You know what The West Wing needs? Besides a kick in the pants? A Reality-Track. Like a laugh track, that ubiquitous background gurgle of the sitcoms. But instead of coming in at the punch lines, it would appear at those perfect moments when the show mutilates reality like a street mime playing Hamlet.

When those moments came (and they seem to be coming more frequently this season), the tape would kick in with sounds of amused laughter and sporadic vomiting. Seriously. It would make the show so much more bearable.

Not that it isn’t bearable. I mean, it isn’t. It never really has been, for me. It’s always given me the urge to throw a wet towel at the screen. But at the same time it’s highly addictive. The cheesy schmaltzy dreck (funny, Word knows schmaltzy but chokes on dreck; where _is_ my Yiddish word-processor) has traditionally been relieved by snappy, fast-paced dialogue that makes me think, “Yeah! Go White House! Gooooooooo!”

And for that reason I’ve always considered myself a fan (to the same extent that I’m a Twins fan; it like them when they’re good). Martin Sheen, for all his extra-terrestrially saintly qualities, makes the presidency look cool, like being the captain of the football team. Or the lead singer for a good band.

But even when Aaron ‘Maybe I Shouldn’t Have Written “Isaac and Ishmael”‘ Sorkin (no really, see for yourself) was writing, the show suffered from frequent and overwhelming bouts of histrionitis: the irrational belief that everything would somehow just work out if only actors were in charge.

I watched tonight’s episode with my girlfriend and our friend Alex, who is a disturbingly committed West Wing fan. Besides having a mad (but repressed) crush on Josiah Bartlett, her birthday happens to coincide with Mr. Isaac and Ishmael’s, which she takes as Proof From God she was meant to be on the show. She loves Allison Janey, and somehow procured a disposable coffee cup C.J. used during a press conference on the show.

“This was _on_ The West Wing!” she said, repeatedly, after she got it. “That means I was _on_ the show!”

Well, you know how some people are. You’re not friends with them because of their devotion to rational behavior. In fact, in Alex’s case, probably just the opposite. Plus I’m sure she’d put up with any strange things I did, if I did them, which I don’t.

Back to Josiah, though.

On last night’s show the Reality-Track was in full effect. To begin with, the show’s writers would have us believe that a top U.S. general could be killed in a terrorist car bombing and we wouldn’t reflexively blow the snot out of something, somewhere. Then they expect us to accept that another passenger riding in the car (which exploded and flipped over) would somehow survive. Why? Because she’s blonde, and cute.

Those things have saved me from car bombs countless times. But still.

The focus of the episode was on talks the president was holding at Camp David between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I could overlook the _so-five-years-ago_ nature of this plot line. But when Friday night came and the opposing factions stopped negotiations to observe their respective Sabbaths, I gagged so hard my pants ripped.

For 16 minutes (or something) we had to watch a God-awful montage alternating between the Jews and the Muslims doing their holy stuff. “See…they’re so similar,” the show practically shouted as it faded (for the eighth time) between the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian chairman glowing in spiritual trances.

And then, as if the montage hadn’t been condescending enough, when it ended one of the president’s staff just went ahead and said it, “They’re so similar, the Jews and the Palestinians. Throughout history no one has ever wanted either of them.” (Quoting from memory here.)

Uh… I’ll accept that Jews and Muslims are very similar. But what’s this about history not wanting Jews? What about the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, a nice piece of snowy land in Siberia given to us by Lenin in 1928? That’s resort country, folks, in case you don’t know, right up there next to Khabarovsk Krai, the Aspen of the East.

Anyway, why does The West Wing have to coat everything in an impenetrable layer of syrupy sentimentalism? It’s a political show written by people who should be writing for Oprah.

Sorry Alex, but it’s true. Martin Sheen and the Big O would make a great team, either politically or on a talk show. “Should we bomb the Kumaris, Mr. President?,” asks the bomb-surviving coma-overcoming hotty with a good heart.

“I’m not sure, let’s ask the V.P. What do you think Op’?”

“I think someone’s got a special gift waiting for them under their seat!”

“Oh, oh, oh! Oh, you didn’t! A new Pontiac! OhmygodIcan’tbelieveit!”

And then the real twist: new Pontiacs for everyone at Camp David. The Israelis, the Palestinians, even the Secret Service agents.

Then they’d all go on a little caravan through the countryside, bumpin’ some crazy tunes in their new convertibles.

God, I wish the real world were more like The West Wing, then maybe we wouldn’t be having all this terrorism and stuff. People just want to get along, y’know? And drive Pontiacs.

Man, Vice President Oprah is the best.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 28th, 2004 at 6:01 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.