Stream It Or Skip It

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A West Wing Special To Benefit When We All Vote’ On HBO Max

Where to Stream:

A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote

Powered by Reelgood

Essentially, A West Wing Special To Benefit When We All Vote is a staged reading of the classic West Wing Season 3 episode “Hartsfield’s Landing,” interspersed with messages about voting from cast members and special guests. All of the main cast is there, save for the late John Spencer; in his place as Chief of Staff Leo McGarry is Sterling K. Brown, whom Whitford jokes is best known for a “little show called The Emmy Awards.” Instead of the actors doing a table read, though, the episode is reenacted on stage, with some minimal set pieces, but most definitely shot and edited like an episode of the show would have been.

A WEST WING SPECIAL TO BENEFIT WHEN WE ALL VOTE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Bradley Whitford talks about the special, shot at Los Angeles’ Orpheum Theater, talking about the When We All Vote organization and making jokes about how this is the only way actors could help them.

The Gist: In the episode, President Bartlett (Martin Sheen) has to deal with two big issues at once: Increasing tensions with China and the first primary votes in a little town in New Hampshire. As Bartlett works out the China issue with Leo, while playing chess with Sam (Rob Lowe) and Toby (Richard Schiff), Josh (Whitford) gets Donna (Janel Moloney) to call a family in Hartsfield’s Landing to get them to vote for Bartlett. The third plot involves CJ (Allison Janney) and Charlie (Dule Hill) in a spat over the president’s daily calendar leaking to the press.

Other guests include Anna Deavere Smith in her regular role as Dr. Nancy McNally, the National Security Advisor; Emily Procter reads the stage directions. Giving messages on how important it is to vote are former WW cast members Elisabeth Moss and Marlee Matlin, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Samuel L. Jackson and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Bradley Whitford and Allison Janney in The West Wing special
Photo: HBO Max / Eddy Chen

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? You’d be excused if you confused this with the actual “Hartsfield’s Landing” episode of The West Wing, albeit with everyone almost two decades older.

Our Take: If you’re a fan of The West Wing, especially the years where Aaron Sorkin was in charge, you’ll be giddy to see the gang all together again, shooting a remake of a favorite episode. Given that Sorkin and director Thomas Schlamme decided to go all out shooting this staged reading, you’d be forgiven to wonder why the cast and crew decided to redo an episode instead of Sorkin trying to write something more contemporary. After all, you can watch the original 2002 version of this episode on Netflix for free or any number of streaming services for a small fee.

But “Hartsfield’s Landing” is an episode with surprising relevance, given how tough things are with China now and how it takes place in an election year when Bartlett is on the ropes. Everyone in the cast is game to handle Sorkin’s knotty dialogue once again (and, as we saw with Rob Lowe, they have the script available if they need help), the timing of the funny parts was there, and the chemistry that was there in the ’00s is back. Brown fills Spencer’s shoes quite well, though in one of the interstitials Hill jokes that he’s doing an “adequate” job.

Given our political landscape, however, seeing a president that can play chess, and spew historic facts about the game almost feels more like a fantasy than it did during the George W. Bush administration. The interstitials about voting were funny when they needed to be — like Moloney telling Miranda to not rhyme when he gives his voting message — and serious when they needed to be.

But we get the feeling that they’re preaching to the choir; while When We All Vote touts itself as a bipartisan organization, the appeals during the interstitials sounded like they were appealing to people who were not Trump supporters. And given the likely tiny intersection between Trump supporters and West Wing fans, we wonder just how many more people will be moved to vote by this special. We hope the answer is “a lot,” but we’re not sure.

Parting Shot: Before we get an end-credits performance from The Avett Brothers, we see the final scene from the actual episode in 2002, where Hartsfield’s Landing’s vote is shown on the news channels.

Sleeper Star: Hill did two interstitials, one with Moss about the “youth” vote (though they both point out that they are no longer the “kids” they were 20 years ago) and one with Brown about the Black vote. Hill did the one with Moss from his house, and we so want the Looney Tunes art that was displayed on the wall behind him, it’s silly.

Most Pilot-y Line: It would have been more illustrative of the organization’s supposed bipartisan nature if at least one Republican popped up to talk about voting. Listen, Michelle Obama is one of the organization’s co-founders (along with Miranda), and Bill Clinton is Bill Clinton, so you put both on your special. But some representation from the GOP would have made things a bit more well-rounded.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you’re a West Wing fan, you’ll love this special. If you’re not, you won’t even go find this on HBO Max. And that’s what makes us wonder about if the special’s message will actually land with the people with whom they’re trying to communicate.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream A West Wing Special To Benefit When We All Vote On HBO Max