West Wing 7.19: "Transition"

Written by Peter Noah
Directed by Nelson McCormick

The producers are in a difficult position as the season and series wind down. On the one hand, they want to give the audience a strong sendoff, bringing back old friends and giving the main characters a proper farewell (especially Leo). Yet how can their efforts live up to expectation? It’s nearly impossible, and even if Sorkin had been writing the episodes, I doubt the final product would please everyone.

I’ll admit that I was expecting a little bit more with regards to the Sam Seaborn return. At the very least, I wanted some indication of why he wasn’t at Leo’s funeral. All things being equal, I know that it was likely a matter of contracts and timing. Even if they had filmed something after the fact and inserted it into “Requiem”, it would have been an issue because of SAG rules: Lowe would have to be paid for appearing in that episode. Still, why not a single line of dialogue to explain things?

Yet, I understand why the writers would avoid it. What answer would be sufficient? As it stands, the logic behind Sam’s return works, and as the characters themselves note, the circumstances are neatly symmetrical. It was fun to watch Sam “protest too much” about the deputy CoS job, because it was rather clear from the beginning that he was coming back into the fold. But in some ways, the energy wasn’t there, and I’m sure that some will be disappointed that every scene wasn’t full of the same snap and crackle.

So much attention was on Sam and his return that the Bartlet/Santos gambit was neatly pulled off. It was a nice touch, because it would have been easy to assume that Santos was operating on his own. This was a clever way to address one of the issues that I had with earlier episodes. Santos was never shown reacting to the Southeast Asia problem, but apparently he and Bartlet had discussed a few things here and there in terms of strategy.

Helen’s offer to Donna resolves one of the issues with the whole impending Josh/Donna thing, since the whole boss/employee problem was one of the stumbling points earlier in the series (whether they came right out and said it or not). I thought that Donna took a very pragmatic approach to her relationship with Josh, as if the past year or so had taught her a few lessons in self-assertion. I was struck by the fact that Donna wasn’t really acting like Donna, but why would we expect the characters not to change?

Which, of course, brings us to Josh. Josh is also changing, as he realizes that his manic behavior over the past year has given way to the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sam is probably the only person he’ll listen to at this point, which proves out the logic of the script. Josh’s growing insanity sparks off some odd moments along the way (like Santos asking about his love life with Donna, which was an odd choice), but where does it end? With Sam coming back to keep Josh on track and Donna there to give him a chance to figure out who he is and who he wants to be. Even better, there’s still three more episodes for the answers to become clear.

Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4

Final Rating: 7/10