Product Description

Go behind the scenes and experience the inner workings of the White House in this innovative drama series with humorous overtones from Emmy winner John Wells, Emmy nominee Aaron Sorkin and Emmy winner Thomas Schlamme. Winner of 24 Emmy Awards and 3 Golden Globe Awards!

DVD Features:
Deleted Scenes
Documentaries
Gag Reel
Other

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #208 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2003-11-18
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 4
• Dimensions: .80 pounds
• Running time: 956 minutes

Amazon.com
Conventional wisdom prior to season one of The West Wing was that the only successful television shows were half hour sitcoms and hour long police, legal, or medical dramas. Building on surplus ideas from his film The American President and the walk-and-talk style of comedy and drama from his critically acclaimed television show Sports Night, Aaron Sorkin bucked the trend and created his masterpiece, one of the most memorable American political depictions to reach the big or small screen. Season one introduces viewers to a Nobel Prize-winning economist and unabashed intellectual president Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his key staff members, a newly elected Democratic administration trying to find its footing amidst the corridors of the White House's west wing. To the credit of its cast and their brilliant ensemble acting, The West Wing manages to immediately conjure nearly a dozen distinct and memorable characters. Perhaps the greatest star of all is Sorkin's rapid-fire dialogue, especially as delivered by Press Secretary C.J. Craig (Alison Janney), Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), and Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer). They carry on conversations while stalking purposefully and unhaltingly down corridors, around corners, and through doorways, and all of it unfurls with the choreographic precision of a classical ballet and the pace of an Olympic ping-pong rally.

What emerges is more than a collective liberal dream of an impassioned administration battling back ultra-conservative bogeymen ranging from the religious right to bigots to gun-toting militants. Wonderful episodes like "The Pilot" and "In Excelsis Deo" portray a government led by heroic, intelligent, and decent men and women. Whether or not one regards that as a political fantasy, it's a remarkably refreshing and appealing vision of politics and its practitioners, one that the public embraced with consistently strong television ratings. In a country whose citizens are used to viewing their elected leaders with mistrust and cynicism, that might be The West Wing's greatest accomplishment. --Eugene Wei

Customer Reviews

I LOVE THIS SERIES!
This was one of the best TV series ever. If you like comedy, politics, and drama, you should check this out. I have the entire series on DVD and I cannot tell you how many times I've watched it. This series has massive replayability so it's worth the buy. It is also not "dumbed down" so they deal with a lot of hot-button topics and you can actually learn a little of how the government actually works and how cutthroat life is like in Washington, D.C.

The first few seasons and the last two seasons are the best. There are a good deal of special features and this season was amazing. It has a liberal bent so if you are conservative you may not like this show as much as someone who is more liberal. That said, I still high recommend this series and this first season to anyone and everyone.

Buyer Beware, Faulty Disks!
This is an EXCELLENT SERIES! Like others I absolutely recommend purchasing any of the series. However, I wanted to offer a warning.

I have all of the seasons. I received them all from Amazon (most were Christmas gifts).

4 of the sets had defective disks. There would be at least one episode that you could not play without it skipping. Please make sure you watch the episodes completely within the 30 return period to be sure that there are no defective disks. Amazon is very good about replacing the set if there are defects but there is a time limit. It is hard to get through 20+ hours of tv watching in 30 days!

Also- Sets 1-3 (and maybe 4) have programming on both sides of the disks. Seasons 1 & 2 are my favorites and have been watched many times. Over time the disks seem to "split" in the center and skipping occurs now throughout the programming. There are no scratches on the disks and the skipping is inconsistant (always happens on the disks now, but not always in the same place).

This issue does not seem to occur with the later sets (programming only on one side). There is no way to replace the disks once this starts happening. If you have a way to "backup" the first few sets I would recommend it if you plan to watch them often. Not an issue if you are only likely to watch them once.

Best drama ever made for TV
Every episode of the first four seasons is made like a motion picture, often with a very touching end. Sorking left after the fourth season, but the show still managed to stay on track and after a mediocre fifth season returned with superb episodes in the second half of the sixth and complete seventh seasons.