Bartlet For America, a follow-up.

OK, I’ve just finished watching the season premiere of The West Wing. I’ll wait a few weeks before I attempt to assess the new direction of the show, but just a couple of bullet thoughts on this one:

:: The direction was just fine. I loved the alternating between the hectic stuff of the West Wing and the quiet of the White House Residence. I liked some new camera work and new lighting effects.

:: I think the show’s core actors, the regulars who have been there since Day One (and I include guest stars like Timothy Busfield as Danny, NiCole Richardson as Margaret, and all the rest) now have so strong a feel for their characters that even if the dialogue as written isn’t quite what Aaron Sorkin might have done, they can still make it sound like it. I suspect that a Sorkin departure would have been far more harmful to the show after Season Two than after Season Four.

:: If they want to make an alternate-universe West Wing focusing on President Walken’s Republican administration, I just might watch it. I liked how he seemed a strong leader, gutsy and very quick to make a decision without being impulsive, and with a certain bit of wisdom.

:: The scene where drunk and grief-stricken Bartlet storms into the Oval Office and starts screaming incoherently at President Walken was really well played.

:: That was a joke for people who might have the show on tape and haven’t watched it yet. That didn’t happen.