OTH: The West Wing- "The State Dinner" / "Enemies"
Keeping things brief this week again, sorry.
Season 1, Episode 7
Aired November 10, 1999
Directed by Thomas Schlamme
Written by Aaron Sorkin and Paul Redford
Synopsis: President Bartlet is hosting the President of Indonesia right when a category 4 hurricane is poised to hit Georgia and the Carolinas (but not Florida, surprisingly) and a teamster strike is has been officiated, and a hostage situation has started in Idaho, but the press is mostly concerned with… the attire for both First Ladies. Leo tries to get a game plan for all of these situations, as Bartlet struggles to communicate with the quiet Indonesian President, when Mandy suggests that she helps form a draft for the evening’s toast. Josh shoots this down, reminding his ex that she’s only a political consultant, but Leo overrules him and gives her the OK. C.J. struggles to keep informed about the strike, which a flirtatious Danny Concannon loves. Rather than help Toby with the evening’s speech, Sam decides to meet up with Laurie, the call girl, for lunch, but has enough time to suggest that Toby should keep his opinion on Indonesia’s dictatorship to himself. Meanwhile, Mandy proves her worth and further infuriates Josh by giving the President advice on how to handle the hostage situation in Idaho, while Charlie worries about the hurricane hitting his grandparents in Georgia. Right before the dinner, we learn that not only is Charlie’s grandparents safe, but the hurricane is missing the southeast entirely and moving up the Atlantic instead, which will be right in the way of the carrier group. And it appears that the hostage situation is over, with an asterisk- while the FBI were able to intervene, the consultant that Mandy suggested to the President was shot by the militia inside. Oh, also, Sam meets a major Democratic donor who has a date that looks awfully familiar- Laurie! An upset Sam tries to subtlety berate both, and while the donor doesn’t recognize what’s going on, Laurie is confused as to why Sam is so upset, when he offers her ten grand to not go home with him. Uh-oh. Toby and Josh meet with Indonesian representative Bambang, who they initially worry doesn’t speak English, but he turns out to be able to. The two White House staff members try to talk to Bambang about a French prisoner stuck in Indonesia, but he refuses to meet them halfway, recalling the “embarrassing” toast that Toby penned, telling him to go to hell for humiliating his President. Meanwhile, our President and Leo run into the middle of the teamsters meeting and tells them that he no longer has the patience for their strike, threatening to nationalize the entire trucking industry and draft every member if they don’t resolve their issues within the next 47 minutes. Finally able to catch a breath, Jed meets with the First Lady, Abbey, who has spent the evening trying to check up on everyone and enjoys their rare moment together. The President is soon informed that they’ve reached contact with one of the carrier groups, and he heads over to the phone, promising to stay on the line for the duration of their struggle.
And now, yet another piece of the puzzle has been complete, as we meet First Lady Abby Bartlet, played by Stockard Channing, best known for being too old to play Rizzo in Grease. She’s pretty darn good as Abby, matching Martin Sheen’s zest while keeping a cool demeanor and intentionally reserved energy that’s all her own. We’ll see a little more of the First Lady this season, but she won’t become something of a regular until later on.
Otherwise, “The State Dinner” doesn’t have a whole lot for me to talk about, aside for a couple of things. For one, I don’t appreciate the otherism used here. While I generally love Janel Molony as Donna, her recurring fear of “sorcerers” being executed does lower the episode in my estimation, being a lame attempt at a running joke that’s meant to show how Asian countries like Indonesia are crazyyyy. This was probably a funny bit in 1999 (maybe I even liked it during my initial watch a decade ago, but I think it’s borderline cringe today.
Although I do also want to talk about one other moment, where Josh and Toby are arguing with the Indonesian representative, and they argue about cruelty, with representative Bambang asking if it’s fair for Americans to act holy when they forced American natives out of their homes. Toby says yes… which is everything you need to know about not just him, not just this administration (Josh doesn’t push back) and not even just Sorkin (the implication is that Toby is in the right), but liberalism as a whole. As if one form of colonialism is less barbaric or more justified than another. And this is something skeptics of the series will refer to, for good reason.
“The State Dinner” is Paul Redford’s first contribution to the series, a story editor for Sports Night who will be a regular contributor for the show’s first five seasons. The script itself is solid, especially when it builds on the tension of having people who cannot and will not get along next to each other, like the two presidents. That I like. But other little things make this watch a little less fun than the other series featured on here.
Season 1, Episode 8
Aired November 11, 1999
Directed by Alan Taylor
Teleplay by Ron Osborn & Jeff Reno, Story by Rick Cleveland & Lawrence O’Donnell & Patrick H. Caddell
Synopsis: The President is trying to pass a massive banking bill, but rather than staying up to tie up every loose end, he’s spending his extra time lecturing Josh about all of the National Parks. No problem, as the next morning, we hear that it passes when Leo is having breakfast with Mallory, his daughter. Leo is trying to excise information out about his soon-to-be-ex-wife Jenny, but Mallory won’t answer, noting that if she wanted to share information with Leo, she would. A frustrated Leo gives up and offers his daughter opera tickets that were supposed to belong to himself and Jenny. The Chief of Staff then heads to the Roosevelt Room, where he is supposed to attend a meeting with both the President and Vice President. POTUS is late, so Vice President Hoynes gets the ball rolling, starting out by suggesting that their top priority should be to work with Congress. Just after stating this, President Bartlet arrives and checks the copy, noting Hoynes’ statement and questioning why he picked Congress as their priority over serving the people, embarrassing his VP. Word of this reaches over to Danny Concannon, who presses C.J. for more info, on top of asking for another date, both of which she refuses to give, first of all because she doesn’t have an answer for either. C.J. heads over to Leo’s office to talk about this, where she’s sitting next to Sam, who has his own situation going on. Leo tells C.J. to deal with the Danny case, with nothing else to fall back on, while Sam’s dilemma requires a little more attention- it turns out that the tickets he gifted to Mallory earlier in the episode are going to be used by her, along with Sam on a “not-date” (which in her book, means no sex will be involved). Leo appears a little perplexed, but gives Sam his blessing, happy to see the tickets go to use. Or so we think, as later, Leo will be caught concocting a scheme with President Bartlet to keep Sam in the office this evening and prevent him from schmoozing with his daughter. We’ll get to that, but first let’s see how C.J.’s meeting with the Veep goes, as Hoynes rejects her claims of leaking information to the press, with an earlier scene featuring him and Danny proving that he may be telling the truth this time. However, with this tiff being on the top of the Press Secretary’s mind, C.J. doesn’t find out about the last-minute rider added to the banking bill until she’s quizzed by the press- apparently this will allow strip-mining in fragile Federal Reserve, a move that is driving the staff crazy. Sam thinks that the President should accept the rider, but Toby and particularly Josh oppose, suggesting that this could start a bad precedent. Mandy, in her one thing to do in this episode, tries to talk Josh into accepting the rider, but he’s still opposed, so she comes over to C.J. to convince her to talk some sense into him and Toby. While she states point blank that this won’t work, she does want Mandy’s advice on Danny, which she has a good idea on how to win him- offer him a half hour interview with the President on anything, and he’ll back off. This does the trick, and Danny alludes to who may be responsible for the leak from earlier today, noting that there was a stenographer in the room, Mildred. C.J. threatens to fire her, but Danny states that if anyone loses their job over this situation, he’ll run with the story. The Sam and Mallory story gets resolved, but I don’t feel like talking about it, so let’s skip to Bartlet and Hoynes’ encounter. The Veep invites himself into the Oval Office, where he comes to confess that he was not responsible for the leak, whatever the President may think. Bartlet gives a muted, but noted response and sends Hoynes on his way, when he stops to ask why he receives so little respect from his superior, and it’s here that it’s let out of the bag- according to President Bartlet, he had to beg his running mate to accept the position, a move that he still regrets. Hoynes insists that he needed to keep his best look for his future career, being fifteen years Bartlet’s junior, but the President doesn’t back down. Meanwhile, Josh refuses to go home until he comes up with a solution to fight the rider, and asks his assistant, Donna, for some old reports. She says that this is tough, as their files are antiquated, which is when it all comes together. Josh races to Sam and Toby, who are working on a birthday message as they’ve spent the episode trying to hone their writing craft, as he tells them the solution he has for the President- the Antiquities Act. He has the ability to recognize the land where mining was supposed to take place as a National Park, combining his love for the parks system and the administration’s hopes to not give into his political enemies. Bartlet gives this the thumbs up, and the episode ends on a reflective note, with Josh realizing that lately it feels like they’ve been talking more about their enemies than their friends.
First things first, the Antiquities Act of 1906 is primarily done to preserve National Monuments, not National Parks. Now Big Sky Park might still qualify, as that sounds like largely a bunch of rocks, but this is still an error worth noting, as the episode is bookmarked by Bartlet’s love of National Parks.
With that out of way, let me stall by sharing a story about an upcoming OTH series. When Michael Crichton, who wrote what would become the pilot to ER and had a creator’s credit attached to the series, came to visit the show on set, he eventually let out “this is a soap opera!” after seeing the direction the series took following his early contributions. One of the producers responded by stating “well yes, but don’t say that out loud!”
I may be paraphrasing, but this is a thought that’s come to mind with watching these early West Wing episodes, least of all due to John Wells’ involvement with both series.
In our first Sorkin-less episode, O’Donnell and Caddell return to deliver a script with Rick Cleveland, a television regular who will continue to make an impact to this day on the small screen, but the bulk of the episode appears to be handled by Ron Osborn and Jean Reno, best known for writing Meet Joe Black and… Duckman. Huh, cool.
I bring all of this up because the show is at its weakest when it focuses on dating dilemmas, like Sam and Laurie the Call Girl (who I will refer to by her full title from hereon), or this potential triangle with Mallory. Neither story is particularly riveting or unique, and brings the show down as a whole for melodrama that I think it can be better than… but C.J. and Danny are cute. So far.
This isn’t a bad episode, but we know that the show can do better.
Presidential Records:
The hurricane threat makes me feel like I’m at home, not because it’s taking place in Georgia, but due to how often these things come by us back in Florida. Although in recent years, my part of the state has largely been skipped in favor of further south and other parts of the country.
I won’t lie, like President Bartlet, I too am curious about the National Parks and would like to visit some of them at some point.
This show sure is educational. If you see a grizzly bear, sing to it.
Next Week: President Bartlet's one choice for the Supreme Court post is riddled with controversies, and we get our first Christmas episode. Viewers should probably recall this one being a doozy.