The Transition

Last night's West Wing was a bit of a let-down. Of course, we had the last, finishing touches of the main characters saying goodbye; I clung to every last scene knowing that each of those characters was leaving for good and yet, I think the show could have been written off better. The very first episode of the season had the cast meeting in New Hampshire for the dedication of the new presidential library and the characters were quickly catching up on what they had been up to since leaving the White House. I thought that last night should have had them back at the library since nearly ten months has passed since the airing of that last episode. While the show's popularity plummeted over the last three years, I'm surprised that it happened. For me, The West Wing was an escape; a Bizzaro-world White House where rational and passionate people ran the world with the best intentions of everyone else in mind. Politics was politics but the rules were the rules. "Enemies" still worked together and things overall worked. For at least an hour a week, the people whom I wanted to be leaders were; they were the only stable people in Washington, D.C. for the last seven years. When fiction gets un-paused and reality sets in, I'm depressed wondering how the chapter describing these current events will be written. I can only imagine that the chapter describing the Bush years will be entitled, "Ah, Fuck..." I much rather would have wanted to read about the Bartlet years instead of the failure of the presidency my (nearly) entire adult life has been surrounded by.
Anyway, whaddya think of Chris's rejection from Idol? Get kicked off, get offered the lead singer position of a band you've always loved. While I couldn't pick the band Fuel out of a lineup, I could only imagine just how cool it would be to be offered to play guitar for that band out of New Jersey after getting fired from my teaching gig?