The Sixth Season

The West Wing is a television series that has been regarded with extremely high praise, whether it be in the form of a positive review or an award for a series as an outstanding drama series. While it may seem nearly impossible, the sixth season presents material almost as gripping and compelling as the earlier seasons. This task is accomplished by continuing to produce excellently written episodes and in-depth and highly versatile characters. For those unfamiliar with the series, The West Wing focuses upon the daily lives the President of the United States and several of his closest aides. For more details about this series please refer to DVD Talk's reviews of season one, season two, season three, season four, and season five.

I had mixed feelings with this season, but overall I enjoyed it. What struck me the wrong way about season six were the changes with the character and their positions in the White House. What I enjoyed was the intense and gripping drama that came from the stories they tackled. This season also sees many big names for guest roles such as Ed O'Neill, Stephen Root, Patricia Richardson, Don S. Davis, Brian Dennehy, Penn and Teller, and others.

Season six picks up where season five left off. In the close of season five, a U.S. convoy was bombed by terrorists. The attack left Fitzwallace, several congressmen, and other personnel dead, as well as Donna in critical condition. President Bartlet is put in the middle of a situation he never wanted. The expected response is to retaliate with bombs, but Bartlet is convinced doing so would only cause more attacks on U.S. citizens. Despite the public opinion for an active response to the attack, Bartlet wants to prevent a possible war in the Middle East. Going against the grain, Bartlet attempts the impossible and tries to setup a peacekeeping solution between the Palestinians and Israelites. It is a truly dramatic situation that puts Bartlet not only against the public opinion and congress, but his own staff. The other dramatic angle to the story is Bartlet's continued struggled with his disease.

The next big story deals with Leo suffering a heart attack, which results in him unable to perform the duties necessary as Chief of Staff. C.J. is selected as his replacement. I wasn't too excited by this change. While I like C.J., I loved Leo as the Chief of Staff and after this change, his role was miniaturized and I don't think it it was a good move. With the cast changes, some new people are also added. Kristin Chenoweth as Annabeth Schott joins the cast as the media advisor and helps Toby try to find C.J.'s replacement. Annabeth is an overly perky character and it will be interesting to see her play bigger roles in future seasons. Mary McCormack as Kate Harper also joins the cast as the Deputy National Security Council Advisor. Kate offers the critical input to military/foreign relations Fitzwallace used to provide for. Charlie also changes his position in the White House. Having recently graduated from Georgetown, he leaves his position as the President's Aide goes to work for C.J.

Something different about this season is a slight change in format. There are some diversions from the common daily issues in the White House that focus on the upcoming presidential elections. This diversion is somewhat similar to what we saw in the Presidential campaigning in past seasons, but in more detail. The story looks at three different presidential candidates for the Democratic ticket. The candidates include Vice President Bob Russell, former Vice President John Hoynes, and Congressman Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits).

Josh leaves the White House to be Santos' campaign manager. This is slightly disappointing for the White House side of the story, as Josh was always a fun character to see with the others. Of course, we still see a lot of Josh as he tries to groom the underdog (Santos) into the future president. It is this story that contributes a lot of drama to the second half of the season. The battle between the three democratic candidates is truly gripping. On the other side of the coin, Republican candidate Senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) helps heighten the drama. Alda is a great character who Republicans and Democrats alike will vote for. He makes for a great opponent for the democratic candidates to go up against.

With the end of season four, the show's creator and executive producer Aaron Sorkin left. Season five continued with John Wells in charge and the result was not nearly as entertaining as the first four seasons. However, with season six, John Wells upped the drama and despite a few changes in cast I didn't care for (and some I liked), the stories were still very gripping.

Episode Guide
1. NSF Thurmont
2. The Birnam Wood
3. Third-Day Story
4. Liftoff
5. The Hubbert Peak
6. The Dover Test
7. A Change Is Gonna Come
8. In the Room
9. Impact Winter
10. Faith Based Initiative
11. Opposition Research
12. 365 Days
13. King Corn
14. The Wake Up Call
15. Freedonia
16. Drought Conditions
17. A Good Day
18. La Palabra
19. Ninety Miles Away
20. In God We Trust
21. Things Fall Apart
22. 2162 Votes

The DVD

Video:
The video in this release is given in an enhanced anamorphic widescreen color format. The picture quality is quite good. It suffers from a slight grain, but detail remains to be sharp and clear. However, there are some occasional moments when the picture suffers compression artifacts. This is a rare occurrence, but it does happen. Overall, the video looks much better than its original television broadcast.

Audio:
The audio track in this release is in English Dolby digital stereo. Overall, the sound quality is very good, providing an audible and clean audio track. Like most TV on DVD releases the majority of the audio track is spoken dialogue and sounds rather flat. However, music does sound very rich and vibrant. This release also has subtitles in the French and Spanish languages. The DVD box claims there are English subtitles, but they are not on the DVDs. The release does, however, support closed caption enabled.

Extras:
This season set's extras include three audio commentaries for episodes "King Corn" with John Wells and Alex Graves, "In God We Trust" with Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. and Christopher Misiano, and "2162 Votes" with John Wells and Alex Graves. Like past season episode commentaries, they are interesting enough to sit through and should grab your attention if you are a fan of the series. "C.J. Cregg: From Press Secretary to Chief of Staff" is a featurette that runs under fifteen minutes and details the character C.J. Cregg with dialogue from cast members and clips from the series.

Final Thoughts:
I found season six to be a lot better than season five. There were some changes with the cast I enjoyed and some I didn't. However the stories were still very dramatic and intense. They are easy to get into and hard to stop watching. While not my favor season of The West Wing, it is still worth the time and fans of the series should enjoy every minute of it.