Season Four of The West Wing represents a huge transition for the show. In addition to being the last season worked on by showrunner/creator Aaron Sorkin, this season features the departure of series regular Rob Lowe.
Lowe - playing Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn - had been an integral part of the show's ensemble for the first three years of its run, and his departure halfway through Season Four leaves a gap that the show struggles to fill (which is no slight against Joshua Malina as Will Bailey, Sam's ostensible replacement; more on him later). The show's greatest strength is the relationship between its main characters and the chemistry they've developed over their years together. In particular, the quartet of Allison Janney as CJ Cregg, Richard Schiff as Toby Zeigler, Bradley Whitford as Josh Lyman and Lowe's Seaborn represent the backbone of the show, the engine which keeps the White House running, and the loss of any one of them would have deeply and irreversibly changed the dynamic of the show.
Perhaps the biggest change that occurred as a result of Lowe's departure is one of tone. The show had always maintained a deft balance between light humour and complex drama, with Sam Seaborn tending to be more involved with the former. The character's idealism, which distinguished him within the ensemble, granted him a certain youthful naiveté which lent itself to comedic stories, and Lowe himself is a gifted comic actor. The show maintained its comedic streak after his departure (except for stretches of Season Five. Sigh), but it never felt quite the same.
Another consequence of Lowe's departure was that it left the door open for the introduction of Joshua Malina Will Bailey, political operative and eventual replacement Deputy Communications Director. Malina, while filling a similar role to Lowe, brings a very different feel; nerdy and slightly awkward while still being capable, as opposed to Lowe's more charming and idealistic presence. Malina's performance is strong, with only a handful of moments in his first few episodes presenting evidence of both he and the writers' difficulty in slotting a new character into a strong, well-established ensemble. The last section of Season Four actually represents Will Bailey's strongest period on the show, before creative decisions in later seasons significantly weakened his character.
The other major departure from the show - this one at the end of Season Four rather than halfway through - is series creator Aaron Sorkin. It's impossible to over-emphasise just how big Sorkin's contribution to the show was and how much his departure is felt when viewing later episodes; Sorkin practically introduced a new style of television writing in the first four seasons of The West Wing, one that involved a lot of fast talking, intelligent dialogue, multiple storylines overlapping each other to the point of near-confusion (Sorkin-era West Wing episodes are tremendously re-watchable for this reason; you always discover something new) and a particular brand of idealistic sentimentality that borders on cheesy but never comes on too heavy. The writers of post-Season Four episodes try to recapture some of the magic; at no point do they fully succeed.
As for Season Four itself, it is consistent with the three that precede it in that it is a well written, directed and acted twenty-two episode of great television. It's not quite as tightly paced as Season Two or as subtly intelligent as Season Three, but it doesn't feature Mandy Hampton, so it's still got a leg up on Season One.
Plot-wise, the first half of Season Four deals with the Bartlet re-election campaign. This story delivers the strongest batch of episodes of the season, with 20 Hours in America, Debate Camp and Game On being amongst the best of the show's seven-year run. The only weak point amongst these episodes is the under-representation of the Bartlet team's Republican opponents; Bartlet's opponent in the presidential race, Governor Robert Richie (James Brolin, great but underused) is barely seen and generally represented as a redneck buffoon. A stronger antagonist could only have strengthened the re-election storyline.
Once the re-election is dealt with (in the fantastic two-parter Inauguration Day), the show settles back into doing more standalone episodes, or at least episodes with standalone stories happening amongst the larger narrative. Of these, Privateers and Evidence of Things Not Seen prove to be fantastic examples of the things the show always did well, combining dramatic character-driven soap opera with terrifically light-hearted comedic stories and strong work from the whole ensemble.
All of this builds up to an almost literally heart-stopping cliffhanger. I won't spoil it here, but the plot turn at the end of Season Four provides more than enough incentive to return for Season Five despite the absence of Lowe and Sorkin (whether Season Five can maintain your interest is a whole other issue. More on that next time).
Overall, Season Four of The West Wing provides more of what it had established in seasons One to Three. If you liked those, you'll like this. If you didn't, it probably won't convert you. And, in the world of perpetual life for TV shows in the world of DVD and the internet, Season Four stands as a fitting monument to Sorkin's incredible work, and another example of what TV can do so, so right when all the right elements come together.
Next, of course, comes Season Five. Oh, dear.
What did you have against Mandy Hampton? The only problem I had was that Sorkin did nothing with her character for most of Season 1. And I was looking forward to him doing something with her character.
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