The West Wing Weekly

The West Wing's been off our screens for 10 years or so and isn't really spoken about anymore. Once considered to be the best drama that US TV produced, it's since been replaced at the top of the 'Best Ever' list by The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, The Wire or whatever drama is currently flavour of the month. Occasionally there'll be a mini-reunion in support of a campaign but, with all the great TV that's followed in its wake, The West Wing seems a little anomalous – maybe even old-fashioned – by today's standards. So, given that it started in 1999, has been off our screens for ten years or so, and was never wildly popular, now's as good a time as any for a weekly West Wing Podcast, isn't it?

The West Wing Weekly is presented by musician, composer and WW superfan Hrishikesh Hirway; and actor, long time Aaron Sorkin collaborator and actual WW star Joshus Malina. Their aim is to produce a weekly podcast, running chronologically through the entire series. So far they've done about 7 episodes and each episode is better then the last - featuring excellent guests (actors and writers from the show), terrific insight and nice bits of trivia along the way. For instance, we learn that the writers never tried to reference any actual post-War US Presidents but often referred to the 'Kennedy Centre', leading actors to joke about which Kennedy it was named after. There's a good interview with the two hosts here which goes into greater detail. 

The fun part about it is that the presenters try not to refer to too much that comes in later episodes and encourage first time watchers not to binge watch. They're taking it at a nice steady 'one episode a week' pace - just like we all used to watch tv until the arrival of box sets, Netflix and dodgy downloads. At the rate they're going, it's going to take them 3 years to get through the entire series. There's never been a better time to start watching.