Retail Price:$59.98 Lowest Total Price:$42.86 You Save:$17.12 (29%) Merchant: Overstock More Details Below
Average Review: Sales Rank: 2,554
Actors: Martin Sheen, Stockard Channing, Allison Janney, Moira Kelly, Rob Lowe Director: Jason Ensler Rating: Features: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC Number of Discs: 4 Running Time: 956 minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Release Date: November 18, 2003 Theatrical Release Date: September 22, 1999 Studio: Warner Home Video
All prices are subject to change. Shipping costs are for the most economical method available, and apply only within the United States. In some states, sales tax may be added.
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!Running Time: 957 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 085392425921
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
