After having sat through a first season that I found to be entertaining, yet not to the standard that many other people had held this show, I was starting to wonder if "The West Wing" just wasn't for me. I mean, there are so many good shows out there, and I don't think it's so weird that there may be one or two of them that I don't get the hype for. I already know a couple of them, actually. However, these last few episodes have been enough for me to reassess all that and keep coming back to see where these characters would go and to see if they could somehow get me more hooked than I had already been. "In Excelsis Deo" did that with flying colors, and since then I've been very excited to see what the next few episodes would bring me. "He Shall, from Time to Time..." is an episode that finally brings a lot of stakes to the table and introduces a subplot that I found very unexpected, but also found to be the right way to go. It creates a lot of tension and urgency for these characters and provides some answers to questions I've had throughout the show. This episode was great, and it pulls out all the big guns, including more of Aaron Sorkin's exceptional writing. At the heart, it's about these characters and how they will do everything for each other, which is the thing they really needed to sell to make this show great.
I've needed something to understand where President Bartlet is coming from. I found his personality to be incredibly mixed over the season, and it seems like he hasn't been taking the role he has serious, except for a few fleeting moments. If this episode gave us anything, it gave us answers to that. Sure, it came in the form of a reveal that feels a tiny bit forced in some ways, but it added a lot of dramatic tension to the episode and explained more things about this character than I think even they realized they'd done at the time.
Throughout the episode, we see him struggle to get back to the job that he has been elected to do, seeing that passion that might have gotten him elected in the first place. If this episode was specifically focused on giving Bartlet more development, it definitely worked. If it wasn't, it still worked that way. Because with one swoop of that pen, they've managed to craft the makings of a great man that I believe would have been elected president, and he differs himself greatly from the more clownish man we've seen him as for the entirety of this season.
This situation that he finds himself in spreads to the other areas of the episode, which is also filled with a lot of tension. Not only is the President ill, but they're dealing with the fallout of Leo's past substance abuse. That offers another emotional crux of the episode, again focusing on the care that these people ultimately have for each other. This was something that I felt was severely lacking in the beginning, but it's coming out in full force now. And the simple thing of seeing these people actually like each other is what's making this show work.
There's definitely a lot to be said about each actor in this show. They're all showing an incredible amount of range, both performing in their humorous Sorkin-way, but giving the dramatic chops to balance as well. Martin Sheen really proves his acting abilities in this episode and goes beyond the fun demeanor he's had before. It's a very serious Bartlet we see in this episode, and if it wasn't for Sheen's incredible gift of being able to change his facial expression on a dime, it wouldn't have made as much sense. But he is talented and it makes Bartlet better.
"He Shall, from Time to Time..." is another great episode that focuses solely on character development, and it succeeds in making Bartlet a diverse character. It's largely focused on him, so he gets a lot of time to shine, but all the characters have moments of triumph in the episode which makes for a joyous experience.
