The West Wing: The Complete Seventh Season (DVD)

The end of President Bartlet's White House administration comes to a close as the seventh and final season of "The West Wing" centers primarily on the presidential race between Congressman Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda). "West Wing" filmmakers took a large risk with this show as they switch the focus from President Bartlet and his White House staff to an almost total focus on the upcoming presidential campaign. Granted series regulars Leo McGarry (John Spencer), Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and Donna Moss (Janel Maloney) remain a show staple working on the Santos campaign and C.J. Cregg (Alison Janney) remains a center piece as the new White House Chief of Staff, but for a show to completely deviate from its six season focus is quite unusual. However Bartlet and the rest of his staff and his governing policies do manage a few plotlines sprinkled throughout the season, most of which are put into play as a means of spicing up the campaign trail.

Plot points aside, the seventh season suffered a fatal blow just past the midway point when John Spencer, playing Leo McGarry the Vice Presidential candidate on the Santos ticket, passed away on December 16. It was entirely unexpected and yet I thought it was handled tremendously by the writers of the show. I won't giveaway plot so as to save the surprise, but I can't think of a better way it could have been handled. It was tasteful and with respect to Spencer, a great actor whose talent is missed dearly and with the way it was handled the old phrase, “The show must go on,” doesn’t seem nearly as cold as it could have.

With the campaign in full steam politics are a major, major part of this seventh season, more so than any other season before and while that may turn some viewers off it really raised the bar for me. All of this leads up to the pivotal moment of the seventh season and one of the major climaxes of the series as Episode 7, "The Debate," runs as an hour-long live episode as Santos and Vinick hold their first presidential debate. This episode is right up there with the live episode "ER" pulled off, while "ER" may have all the medical aspects to deal with this episode of "The West Wing" consisted of three people, Santos (Smits), Vinick (Alda) and the moderator played by Forrest Sawyer. These three, Smits and Alda in particular, have to rattle off so much dialogue it is insane and to think that they do it live and without missing a beat is astounding. This climactic moment comes early in the season and sets the bar very high and the rest of the season lives up to it, especially for loyal "West Wing-ers."

Special feature wise the set is sort of bare with two features focused solely on the live episode. One of which shows a picture-in-picture look at the behind-the-scenes action as the episode plays out and the second one shows the prep work from the standpoint of the writer, director, actor, gaffer, designer, audience, etc. Both features are pretty cool and worth a look, that live episode was an amazing fete.

Overall this is an excellent bookend to a spectacular series, a series I consider the greatest television drama of all time. There is wit, drama, comedy, romance, politics and spectacular acting, writing and directing in this show and it makes for the best television I have ever seen. I wholeheartedly recommend this season and the complete series to everyone. Once you get started you just can't stop.