West Wing, The: The Complete Series (Blu-ray Review)

Reviewed by: Bill Hunt
Review Date: Nov 03, 2024
Format: Blu-ray Disc

Director

Various, created by Aaron Sorkin

Release Date(s)

1999-2006 (October 1, 2024)

Studio(s)

John Wells Productions/Warner Bros. Television/NBC (Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment)

Film/Program Grade: A
Video Grade: B-
Audio Grade: B
Extras Grade: B-
Overall Grade: B-

Review

Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing tells the story of Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (Martin Sheen), a high-minded Democratic politician and former New Hampshire governor and economics professor, who also happens to be a devout Christian as well as the President of the United States. Inspired by real-life accounts from White House staffers in both Republican and Democratic administrations, the series depicts the daily lives and challenges of key figures in the Bartlet administration, including Leo McGarry (Bartlet’s chief of staff, played by John Spencer), Josh Lyman (the deputy chief of staff, Bradley Whitford), Toby Ziegler (communications director, Richard Schiff), CJ Cregg (press secretary, Allison Janney), Sam Seaborn (deputy communications director, Rob Lowe), Charlie Young (the president’s personal aide, Dulé Hill), and others.

Bartlet’s a traditional center-left Liberal, which means he’s more conservative on the economy and more progressive on social issues. He also believes in reaching across the aisle, and that politics and public service are noble pursuits, all of which makes him a bit of a unicorn by the standards of today’s politics. Nevertheless, the strength of The West Wing lies in terrific performances by the show’s ensemble cast, its sincere depiction of what a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” actually looks like from the inside out, as well as Sorkin’s writing. And if you’ve seen his other work—including The American President, A Few Good Men, and Sports Night—you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

It seems strange now to look back and remember—and for younger readers it must seem almost inconceivable—that there was a time, not so very long ago, when politics in America wasn’t quite so toxic and cynical as it is now. While its ratings at the time of its original broadcast run on NBC were strong, the simple fact that this show depicts a Democratic administration means that conservative viewers today probably wouldn’t even give it a look. (It’s the same phenomenon that keeps liberals now from watching Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone, which is also wildly popular—and worth watching.)

To be sure, The West Wing is unfailingly optimistic and sentimental. And it often seems naive. Politics at its best is the art of the possible. At its worst, it’s war by other means. Nevertheless, I still love the fact that this show tries at least to offer viewers a vision of what politics could be, if people on both sides ever chose to treat the process with good faith and their opponents across the isle with goodwill, instead of constantly trying to skirt the rules and label their opponents as “the enemy within.” At the end of the day, we’d all be much better off if we remembered that we are all Americans, and that the people we disagree with aren’t going anywhere. If nothing else, today’s young people should give The West Wing a chance—at least it offers them an example of a politics worth aspiring to. And as my argument in favor of the show, let me offer you a three-minute taste (click here to see it on YouTube).

The Blu-ray Experience

All right, before I dive into this set’s technical quality, I should note a couple of issues with the Blu-ray release. The first one is that almost none of these episodes include the iconic opening tag music and White House/American flag imagery, as well as the “Previously on The West Wing” segments. Instead, they start with the episode’s unique title card. That’s a problem because 1) these segments have always been considered by fans to be part of the episodes, 2) they are included on both the DVDs and Digital HD versions currently online, and 3) you can still hear a little tiny bit of music left over from the missing content (which is a constant and irritating reminder of the missing content). I can only assume that the decision to cut them was made by someone at Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment who is 1) not a longtime fan of this series and so simply didn’t realize this, and 2) that the decision was made to save money in authoring. But the fact that these segments are part of the episode should have been made obvious by the fact that all of the the audio commentaries begin over these segments. And guess what: For the episodes here that do have audio commentary, those segments are included… except the disc authoring still starts with the tile card. But if you skip back, you can view the intro. And if you select the commentary to start with, the authoring defaults to the beginning of the intro. So by seeking to cut a corner, the studio made the authoring more complicated anyway. On top of all that, there are a few episodes (Pilot, The Stormy Present, Access, and Institutional Memory) that still start with the White House/American flag imagery regardless! Ugh.

What’s more, by choosing to start with the episode title cards, the studio screwed up the authoring of not one but two episodes: Celestial Navigation from Season One (Episode 15 on Disc 3) and Let Bartlet Be Bartlet (Episode 19 on Disc 4). When you press play on the former, the authoring mistakenly skips the title card and teaser and starts after the opening credits. So when you watch that episode, you have to take care to skip back to the title card to see any of that. And on the latter episode, instead of starting with the title card, it starts with the text: “Monday Morning, White House Communications Office.” But the episode on DVD and Digital does have a proper title card right before that, which is now gone. So someone screwed up here.

Also frustrating: The first episode of Season Three, Isaac and Ishmael, doesn’t have opening credits—that’s how it was broadcast. The episode is technically non-canonical, in that it doesn’t fit with the ongoing storylines from the end of Season Two. The reason for this is that it was broadcast on October 3rd, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks. Sorkin’s idea for the episode was to explain the nature of terrorism, and to put Islamic terrorism in particular in historical context. While it ended up getting mixed reviews from critics, the episode became the series’ most widely seen. But when the episode was broadcast, it had a cast and crew introduction explaining all of this. That cast and crew introduction is missing here. Even more egregious: Actor John Spencer passed away halfway through the production of Season Seven and the next episode to air after his death, Running Mates, was originally broadcast with an introductory tribute by Martin Sheen—that’s missing here too (though you will find it on the Max streaming version). Again… ugh. Finally, on the Season Two episode In This White House (Episode 4 on Disc 1), the whole opening teaser segment (after the title card) is plagued with interlacing artifacts.

These issues are just frustrating as hell. They’re bad decisions compounded by bad quality control. They aren’t enough to make me tell fans of the show to avoid this Blu-ray release, but they are enough for me to suggest that people should try to find a really good sale price before buying it.

Either way, Warner Bros. should really fix Season One Disc 3 Episode 15 and Disc 4 Episode 19, as well as Season Two Disc 1 Episode 4, and issue replacement discs.

Now then… The West Wing was shot on 35 mm photochemical film (specifically Eastman EXR 100T 5248, Kodak Vision 500T 5279, and EXR 500T 5298) in 3-perf Super 35 format using Panavision Panaflex Millennium and Panaflex Platinum cameras with Panavision Ultra Speed MKII spherical lenses. (The only exception is the pilot episode, which was apparently shot in Super 16.) The first three seasons were finished in analog SD video, Seasons One and Two framed at 1.33:1 and Season Three in a letterboxed widescreen 1.78:1 for SD TV broadcast (this is how the season appeared on DVD as well). Meanwhile, Seasons Four through Seven were finished in digital HD framed at 1.78:1 for high-definition network broadcast.

Back in 2010, those first three seasons were remastered in HD, with the opening credits and “previously on” segments remaining in 1.33 for Seasons One and Two, and upgraded to 1.78:1 for Season Three. The rest of the episode footage was reformatted in 1.78:1, which—given the way 3-perf is framed—means you’re not losing image area on the top and bottom but rather gaining it on both sides. However, it doesn’t appear that the studio went back to the original camera negatives to rescan the footage in HD, but rather used the original SD scans and simply upsampled them, then produced new titles and Chyron in HD. This means the image quality is softer than you’d expect from an HD remaster today and only a modest improvement over DVD, especially in color and contrast. But again, that’s just Seasons One through Three. By Season Four, the show was being finished and broadcast in full HD, and so the quality is much improved. Faces, skin, textiles—all have noticeably more refined detail. And this continues through the end of the series.

One thing video enthusiasts need keep in mind here: This series has always looked a little soft and that’s by design. Very light netting material (i.e. sheer pantyhose) was applied to the rear lens element when shooting The West Wing to give the image a diffuse look. This also reveals itself by the quasi star effect that appears on bright points of light. Slightly overexposed lighting on set was also employed to increase halation around the brightest areas of the frame. All of this is designed to give the show a kind of romanticized appearance. But if you’ve seen the series Digitally in HD on iTunes, Apple TV, or Max, you should already know what to expect here.

The difference between streaming and Blu-ray Disc is that the compression is somewhat improved on the latter, as you might imagine. Colors are a little more saturated and natural, shadows are a little deeper. The episodes are included roughly six per disc on BD-50s. The bottom line is that if this video remaster were done today, sourced from the original camera negatives, it could look significantly better. As it is, the show looks good in HD, but it’s definitely limited by the state of the art in video remastering circa 2010.

Audio-wise, these discs offer English 2.0 stereo tracks in DTS-HD Master Audio format, a lossless upgrade of the original broadcast Dolby stereo. Dialogue is clean and clear, while sound effects and music are well staged. These are no-frills mixes to be sure, but they do faithfully reproduce the original broadcast audio experience. Optional English SDH subs are available.

A couple of additional notes: The Season Six discs, for some unexplainable reason, feature their audio levels set lower than all of the other seasons in this set. Also, the series’ first four episodes feature a synth version of composer WG Snuffy Walden’s iconic theme music, as the full orchestra recording wasn’t ready yet when the series began airing back in September of 1999. But starting with the fifth episode, the familiar theme is exactly as you remember it.

Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment’s new Blu-ray set contains all 154 episodes on 28 discs. The good news for overseas fans: The discs do not appear to be region-locked. (I tested the first disc by switching my player to A, B, and C, and it played just fine in all three modes.)

In terms of special features, the Blu-rays carry over most of the original DVD special features, but not quite all of them. Here’s a complete list of the bonus content in this set (extras that do not carry over are so noted):

SEASON ONE

Pilot — Audio Commentary by Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme
In Excelsis Deo — Audio Commentary by Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and Alex Graves
Take This Sabbath Day — Audio Commentary by Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme
Celestial Navigation—Audio Commentary by Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and Chris Misiano
What Kind of Day Has It Been — Audio Commentary by Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme
The Primaries (SD – 17:29)
The Inauguration (SD – 29:03)
Capital Beat (SD – 8:08)
Sheet Music (SD – 6:28)
Deleted Scenes (SD – 4 scenes – 5:12 in all)
Gag Order (SD – 2:58)
The West Wing Suite (SD – 1:50)
Off the Record (SD – 3:28)

Note that the Manny, Head of Security (SD – 2:40) Easter egg from the Season One DVD appears to be missing.

SEASON TWO

In the Shadow of Two Gunmen Part I — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, Bradley Whitford, and Janel Moloney
In the Shadow of Two Gunmen Part II — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and Martin Sheen
Noël — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and Bradley Whitford
18th and Potomac — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Robert Berlinger, and Kathryn Joosten
Constructing Two Cathedrals (SD – 17:40)
Deleted Scenes (SD – 10 scenes – 9:28)
Gag Order (SD – 1:16)

Note that the Access Granted interactive tour of the White House set—which included a Video Tour and Thomas Schlamme and Jon Hutman (SD – 14:33) and photo galleries—and the Life in a Fish Bowl (SD – 1:56) Easter egg from the Season Two DVD appear to be missing.

SEASON THREE

Manchester Part II — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and Allison Janney
Bartlet for America — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and John Spencer
Posse Comitatus — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Alex Graves, and Thomas Schlamme
Documentary Special (SD – 42:15)
A Property Master’s Story (SD – 10:47)
The Chief of Stuff (SD – 13:20)
Deleted Scenes (SD – 3 scenes – 4:51 in all)

SEASON FOUR

Game On — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, Alex Graves, and Joshua Malina
Commencement — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and Alex Graves
Twenty Five — Audio Commentary with Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, and Christopher Misiano
Behind Every Good Man… Is the First Lady (SD – 12:33)
The Letter of the Word (SD – 18:39)
Deleted Scenes (SD – 3 scenes – 4:34 in all)

SEASON FIVE

7A WF 83429 — Audio Commentary with John Wells and Alex Graves
The Dogs of War — Audio Commentary with John Welles and Christopher Misiano
The Supremes — Audio Commentary with Alex Graves, Jessica Yu, and Debora Chan
In POTUS We Trust (SD – 13:39)
Gaza: Anatomy of an Episode (SD – 15:04)
Deleted Scenes (SD – 5 scenes – 5:30 in all)

SEASON SIX

King Corn — Audio Commentary with John Wells and Alex Graves
In God We Trust — Audio Commentary with Lawrence O’Donnell Jr and Christopher
2162 Votes — Audio Commentary with John Wells and Alex Graves
CJ Cregg: From Press Secretary to Chief of Staff (SD – 14:44)

SEASON SEVEN

Live from the Director’s Chair (SD – 50:18)
Countdown to West Wing Live (SD – 25:19)

So that’s what you do (and don’t) get in this set with one exception: The HBO Max-exclusive A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote (2020) also isn’t included here. And that’s a shame, because it easily could have been and fans would have appreciated it. Note that the packaging is a simple thin cardboard slipcase, with two multi-disc Amaray cases to hold the discs. And there’s a multi-page booklet that lists the episodes and extras on each disc.

If you love The West Wing, it’s certainly great to have the complete series on Blu-ray Disc at long last. I just wish the studio had taken a little more care when producing this set. There’s just no good reason that I can imagine for the cut corners here. And once again, the studio’s QC process has let three significant authoring and video issues (as detailed above) slip through. None of these is exactly a showstopper—if you’re a fan of the show I think this set is still worth having. But you’re best advised to find a good sale price on it before you purchase. And Warner should really correct the three discs in question and issue replacements as soon as possible. (Bonus points if they were to include an additional disc with A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote to make up for the inconvenience.)

- Bill Hunt

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