The West Wing Season That Never Was

The West Wing was one of the very best TV shows ever made.  It took a real­is­tic, yet opti­mistic look at Amer­i­can pol­i­tics, and brought the ‘walk ’n talk’ to unpar­al­leled heights of excellence.

When The West Wing end­ed after 7 sea­sons, I was very sad to see a show of such amaz­ing cal­iber go off the air.  Espe­cial­ly since I felt that it end­ed pre­ma­ture­ly.  There was at least one more sea­son of qual­i­ty sto­ries that could be told.  So, to both hon­or the series and to offer a smidgen of hope that it can be reborn, I present the West Wing season-that-never-was:

 

Before I get into the syn­op­sis, let me say when I feel this sea­son needs to take place.  Sure, we could look into the new San­tos admin­is­tra­tion, but I feel that there was plen­ty of untapped poten­tial in the orig­i­nal cast, whom, in my opin­ion, is the great­est ensem­ble ever to grace the small screen.  So, this sea­son-that-nev­er-was will take place dur­ing the clas­sic years of the Bart­let admin­is­tra­tion.  The per­fect place would be when cre­ator Aaron Sorkin left after sea­son 4, espe­cial­ly since sea­son 5 is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered to blow.

I wrote some syn­op­sizes to many pos­si­ble episode ideas.  Here are some of them:

 

1. Zoey, the President’s daugh­ter, has been cap­tured by ter­ror­ists.  Pres­i­dent Bart­let goes under­cov­er to res­cue her, but is dis­cov­ered by the cell.  Now he and the ter­ror­ist leader must bat­tle it out in a caged knife-fight in which there could only be ONE sur­vivor.  To make mat­ters even more intense, if the Pres­i­dent los­es, the ter­ror­ist becomes the new leader of the free world!

 

2. 

   Pres­i­dent Bartlet’s moth­er-in-law is com­ing to vis­it, and we all know that means trou­ble!  It seems that Abbey’s moth­er always thought of the Pres­i­dent as a good-for-noth­ing slug-about and that her daugh­ter could’ve done bet­ter – no mat­ter what Pres­i­dent Bart­let does to please her.  It’s just the President’s luck when the coun­try is placed in a nation­al cri­sis with an impend­ing trans­porta­tion strike.  To make mat­ters worse, his moth­er-in-law took the bus to get to the White House, and won’t be leav­ing until the mess is sort­ed out!

3. While clear­ing out a long-aban­doned room of the White House, Char­lie dis­cov­ers a mag­i­cal mir­ror that is a por­tal to anoth­er dimen­sion!  Char­lie gets sucked into the mir­ror, and out comes a mus­ta­chioed Char­lie dop­pel­ganger.  Nobody seems to sus­pect any­thing except for CJ, but can she fig­ure out what hap­pened before the red moon ris­es and Char­lie is trapped forever?

 

4. It turns out that the leg­end of Frankenstein’s mon­ster is true, and that Thomas Jef­fer­son trans­port­ed the slum­ber­ing beast in the base­ment of the White House as a sci­en­tif­ic curios­i­ty.  Now the mon­ster has awak­ened and has cap­tured any­one who dares go down there.  It turns out that there are a lot of brave peo­ple in the white house, as only the Pres­i­dent and Mar­garet remain free.  Can they fig­ure out a way to put the mon­ster back to sleep?

 

5. In a very spe­cial episode, Toby is dis­cov­ered to be addict­ed to opi­um!  His friends in the West Wing band togeth­er to get him off the drug, but is their inter­ven­tion enough, or will Toby’s way with words con­vince them to join him in his sin­ful drug den?

 

6. Here we go again!  The Pres­i­dent hit his head while reach­ing for a pen under his desk, and caught a bad case of amne­sia!  It’s up to the West-Wingers to help him regain his mem­o­ry before the State of the Union lat­er that night, and keep news of his sit­u­a­tion from falling into the hands of Rex Nut­ley, a news­pa­per reporter who has had it in for the Pres­i­dent ever since Bart­let alleged­ly ran over his dog.

 

7. A nuclear bomb is about to go off in the white house, and due to a gas leak that knocked every­one else out, only Josh can dis­arm it!  The only prob­lem is that his unique brand of wit is use­less against the auto­mat­ed timer.  Josh needs to find anoth­er way of sav­ing the DC area against total destruction!

 

8. 

   At the West Wing’s annu­al sci­ence fair, Dr. Farfenhosen’s aging device goes hay­wire, and turns the West Wing staff into a bunch of tod­dlers!  Now the Pres­i­dent and Char­lie have to keep those ram­bunc­tious ras­cals under con­trol until a cure can be found – and keep an eye out for a kid­nap­per who has been mak­ing the rounds in their area.  They thought run­ning a coun­try is tough!

 

9. Leo is alone again on Christ­mas and con­tem­plates sui­cide.  An angel appears and shows Leo what life would be like if Pres­i­dent Bart­let were nev­er born.  Leo is con­fused until he learns that he is just a char­ac­ter in one of Josh’s spicy-food-induced dreams.

 

10. 

    There is a trai­tor in the West Wing!  Very impor­tant doc­u­ments of nation­al secu­ri­ty have dis­ap­peared, and Leo is on the case to find out who sold out his coun­try.  He even­tu­al­ly nar­rows his list of sus­pects to Josh, Don­na, CJ and the new­ly intro­duced West Wing char­ac­ter, Boris.  Leo decides not to take any more chances and puts them all in front of a fir­ing squad, until it is dis­cov­ered that Boris’ pet opos­sum was steal­ing the papers and using them to make her nest.

 

11. Sea­son Finale: The ter­ror­ist leader that kid­napped Zoey is back, and out for revenge!  He’s also become an unstop­pable cyborg, and this time the Pres­i­dent can’t pos­si­bly stop him alone!  The West Wingers must put aside the pet­ty dif­fer­ences that have recent­ly torn them apart, and band togeth­er to stop this un-Amer­i­can killing machine!

 

I have more ideas where these come from, but to find out what they are, you’ll have to see them on TV.  So, if any­one on the now defunct West Wing is read­ing this blog – call me.  Let’s work some­thing out.  Okay.  What’s next?