Should I Watch The Post-Sorkin West Wing?
Meh. For what it’s worth, after having seen them all a few times, I pretty much don’t watch S4-7 anymore. There’s a few episodes here and there (“The Supremes” in season 5 is one of my favorites ever, Sorkin or not), but other than that I don’t find much to be excited about in Seasons 5 and 6. The Middle Eastern peace stuff in particular just gets unbelievably tedious. Season 7, as mentioned above, is pretty good… but it doesn’t really feel like TWW anymore; if you like election stuff, go ahead, but it’s not the show you know and love. And I agree with Brandon that some of the plotlines are weird and forced… in particular Toby’s fall from grace is just bizarre. The last few episodes do a nice job of wrapping things up, though – worth a viewing even if you didn’t see any of the preceding stuff. So I guess my vote is: if you’re a completist, sure, and either way you probably won’t regret it. But it’s nowhere near the level of the Sorkin years. You can safely pass without feeling like
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I have to say I’m torn. I’m leaning towards not watching seasons 5-7 because I have a basic understanding of what’s going to happen and I’m not that interested. For example, I like Obama, I like Jimmy Smits, but I haven’t enjoyed what I’ve seen of the campaign episodes. I like Joshua Malina, but I don’t like his character on The West Wing. However, I agree that a mediocre or even a bad West Wing episode is better than almost anything else on TV, and I love the actors and characters. I’ve been buying the DVDs for seasons 1-4. Maybe I’ll get 5-7 on Netflix so it’ll be less of a commitment and watch them with lowered expectations.
