The average channel surfer may have mistaken Sunday's episode of NBC's "The West Wing" for a real political debate. But anyone who has seen "M.A.S.H" or "NYPD Blue" would quickly realize that Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits have not yet abandoned their acting careers to pursue political ones.
In what may have been an attempt to boost lagging ratings, this episode of "The West Wing," now in its seventh season, was broadcasted live. The entire episode featured a debate between Republican presidential nominee Arnold Vinick (Alda) and Democratic candidate Matthew Santos (Smits), one of whom will eventually take the spot of incumbent president Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen).
Half the appeal to a live show is the hope that an actor will forget his lines, start hysterically laughing, fall over or otherwise mess up. Producers of "The West Wing" chose a good venue for using the rarely-done live drama gimmick. This episode being a presidential debate, going live didn't seem at all contrived. Other than the fumbling of a couple of words here and there, Alda and Smits flawlessly portrayed their dueling characters.
While this episode of "The West Wing," which had two separate live versions for the East and West coasts, did not provide much in the way of bloopers, the simple filming style and the knowledge of the live broadcast gave the show an accordingly real life feel. So too did the perfectly replicated presidential debate set and the moderation by an actual news anchor, Forrest Sawyer.
Anyone listening to the debate between Santos and Vinick, however, would note that these were some of the only similarities between a real presidential debate and this scripted one. This was due to the frankness with which of each of the candidates discussed important national issues. Both characters reflected on health care, reliance on foreign oil, and the death penalty with a candor that nearly every real political debate lacks.
From the get go it was clear that this would be a debate heavy on the drama and light on the realism. Citing fellow Republican Abraham Lincoln as inspiration, Vinick starts the episode by requesting to have "real debate" as opposed to a time-monitored one in which candidates cannot directly address one another. The freedom such a debate allows just makes it far too likely that candidates will make campaign-damning blunders.
But one must remember that this is a drama; it would have been a rather dull one had writers decided to stick with the standard debate format. Indeed, at times Vinick and Santos seemed almost ready to pounce on one another. Their rivalry was palpable and their discussion heated, making for darn good debate drama.
Much less successful than the interaction between Vinick and Santos were Ellen DeGeneres' minute long interludes, which eventually became clear as a means for American Express to buy some advertising time. DeGeneres started out sitting on what is presumably "The West Wing" set, discussing the rarity of live drama. After a few mildly amusing jokes, she unexpectedly segued into the virtues of the phenomenal Blue card. This provided not only a confusing moment (what does Ellen have to do with "The West Wing" or American Express?) but an uncomfortable one to boot.
More importantly, the question remains: who won the debate? Vinick gets serious points for requesting a nontraditional rule-less debate, but Santos' idealistic, well-articulated hopes for the future of the nation (putting the entire country on Medicare) coupled with his American dream life story make him highly sympathetic.
Either way, the honesty and openness with which each candidate expressed his beliefs should make viewers wish either of them could really run for president, for a day when everything that reaches the public doesn't seem processed by media sound bites.
