillIn a lecture at Georgetown, Josh recalls the previous week at the White House, during which he replaced a dentally impaired C.J. in the press room and gave a memorably disastrous briefing, responding to a reporter's question (sarcastically, although taken quite seriously) that the White House had a secret plan to fight inflation. Meanwhile, he's intermittently on the phone with Toby and Sam, who have flown to Connecticut and are now lost in a rental car on the Connecticut Turnpike. They've gone on critical business: the president's nominee for the Supreme Court, Roberto Mendoza, was pulled over by the local police for "driving while Hispanic" and refused to take a drunk test, so he was incarcerated. Toby has to talk the judge down from making a big public issue of his arrest by fighting the charges in court.
- DirectorLaura InnesStarsRob LoweMoira KellyDulé HillThe West Wing staff are feeling malaise as it seems they never get anything accomplished. Meanwhile, a leaked memo is a land mine that could embarrass the administration.
- 1999–200643mTV-149.4 (1.8K)TV EpisodeDirectorThomas SchlammeStarsRob LoweDulé HillAllison JanneyThe President is rushed to hospital following a shooting; staffers field questions on protection measures and executive authority. Flashbacks show how key staff members joined the Bartlet campaign.Parts I & II
- DirectorAlex GravesStarsRob LoweDulé HillAllison JanneyFollowing the Vice-President's remarks to him, Toby realizes the truth behind the President's illness: multiple sclerosis. Toby, Leo, and Bartlet discuss the possible political implications of this if it goes public including possible jail time for the 17 people who now know about the illness. Meanwhile Sam, Josh, Donna and the rest of the staff, unaware of the illness, struggle with a speech the President is to give at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
- DirectorThomas SchlammeStarsRob LoweDulé HillAllison JanneyAs the Haitian army continues their seizure of the American embassy there, Bartlet and the staff prepare for the announcement that Bartlet has M.S. and the President must decide whether or he will seek re-election. As the funeral for Mrs. Landingham takes place and the announcement draws nearer, Bartlet thinks back to his past in search of the answer to the question everyone is asking: Will he seek re-election?
- DirectorThomas SchlammeStarsRob LoweStockard ChanningDulé HillIn an episode dotted with flashbacks, Leo and his attorney Jordon Kendall (Joanna Gleason) face a Congressional inquiry into whether the president lied to the American people regarding his MS, but this particular day of hearings concerns itself more with Abby and her secretly medicating Jed, and later with Leo's having fallen off the wagon during the campaign (a politically motivated Republican rep on the committee witnessed Leo drunk in his room three days before the nomination); we see the meeting in which Leo talked N.H. Governor Bartlet into running for president, introducing his idea, "Bartlet for America", on a cocktail napkin, which the president later frames and returns to Leo as a gift in thanks for all he's done for the president over the years; Cliff Calley, Donna's boyfriend and special counsel to the judicial oversight committee, asks the committee chair to halt the inquiry before the rep can compel Leo to admit his personal transgression; Leo asks Jordon to Xmas Eve dinner.
- DirectorChristopher MisianoStarsRob LoweDulé HillAllison JanneyJosh covertly brings a psychiatrist to the white house to meet with the President who has been unable to sleep for five days.
- DirectorAlex GravesStarsJaneane GarofaloRon SilverTeri PoloA live debate between Santos and Vinick, performed once for the east coast and once for the west.