The West Wing - Season 7

All good things must come to an end - what a completely irritating platitude! Why? Why must the most intelligent thing on television desert us? Floating away like the last life raft as we drown in a sea of Big Brother shite…

By Season 7 The West Wing has lost a little of the spark and lot of the humour that characterised Aaron Sorkin's time at the helm, yet it still manages to remain surprising, sincere and superlative among its rivals. By dividing its time between the Whitehouse and the Presidential Election race, this final season attempts to inject some fresh vigour into familiar characters and scenarios, but with mixed success. Separating the strongest characters makes for a less pithy, more introspective feel to the show. We are more likely to see CJ or Josh dealing with private torment than teasing each other mercilessly and this misses a lynchpin of the whole series; what we really want is to see the most serious people in the world be sarcastic as hell to each other.

Although veering into near ludicrous optimism with a Mexican candidate in the running for President, the writing is never less than engaging and acerbic. As the conclusion to possibly the best television drama of all time, this season struggles under such responsibility, and yet when judged alongside other programs it is nevertheless remarkable. Each episode contains all the wit, depth and didacticism of a short play, proving that television can and should have the ambition to do more than constantly appeal to the lowest common denominator. [Caroline Hurley]