Baggas' Blog

Well I’m sad to say that the finest television show in recent history (if not all time), The West Wing, has reached the end of it’s seven year run in the US. Of course Australian fans will have to wait at least year or two before the finale gets televised here. Of course you can always get hold of the DVDs when they come out – Amazon UK is releasing the Season 7 box set on September 11 this year – my pre-order is already in. But if you can’t wait that long there are other ways of getting the recent episodes to watch, if you know how and where to look…

I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t seen it, and who probably haven’t seen any of season 7 or even season 6, but I’ll just give a few general comments on the finale. The show bows out in a very graceful, almost subdued fashion, free from much of the hectic, frenetic pace and non-stop drama that has characterised the show. It was a nice end, but felt almost anti-climactic. Now I agree that the end of Bartlet’s Presidency makes a sensible place to finish the show, but they could easily have gone on with it had they wanted to. The recent election campaign has more than adequately built up a range of new and sympathetic characters to staff a new West Wing to make up for those that would be leaving. After a disappointing season 5, the last two seasons have been a welcome return to form for the show. Following the plight of the new President’s administration (I won’t say who won for those Aussie fans who don’t want to know) would have been very interesting to watch. But I guess we’ll just have to leave that to our collective imagination, unless the producers/network have an unlikely change of heart.

TV just won’t be the same without The West Wing. I started watching the new show “Commander in Chief” with Geena Davis earlier this year but gave up on it after a few episodes. It just wasn’t in the same league as The West Wing – more like the White House meets 7th Heaven. All that remains for me on telly at the moment is the Amazing Race – which was in my home town of Perth last week – kinda cool seeing places I know really well featured on a major US TV show! Only one thing for me to do I think, dust off my West Wing Season 1 DVDs and start all over again from the beginning. It’s been a couple of years now since I’ve watched those old episodes so hopefully it will seem fresh again.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on anything related to my favourite TV show, The West Wing, which Australia’s Nine network dropped half way through the fifth season and has not shown another episode since. Well today I’m happy to say I recieved the Sixth Season on DVD from Amazon UK today, only a week after ordering it. Thanks to Phil Baker for the tip on that one. This season looks to be an improvement on the lacklustre season 5, with the introduction of strong new characters played by Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda, fighting to succeed Martin Sheen’s Josiah Bartlet as President. Can’t wait to get stuck into watching it, though the way things have been going over the past few days I may have to wait awhile longer. I’m in the midst of a bit of a mini baby boom, having had 7 delivered since last Thursday, and another one on the way today. Plus I’ve got band practice on tonight after an absence of a few weeks so I’m keen to get to that as well. Very hectic stuff.

“Nine O’clock, Mr Excitement here is sound asleep, and I’m watching Desperate Housewives. Ladies and gentlemen, I AM a desperate housewife. If those women on that show think they’re desperate, they oughta be with George.”

Thus spoke US first lady Laura Bush, at a recent dinner, where she stole the show with a comedic routine poking fun at just about everybody. Read more about it here : New York Post Online Edition – there’s some very humorous quips in there, including one about George milking a male horse.

It’s a bit of a worry though when the most powerful man in the world likes going to bed early – another quote from Laura, “George, if you really want to end tyranny in this world, you’re going to have to stay up later“
I guess I’m basing my opinions here on The West Wing, where President Bartlett and his staff are often seen up working well after midnight, and starting again very early in the morning. But surely the truth should not be that far removed from fiction? Speaking of The West Wing, I was very happy yesterday to finally receive the 5th season on DVD from the UK, so we can start watching again. And the way Channel 9 has treated the show, I think that’s about the only way we’ll be able to watch it for quite some time…

I’ve now given up hope of channel 9 returning the West Wing to our screens any time soon. In a knee-jerk reaction to the success of Seven’s (non-crime related) hit shows Desperate Housewives and Lost Nine have continued to change their programming around every week and have now decided to fill Tuesday nights with guess what? More crime. And what’s worse, it’s not just any generic crime show – it’s another CSI clone. So the West Wing is gone from Australian TV for the forseeable future. As an aside I must say the station that most impresses me at the moment is Ten – they seem to know their demographic and their format and they stick to it, not constantly changing around and trying to please everyone. They play to their stregths.

Anyway back to the West Wing I’m happy to be able to say there is some light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to Tim, whose sentiments about channel 9 I heartily concur with. Season 5 is being released on DVD in the UK in April, available at Amazon so that’s the longest we will have to wait. And then we’ll be able to watch it with high quality picture and sound, free from crappy channel 9 promos featuring Eddie McGuire and his comrades. It might be time then to re-program my TV, skipping the station between 7 and 10, at least until next summer when the cricket comes back on.

UPDATE : now at least the media have picked up the story of the West Wing, and the betrayal implicit in Nine’s handling of it. Here’s a good commentary from The Age, which I found on Phil Baker’s Blog (another angry Wing-nut).

Just checked the TV guide for this week and there is no sign of the West Wing as we feared. Fortunately in it’s place on Tuesday night, channel nine have wisely replaced it with a series called “Real crime” because there’s such a shortage of crime shows on TV nowadays – nice to have something different.

According to the discussion over at Phil Baker’s blog though, West Wing will be back on shortly, so we’ll give them another week to get their act together and put it back on before we start getting up in arms about it.

UPDATE : Just did a search of the ninemsn TV guide and according to it, West Wing is on at 11pm February 8 (checked both Sydney and Perth) – so which one do we believe?

UPDATE 2 : further exploration of the ninemsn site led me to this discussion board, which seems to agree that West Wing is back on. So I feel better now, but will need to remain vigilant

Very bad news on Phil’s Blog this morning. It seems that after having made us wait for months and months, Channel Nine may have cancelled the best show on Television, The West Wing. Phil quotes from a column in today’s Australian :

Nine’s White House goes west

AND vale The West Wing. Nine pulled the show last night, despite being half-way through the fifth season. It not surprisingly did not rate well at 10.30pm – although 420,000 were still staying up for it. In the US it is similarly down a bit in viewing numbers, but as The New York Times pointed out last month, its 11.9 million viewers “remain among the most affluent watching television” and valuable viewers as far as advertisers are concerned. It’s a good guess the Australian audience falls into the same category. Something for Nine’s programmers to consider.

I don’t know if this means the show was actually on last night or not, or if it’s cancelled as of next week, since I put a tape on and was planning to watch it tonight. If indeed the show is cancelled (which I find it difficult to believe, or is that just denial?) then it’s a sad day. Lowbrow reality series and generic crime dramas seem to have triumphed over intelligent, quality drama.

I shall be scanning next week’s TV guide intently, and if indeed the West Wing does disappear I don’t intend to take this lying down. There are at least 420,000 Australians who will be saddened by this, and many of these Wingnuts are bloggers (eg Phil, ob1, Tim, and others) A Churchillian fight may be required, but perhaps we can get Nine to change it’s mind, and at the very least put it on at 3am so we can tape it. Failing that, I shall have to place my hope on Foxtel finally becoming worth the amount I pay for it.

Just got a great comment from Tim, which pleased me so much I thought I’d repost it on the blog itself:

I just thought I’d let you know about a little ad I saw a moment ago:

The West Wing is BACK! YEY! It starts Monday @ 10:30 here (Ballarat). Hopefully for your sake we are getting it at the same time (we used to get it a week later then Metro)!

Thanks Tim for the wonderful news. I guess I now know what I’ll be doing on the next 22 or so Monday nights!

Sitting here at work for a Saturday morning clinic and it’s strangely quiet. Just realised I never got around to posting and bragging about our new car, which I picked up on Wednesday. As I said before, it’s a Mazda Tribute V6, a medium sized 4WD in a champagne silver colour. It drives very well and has a very roomy interior, with a good range of fixin’s like cruise control, CD player, alloy wheels, roof rack, air bags and much more.

It truly is a pleasure to drive… when I’m allowed to ;P

And yes, we got the tow package….
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Finally got our copy of The West Wing Season 4 from Amazon UK yesterday, which was pretty impressive considering the release date was only the 27th of September. I pre-ordered it a month or two ago.

Coincidentally I got a comment from Tim yesterday on the same issue. No news yet on when season 5 is going to be screened but at least the delay means we’ll have season 4 finished by the time season 5 starts here, sometime in the summer.

Every Saturday I ritually open my new TV guide and turn to Tuesday night to see what’s on Channel 9, looking for the promised return of The West Wing, and every Saturday I end up being disappointed.

The last we heard, it was supposed to be coming on after the Olympics, but they’ve been and gone, and still no sign of The West Wing.

So I did a Google yet again and found this thread, which is a long discussion on the topic. The short answer is that it’s now looking like it’ll be summer before it hits our screens again. I’m not too perturbed about this though, because at least that gives me time for Season 4 to arrive from Amazon UK and get it watched before the new season starts.

On the same topic, I read an interesting perspective on The West Wing in today’s paper which described The West Wing as being the “Clinton/Gore administration in exile”. That’s actually a kind of apt way of looking at it, with the show being so deeply drenched with Democrat values, in comparison with the extreme Republicanism of the current government.