The West Wing is an American television serial drama created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast from 1999 to 2006. It was produced/written by Sorkin (for the first four seasons) and also produced by Thomas Schlamme. After season four it was produced by John Wells. The series is set in the West Wing of the White House, the location of the Oval Office and offices of presidential senior staff, during the fictional Democratic administration of Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen).
The West Wing was produced by Warner Bros. Television. It first aired on NBC in 1999, and has been broadcast by many networks in dozens of other countries. The series ended its seven-year run on May 14, 2006.
The show received positive reviews from critics, political science professors, and former White House staffers. In total, The West Wing won three Golden Globe Awards and 26 Emmy Awards, a tie with Hill Street Blues for the most Emmy Awards ever won by a television drama series. Included in this record-equalling haul were four straight awards for Outstanding Drama Series (2000–2003). "blank">Awards for The West Wing" IMDB.com. Accessed 10 December _2005. The show's popularity waned in later years, but it remained popular among high-income viewers, a key demographic for the show and its advertisers.
When the pedantic erudite Democrat Josiah "Jed" Bartlet is elected US president, he installs his administration, including a number of people in the White House, mainly confidants in his electoral campaigns, whose role in the Washington power game -including the chief of staff and his deputy, spokeswoman, speech-writer and lower secretaries- and what passes for personal lives -also involving other regular characters such as the presidents wife and personal servant- make this series, which supposedly follows the political events -often paraphrasing historical reality- almost day by day, more then a political soap as the demands of office on each of them in terms of personal sacrifice and compromising on ideals and principles for tactical necessity allow some insights in many aspects of US society and international politics. Written by KGF Vissers
