Season One Review

What a great freshman season The West Wing had. It certainly had more than its fair share of classic episodes, but I was particularly interested in seeing how the episodes would fare when they'd all been given my rating, and how the season as a whole would come out. Remember, I'm rating these against other episodes of The West Wing, so some have considered my marking a little harsh, but taking all the ranking into account, the season as a whole averages a B grade, rendering it an above average season, which it certainly is, even by West Wing standards.

In rating the episodes from best to worst I've strictly adhered to my original grades for the episodes. So here's my role call of best to worst of season one:

Celestial Navigation (A+)
Let Bartlet Be Bartlet (A+)
The Crackpots and These Women (A+)
Pilot (A+)
The State Dinner (A+)
What Kind of Day Has It Been? (A)
Five Votes Down (A-)
Take This Sabbath Day (B+)
The Short List (B)
20 Hours in L.A. (B)
Lord John Marbury (B)
He Shall, From Time to Time... (B-)
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (B-)
Mandatory Minimums (B-)
Six Meetings Before Lunch (C+)
A Proportional Response (C+)
In Excelsis Deo (C+)
Enemies (C)
Take Out the Trash Day (C-)
The White House Pro-Am (C-)
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics (C-)
Mr. Willis of Ohio (D)

Of course, it's all highly subjective (in particular I imagine most fans would place In Excelsis Deo significantly higher) but I call them how I see them. Roll on season two!