About the WonderCafe Advent Calendar.

 

Here’s some of the greatest Christmas episodes from one of the greatest TV shows of the past decade

 

Aaron Sorkin’s television landmark The West Wing was many things: the smartest, wittiest television show ever written; the greatest weekly civics lesson ever put on network TV; the best series about politics ever made—even the post-Sorkin produced episodes were amazingly prescient of the 2008 election. The list goes on and on.

 

Here’s one more: for four years, it also made the best Christmas episodes of any TV series, ever.

 

Often the Christmas episode of any TV series is something better off avoided: it’s the one week a series concedes to dire sentimentality and does an episode full of mawkish moments and unlikely miracles with a happy ending to make the hogwash go down all the more. The West Wing to its eternal credit does none of these things in its Christmas episodes. It perhaps might be the reason why they’re so good.

 

As the British pop culture review site Shiny Shelf pointed out in its own 2007 Advent Calendar, what distinguishes The West Wing’s Christmas episodes is their melancholic tone. “In Excelsis Deo” finds White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler using his influence to give a homeless veteran a funeral with full military honours. “Noel” has Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman undergoing an evaluation for post traumatic stress disorder after an assassination attempt earlier that year. “Bartlet For America” sees Chief of Staff Leo McGarry facing a congressional investigation while flashing back to his falling off the wagon during the campaign. Finally “Holy Night” has Toby meeting his father, a bag man for Murder Incorporated, after 40 years.

 

Aaron Sorkin writes all of these episodes as heavyweight dramas with the sorts of scenes actors dream of—it’s no surprise that all three actors who were the focus of a Christmas episode went on to win an Emmy for their performance in it. However, they’re not just good dramatic episodes that happen to be set at Christmas. These episodes contrast the pageantry and splendour of a White House Christmas with more human-scale drama.

 

The first season episode “In Excelsis Deo” has the President shopping in antique bookstores with secret service agents in tow, talking with groups of kids or listening to choirs. Meanwhile, Toby quietly struggles while talking to the deceased vet’s brother—who is also homeless and mentally ill—and eventually, awkwardly says “I’m a powerful man” and uses his position to acquire an honor guard burial at Arlington for the dead brother. The final sequence, where Toby has to admit what he just did to President Bartlet before going to the funeral—all intercut with the senior staff watching a choir perform “The Little Drummer Boy”—is immensely powerful.

 

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In season two’s “Noel”, the Christmas choirs and brass bands playing in the West Wing foyer causes Josh to spin more and more into his personal hell, culminating in a complete meltdown after seeing Yo Yo Ma at a Christmas concert.

 

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And as the corridors of power are decorated with boughs and trees, Leo in “Bartlet For America”, which aired during The West Wing’s third season, is left to reflect on his alcoholism being “Just a family thing” as he narrowly avoids having his bender on the night of the debate being exposed. The closing scene where Bartlet visits Leo in his office and gives him a Christmas present—the scrawled on napkin that started Bartlet running for President in the first place is deeply moving.

 

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These episodes are far from the annual sentimental release of emotion—they’re an opportunity for characters to open up and journey to dark places they haven’t gone to before. The result is something far richer and more moving than any holiday-set episode of a television series before or since. It’s one of the reasons why, even today, The West Wing is still sorely missed from the televisual landscape.