‘The West Wing’ reunion brings the fight to Trump
Just after midnight Thursday, HBO Max began streaming “AWest Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote,” a splendidly executed restaging of an old episode in support of Michelle Obama’s nonpartisan, nonprofit group dedicated to getting people to the polls.
There is, by definition, nothing less partisan than encouraging everyone to vote, though paradoxically it has become a partisan issue, as most everything has these days, given that one party traditionally benefits from turnout, while the other has been working to suppress it.
The “WestWing” special is a quasi-theatrical, “word-for-word,” fully enacted adaptation of the third season episode “Hartsfield’s Landing,” produced “under strict COVID-19 protocols” and shot on the stage of an empty Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.
Written by creator Aaron Sorkin and directed by longtime collaborator Thomas Schlamme, it hasavote-related story line— the New Hampshire primary is getting underway, just aftermidnight in the town that gives the episode its name, and Taiwan, bruiting free elections, is feelingpressure fromChina. (It is a sort of Chinesemissile crisis scenario.)
With the single exception of the late John Spencer, whose Chief of Staff Leo McGarry is played by Sterling K. Brown, the main cast is present, accounted for and obviously enjoying themselves: Whitford’s Lyman, Janel Moloney as his assistant Donna Moss, Martin Sheen as President Josiah Bartlet, Richard Schiff as Communications Director Toby Ziegler, Rob Lowe as Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn, Allison Janney as Press Secretary C. J. Cregg and Dule Hill as Charlie Young, the president’s personal aide. In the act breaks, there are PSAs from the cast members along with Michelle Obama, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Samuel L. Jackson.