Inside The West Wing: An Unauthorized Look at Television's Smartest Show

by Paul Challen

For anyone who’s ever wished the American president’s name was Bartlet …Since bursting onto the airwaves in 1999, The West Wing has emerged as one of North America’s favourite TV shows — and for good reason. Through its snappy dialogue, Washington-insider references and stellar acting, the show, produced and written by Aaron Sorkin of The American President and A Few Good Men fame, looks at U.S. politics like no other TV series has before. As a testament to the show’s success, it copped nine Emmy Awards — an all-time record — in September 2000. Its all-star cast, which includes Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe, Alison Janney, and John Spencer, is regularly praised in the press, and the second-season-opener, “Who Shot President Bartlet,” aired to record ratings in the fall of 2000. In Inside the West Wing, author Paul Challen takes a detailed look at this hugely popular series: how it’s put together, what ideas and political themes drive its plots, and ultimately, why it’s so popular. Through in-depth interviews, commentary from political and entertainment-industry observers, plus extensive searches of the numerous official and un-official show Web sites available in cyberspace, Challen provides a comprehensive look inside the show for die-hard fans and casual watchers alike. To round out the package, Inside the West Wing also contains actor profiles, and an episode-by-episode guide to the first two seasons.

Genres: Nonfiction, Tv

200 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2001

About the author

Challen, Paul, 1967-
Challen, Paul C. (Paul Clarence), 1967-

Paul Challen lives in Dundas, Ontario.

Reviews

[Eugenio Gomez-acebo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many descriptions. No insights. A poor effort. And even they quote the POTUS line in the pilot wrong!

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book, or its size, is slightly misleading. Of the 180 pages that come before the bibliography, only 71 are about (describing, explaining, critiquing, etc.) the show -- the next 110 pages are cast bios, character bios, and an episode guide for the first two seasons of the show. In other words, only 70 pages of the author's writing and things that watchers of the show don't already know. Additionally, the longest chapter (21 pages) is about fan sites and the people who run and visit them, so really we only get 50 pages about the show itself. And the text is large and the pages have wide margins, so I wonder what the 50 pages would be in a normal page layout. Kind of a gyp. And it's sad to have to give the book only 2 stars because those 50 pages are decent and about a really great show, but I just can't overlook those other issues. In its defense, though, I will say that the episode guide is more than just title/date/synopsis; there is some amount of insight and analysis of the episodes and how they relate to the overall show (but still not enough to raise the 2 stars to 3 stars).

(p. 3 - "...but not before Laurie, amused at the 'Potus' message, tells him, 'Your friend has a funny name' -- to which Sam replies, 'It's not his name. It's his job.'" Oh, my God! It's not his name, it's his title! Come on! One of the greatest lines in the show, and THE ONE LINE that sets up THE ENTIRE SHOW, and you biff it! You couldn't read the script book, or just do a search on Google for the transcript?!? Oy!)

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, especially the fact that the episode recaps include the authors own thoughts on each episode. But, as always seems to be the way with West Wing books, it only covers the first 2 seasons. It's so frustrating.
With the success The West Wing Weekly podcast I'm still hoping for a proper full look at all seven seasons and ideally most of the book won't be episode recaps either....