The West Wing is a serial drama television series that aired on NBC from September 22, 1999 to May 14, 2006. There were 154 regular season episodes, plus the special episodes "Documentary Special" and "Isaac and Ishmael".
* Season 3 has 21 regular season episodes plus "Isaac and Ishmael"
Two special episodes, not part of the official continuity, were produced to complement the series and broadcast on NBC. The first was a terrorism-themed episode produced in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The episode pushed the scheduled season premiere back a week and encouraged viewers to donate to charity—profits from the episode and cast members' weekly pay were also donated. The episode "was written and produced in record time" – less than three weeks. Although charitable, timely, and well-intentioned, the episode was criticized for being condescending and preachy.
The second special interspersed the characters' fictional lives with interviews of real West Wing personnel, including Presidents Ford, Carter and Clinton; press secretaries Marlin Fitzwater and Dee Dee Myers; presidential advisors David Gergen, Paul Begala and incumbent Karl Rove; Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; Chief of Staff Leon Panetta; presidential personal secretary Betty Currie; and speechwriter Peggy Noonan. The documentary won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2002 for "Outstanding Special Class Program". Both episodes ran within the season 3 television season and were included on the season's DVD.
Robert Hepler "Rob" Lowe (/ˈrɒb ˈloʊ/; born March 17, 1964) is an American actor. Lowe came to prominence after appearing in films such as The Outsiders, Oxford Blues, About Last Night..., St. Elmo's Fire, and Wayne's World. On television, Lowe is known for his role as Sam Seaborn on The West Wing and his role as Senator Robert McCallister on Brothers & Sisters. He is currently a main cast member of Parks and Recreation, playing the role of Chris Traeger. Early in his career Lowe gained notoriety as a life-in-the-fast-lane playboy, ending up in the spotlight for various personal indiscretions and tabloid scandals, including one of the first "sex tape" scandals to hit Hollywood.
Lowe was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, the son of Barbara Lynn (née Hepler), a teacher, and Charles Davis Lowe, a trial lawyer. His parents divorced when Lowe was young. He has a brother, actor Chad Lowe, and two half brothers. Because of a virus during infancy, he is deaf in his right ear (he later played a deaf character in Stephen King's The Stand). Lowe was baptized into the Episcopal church. His father is of German , English and Irish ancestry and his mother was of German, English, Welsh, and Scottish descent. He was raised in a "traditional midwestern setting" in Dayton, Ohio, attending Oakwood Junior High School, before moving to the Point Dume area of Malibu, California with his mother and brother. He attended Santa Monica High School, the same high school as fellow actors Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, Sean Penn, Chris Penn, and Robert Downey, Jr.
Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo (born January 28, 1936), better known as Alan Alda, is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Journalism and a member of the advisory board of The Center for Communicating Science.
In 1996, Alda was ranked #41 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.
Alda was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo in The Bronx, New York City. His father, Robert Alda (born Alphonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D'Abruzzo), was an actor and singer, and his mother, Joan Browne, was a former showgirl. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His adopted surname, "Alda," is a portmanteau of ALphonso and D'Abruzzo. When Alda was seven years old, he contracted Poliomyelitis. To combat the disease, his parents administered a painful treatment regimen developed by Sister Elizabeth Kenny that consisted of applying hot woolen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles. Alda attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York. In 1956, he received his Bachelor of Science degree in English from Fordham College of Fordham University in the Bronx, where he was a student staff member of its FM radio station, WFUV. Alda's half-brother, Antony Alda, was born the same year and would also become an actor.
Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13, 1944) is an American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film Grease; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its later film version.
Channing was born in New York City, the daughter of Mary Alice (née English), who came from a large Brooklyn-based Irish Catholic family, and Lester Napier Stockard (died 1960), who was in the shipping business. She grew up on the Upper East Side. She is an alumna of The Madeira School, a Virginia boarding school for girls, after starting out at The Chapin School in New York City. She studied history and literature at Radcliffe College, and graduated in 1965.
Channing started her acting career with the experimental Theatre Company of Boston and eventually performed in the group's Off-Broadway 1969 production of the Elaine May play Adaptation/Next. She performed in a revival of Arsenic and Old Lace directed by Theodore Mann as part of the Circle in the Square at Ford's Theatre program in 1970. In 1971, she made her Broadway debut in Two Gentlemen of Verona — The Musical, working with playwright John Guare. She also appeared on Broadway in 1973 in a supporting role in No Hard Feelings at the Martin Beck Theatre
The West Wing is an American television serial drama created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999 to May 14, 2006. The series is set in the West Wing of the White House—where the Oval Office and offices of presidential senior staff are located—during the fictional Democratic administration of Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen).
The West Wing was produced by Warner Bros. Television. For the first four seasons, there were three executive producers, Aaron Sorkin (lead writer of almost all the first four seasons), Thomas Schlamme, and John Wells. After Sorkin left the program, John Wells became the sole executive producer.
It first aired on NBC in 1999, and has been broadcast by many networks in several 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, including the award for Outstanding Drama Series, which it won four consecutive times from 2000 through 2003. The show's ratings waned in later years, following the departure of series creator Aaron Sorkin (who wrote or co-wrote 85 of the first 88 episodes) after the fourth season, yet it remained popular among high-income viewers, with around 16 million viewers, a key demographic for the show and its advertisers.