All 150 Episodes of ‘The West Wing,’ Ranked (original) (raw)

what's next? Sept. 23, 2024

25 years since its premiere, Aaron Sorkin’s political fantasy is as potent as ever.

Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: NBC

A quarter-century ago, at the dawn of what would eventually become one of the most politically turbulent times in our nation’s history (read: the entire 21st century up to this point), NBC premiered a new drama from the guys who made Sports Night. Centered on the senior staff who make the White House run every day, The West Wing seemed like a bit of a long shot, a political fantasy about an idealistic Democratic president in the wake of Clinton scandals and amid rising Republican power.

It didn’t take long for that long shot to be hailed as a revelation. It’s been 25 years since it premiered, and The West Wing remains one of the best network dramas ever aired. Praised for every aspect of its production, it set Emmy records, became just one of five shows to win Outstanding Drama Series four times, and became so influential that at least one real-life government studied it to better their own nation. And it didn’t just earn acclaim the first time. Thanks to Aaron Sorkin’s witty, musical writing and a deep-benched ensemble that includes Martin Sheen, John Spencer, Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, Joshua Malina, Rob Lowe, and Dulé Hill, The West Wing has become one of those shows that we simply can’t stop rewatching.

Since we’ve been rewatching The West Wing for 25 years, we’re here to rank every episode from worst to best to encourage discussion among superfans and to get casual viewers to dip back into some of the greatest moments the show has to offer. A lot has changed in American politics in the last quarter-century, so we’re going to do our best to avoid ranking these episodes based on how well the viewpoints of characters have or haven’t aged and instead focus on how they work as pieces of drama. The best West Wing episodes balance humor and heart with genuine tension that feels like it carries international implications, even if the show never gets beyond the confines of White House offices. Two-parter episodes, even ones spread across two weeks, are counted as single entries here, and we’re skipping both the season-three documentary special and the 2020 reunion special for a nice round total of 150 West Wing stories.

Now, as President Bartlet would say, “What’s next?”

A “storytelling aberration” that doesn’t fit into the show’s continuity, “Isaac and Ishmael” was produced in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and is basically set up as a two-pronged stage play exploring terrorism and prejudices. Josh (Bradley Whitford) leads a discussion with a group of high-schoolers about Muslim extremism, while Leo (John Spencer) participates in the detention of a Muslim American White House employee. The intentions are good, but it basically boils down to “Can’t we all just get along?” and at its worst feels preachy and premature. Plus, since it doesn’t fit into the rest of the show, there are no long-term dramatic stakes.

The gimmick here is a fun one in theory: Congressman Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Senator Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda) square up for a debate, and the whole thing was broadcast live, performed once for the East Coast and once for the West. The two stars are excellent, but it’s also, at the end of the day, just two guys arguing about policy for 45 minutes, and it shows. The larger dramatic stakes of The West Wing fall away, and we’re just left with an interesting artifact of the show’s efforts to realistically depict campaigning.

Aaron Sorkin left The West Wing at the end of season four, leaving the megahit series in the hands of collaborator and producer John Wells and dropping a major cliffhanger into the mix on his way out the door. To say it was an adjustment for both writers and audiences would be an understatement. In the wake of the kidnapping story line that closed out season four and opened season five, The West Wing was still struggling to find its footing as a show without its creator and principal writer, and this episode mirrors the brunt of that struggle. The White House staff and the president try to get back on their feet in real time, and the episode devolves into a shouting match. An interesting shouting match, but a shouting match nevertheless.

Late in almost every season, The West Wing drops a couple of episodes that, while not exactly filler, serve to move pieces into place for a bigger, season-closing story line. Sometimes these episodes work really well, but “Talking Points” isn’t one of those times. It’s a scattershot episode in which Josh and CJ (Allison Janney) try to assert influence over issues they can’t quite control, and the president preps for a trade summit. That said, this is where we start to get to know Kate Harper (Mary McCormack), the best new character on the show in the post-Sorkin era.

Because season two of The West Wing opened in the immediate aftermath of season one, the show needed a bridge episode to basically explain what the gang was up to all summer. “The Midterms” is that episode, a patchwork of sequences meant to build up to congressional elections while Josh recovers from surgery and everyone tries to move on from season one’s horrific assassination attempt. It’s perfectly fine television, but it’s rushed and chaotic even by West Wing standards.

Another rest episode after a dynamic series premiere, “College Kids” mostly moves pieces into place for bigger episodes to come, and you definitely feel that. There’s nothing wrong with the episode, exactly, which is named for Josh and Toby’s attempts to do something about affordable college tuition, and it does feature a great Bartlet speech, but it’s a letdown after a hell of a season premiere.

The apex of the post-kidnapping battles between the staff and the president, “Disaster Relief”mostly sees the president spending too much time in a tornado-ravaged town because he can’t figure out what else he should be doing. It’s a potent peek into the cauldron of emotions inside Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen), and it wraps up the sort of wandering tone of the early episodes of this season, but better things lie ahead.

_The West Wing_’s first real effort to flex some budgetary muscle, “The State Dinner” debuts Stockard Channing as the amazing Abigail Bartlet and gives us the glitz and glamor of the White House hosting a foreign dignitary. What it doesn’t give us is the same kind of dramatic sparkle that so defined the first half-dozen episodes; it just sort of peters out despite an attempt at a dramatic finish.

Season four is the Sorkin-era West Wing at its most scattered. A foreign-aid bill, a weird photo op, and Charlie (Dulé Hill) trying to impress his ex-girlfriend make for an entertaining-enough episode, but the magic is just never quite there in the way it is elsewhere in the season. Still, you get Bartlet with a goat, and that’s something.

The title of this episode refers to the White House press office dumping all the stories they want to bury in the Friday-night “trash” because no one really reads news on Saturdays, and as a piece of storytelling, it definitely has that same feel. There’s a lot going on, some of it (Leo and rehab! CJ and Danny!) quite consequential, but it kind of feels like a stopgap episode with no single, self-contained dramatic arc that really sells something.

After the grand scale of the reelection and inauguration story lines, The West Wing heads to California to try to get Sam (Rob Lowe) elected to Congress. It doesn’t go well. Toby gets in a fight, Sam knows he’s about to lose, and everyone seems to feel the impending absence of Lowe as a West Wing mainstay. It’s another of those in-between episodes that never delivers a true emotional punch.

After a tense season premiere that saw the staff reeling from the kidnapping of Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss) and the arrival of new president Glenn Walken (John Goodman), who stepped in after the Bartlet invoked the 25th Amendment, “The Dogs of War” can’t help but feel like a letdown. It’s all about President Walken trying to press an agenda while he has the Oval Office in his grasp, and Bartlet’s staff pushing back against that. It’s a solid base for storytelling, but it doesn’t ever go anywhere, particularly when the kidnapping story line ends very, very abruptly.

After a string of fantastic season-five episodes, the show cooled down a little bit with this one, which mostly focuses on language testing in the State of the Union and Bartlet wrestling over who gets a presidential pardon. There’s nothing wrong here, exactly, but it is a step down from the episodes on either side of it, and its story lines have been done better elsewhere in the series.

Bartlet is obsessed with national parks, the president and vice-president are being catty, and Josh is doing his best to save a banking bill while Sam gets closer to Leo’s daughter. All decent stories, but the larger emotional arcs that made Sorkin-era West Wing so thrilling are a bit muted this time out.

In the wake of Zoey’s rescue, the Bartlet family tries to enjoy the Fourth of July in relative peace as the president gets back to work and tries to find a new vice-president. It’s all easier said than done, and this ends up being a somewhat awkward bridge episode between the end of season four’s story lines and the beginning of what season five is really all about.

Toby, Josh, and Charlie are all dealing with legislative issues of their own, but the bulk of this episode is about the reaction to an upcoming memoir from former vice-president John Hoynes (Tim Matheson) with the staff seeking to do some damage control. It’s intriguing, but it also feels a little bit like the show trying to rehash issues dealt with at the end of season four, particularly after a string of stronger episodes preceding it.

This is an important episode in terms of what it sets up for the futures of characters like Donna (Janel Moloney), Josh, and Congressman Matt Santos, but it’s mostly concerned with a larger conversation over a potential gay-marriage ban and media questions about CJ’s sexuality. It’s handled well, but with the campaign story lines heating up, it also feels like a distraction from bigger drama.

The fourth season of The West Wing is on the cusp of a very strong run of episodes by the time “The Red Mass” rolls around, but this episode isn’t quite part of it. It’s got a lot going on, from a hostage crisis in Iowa to a potential third-party candidate disrupting the president’s reelection campaign and negotiations over upcoming debates, but it’s weakened by a somewhat scattered focus and the sense of ramping up to something, rather than standing on its own.

Despite the prime story line in this episode focusing on legislative questions with ties to the president’s daughter Ellie (Nina Siemaszko), “Eppur Si Muove” is perhaps best remembered as “the one with the Muppets” among West Wing fans. Getting the Sesame Street gang on the show is, of course, a delight, but it ultimately comes as too little, too late, and you end up wishing Big Bird and friends had spent more time in the White House.

Josh test drives a gas-guzzling SUV at a car dealership and crashes it into a Prius, setting off a string of meetings with angry environmentalists. It’s always a treat when Bradley Whitford gets to play blundering Josh Lyman, and the episode is further helped along by new character Annabeth Schott (Kristen Chenoweth) trying to turn Toby into a reliable press-briefing presence. Still, given what happened before this episode and what’ll happen after, “The Hubbert Peak” ends up feeling lightweight.

The first proper campaign episode, which launches a story line that’ll continue right up until the end of the show, “Opposition Research” follows Josh and Santos as they take their two-bit presidential bid into New Hampshire to try to make a dent in the race. It’s a welcome depiction of nuts and bolts, person-to-person campaigning on the show, but it’s missing some of the bigger scope found elsewhere in season six.

There’s lots going on in this one, as Sam battles with Associate White House Counsel Ainsley (Emily Procter), the president and Toby wrestle with calling a lame-duck session of Congress over a nuclear treaty, and CJ tries to coordinate it all with the press. Let’s face it, though: The best part of the episode is Josh meeting with a drunken Ukrainian reformer who shows up and demands to see the president, and you can’t help but wish we saw more of that.

The Bartlet-led peacekeeping mission to Israel suffers its first casualties, and the staff must deal with the fallout. Meanwhile, we get to know Congressman Matt Santos, the politician who will consume much of the back half of season six and all of season seven. You can feel the election story line and the White House story lines starting to pull apart here — and it’s not always a welcome split — but you can sense the impending excitement, and Jimmy Smits is charming as hell in a vital early appearance.

The first episode of The West Wing without creator Aaron Sorkin was always going to feel weird, and “7A WF 83429” is definitely weird. Named for the case number assigned to Zoey Bartlet’s kidnapping, the episode is mostly about the immediate aftermath of the president’s decision to surrender power to the Speaker of the House while the kidnapping investigation is underway. Everyone is very sad, everything is very tense, and for a while, at least, it just feels like a different show. But you can sense the potential here, and the ambition, and it’ll come back in a big way later in the season.

Bartlet heads to California for a fundraiser at a movie mogul’s mansion, and the staff tags along. It’s a fun detour from the usual Washington setting — one of the show’s first —and features delightful moments like Donna fangirling over David Hasselhoff (who only wants to discuss policy) and CJ turning down development deals. It’s also got Bob Balaban, and you know that makes for compelling television, even if the episode does get a little too bogged down in the Hollywood of it all to truly nail the main story line.

The campaign story line gains momentum, the staff prepares for a massively important summit in China, and controversy over a Taiwanese flag brews. There’s a lot of big stuff happening in this episode, capped off by a guest performance by the great James Taylor, but it’s mostly just an admirable piece of table-setting, particularly when you realize in the final act that something very dramatic indeed might finally be coming to The West Wing.

It’s the first Christmas since Zoey’s kidnapping, and the Bartlets just want to have a nice White House Christmas complete with a tree-lighting ceremony. Unfortunately, events conspire to make that rough, including a debate over assisted suicide and the news that the president’s milquetoast son-in-law is going to run for Congress. White House glitz or not, we can all relate to the president and First Lady just trying to get through this holiday.

The first episode following Leo’s effort to regalvanize his staff and get deep into Bartlet’s agenda, “Mandatory Minimums” covers a broad swath of narrative, touching on everything from Sam’s relationship with a call girl, to Toby meeting with his ex-wife, to Leo shaking down some congressional staffers in an effort to get some important reform work done. It’s A Lot, even by West Wing standards, and by the time it’s over, it feels like barely any time has passed (in a mostly satisfying way).

A gifted North Korean pianist visits the White House and covertly reveals that he wishes to defect to the United States, setting off a potential diplomatic crisis and fierce debates among the staff. It’s one of the first really fascinating concept-driven episodes of the post-Sorkin era, and what it lacks in the Sorkin wit it almost makes up for through sheer force of drama.

Josh deals with frustrated Democrats in Congress, while the president tries to get the ayatollah of Iran’s son a life-saving heart surgery in the U.S. through diplomatic channels. So many of the best West Wing episodes are about Bartlet and his staff just staying up late and trying to get the work done, and while “Swiss Diplomacy” is not the best example of this, it’s still fun to watch.

An episode that’s mostly designed to set up all the big payoffs to come in the season-three finale, “We Killed Yamamoto” sees the president agonizing over a potential terrorist assassination, Josh battling with lobbyist Amy Gardner (Mary-Louise Parker), and Sam dealing with the fallout of a campaign blunder. It’s a fun episode, but like so many late-season West Wing entries, it’s all about what happens next.

The relationship between Jed and Abbey Bartlet is one of the great emotional mainstays of The West Wing, and this is one of its first major showcases. The episode primarily revolves around the staffs of the president and First Lady clashing over conflicting policy decisions with a subplot thrown in about Zoey and Charlie receiving death threats because of their relationship. It’s another one of those stepping-stone episodes, but the chemistry between Martin Sheen and Stockard Channing makes it work.

Negotiations between the president and the Speaker of the House come to a head over the federal budget with the Speaker threatening a shutdown if he doesn’t get the deeper cuts he’s demanding. Meanwhile, Josh is feeling the pressure after being benched due to legislative blunders, and the whole thing feels like a powder keg. It’s a good tension builder, and it tees up one of the best post-Sorkin episodes, even if it’s not one of the best on its own.

The first of several wonderful West Wing stories to take place largely aboard Air Force One, “The Portland Trip” follows the staff on a red-eye flight in which Sam is wrestling over a speech and Bartlet is weighing major new policy options. Meanwhile, back at the White House, Leo deals with a potential crisis, and Josh meets with a gay Republican. The results are uneven but still entertaining.

Republican and Democratic candidates head to Iowa for the caucuses that kick off primary season, and both Congressman Santos and Vice-President Russell (Gary Cole) get a crash course in the perils of trying to please everyone at the same time. It’s far from the best campaign episode of the series, but it’s a nice showcase for Alan Alda, who makes Republican senator Arnold Vinick into a major character force for the remainder of the series.

Sam, Leo, Toby, and the president are preparing for an important summit in Russia and dealing with the resultant culture clashes and potential crises, which is all solid West Wing storytelling. The real marquee story here, though, is the arrival of death threats against CJ after comments she made over Saudi Arabian abuse of women. With those death threats comes extra protection, and with extra protection comes Mark Harmon as one of _The West Wing_’s best guest stars, playing the dreamy Secret Service agent Simon Donovan.

A Vinick-focused campaign episode that’s a showcase for Alan Alda, “Message of the Week” attempts to chart the perils of being a moderate Republican in an increasingly polarized nation, and it mostly works. We get to know more of Vinick’s staff, including guest stars Stephen Root, Patricia Richardson, and Ron Silver, and we get to see Alda try to play convincing power broker amid a divided party.

The West Wing is often a fantasy of what principled American political life could be, and “In God We Trust” showcases that kind of fantasizing when it comes to religion. As Vinick secures the Republican nomination and starts working with party leaders, it becomes clear that his lack of church attendance might be an issue, leaving Alan Alda to take a stand in typically winning Alan Alda fashion, though the episode does suffer a bit as it strays from the wider ensemble.

With Super Tuesday on the horizon, the Santos campaign tries to win the endorsement of a key Latino group and strengthen their chances in California, leaving the congressman with some tough choices to make. Meanwhile, the Russell and Hoynes campaigns end up scrambling, and Josh seizes an opportunity. You wouldn’t think an endorsement battle would be especially exciting, but it mostly works.

After a wonderful pilot, The West Wing settles into a nice, bouncy rhythm with its second episode, following Josh’s battles with media director Mandy (Moira Kelly), Sam’s relationship with law student–slash–sex worker Laurie (Lisa Edelstein), and the president’s anxieties over earning the respect of the Joint Chiefs. It’s one of those episodes that sees Sorkin devote much of his energies to building a cliffhanger with a big payoff next week, but it’s so charming you barely notice the dramatic “Next time on …” punt.

After a plane carrying American military personnel is shot down in the Middle East, Bartlet prepares for his first attack order as commander-in-chief, and the staff scrambles to deal with a message to the nation. One of Jed Bartlet’s greatest strengths and weaknesses is his ego, and this time it leads him into a full-blown confrontation with Leo over what comes next. Plus, we get to meet Dulé Hill as the always wonderful Charlie Young.

Yes, we’re still in a stretch of early season-one episodes all bunched together on this list, because they all basically do the same thing: let us get to know the charming, funny, and principled White House senior staff as they go about the business of the nation. This one, in which the staff meets with a variety of fringe causes in the spirit of hearing all points of view, is the funniest and most charming of the bunch, but it’s also clear that the show is still finding its dramatic footing.

Featuring the arrival of Janeane Garofalo as a dry-witted new Santos adviser, this episode sees the Democratic ticket facing security questions while the West Wing deals with a major leak of state secrets. That means Santos has to weigh some key decisions, including whether or not to show up for Marine reserve duty and put on a flight suit, and it means we get to watch the campaign struggle, with solidly entertaining results.

A rare episode that’s entirely focused on one character, this little side quest sees CJ head home to Ohio for her high-school reunion, only to find her father’s mental issues are about much more than age. She wrestles with her obligations to her family, she sleeps with Matthew Modine, and, most important, she’s Allison Janney acting her ass off, which is one of the great privileges of watching this show. It feels a little disconnected, but Janney holds it together.

A major disaster in the middle of the night threatens to set off an international crisis, and CJ and Kate must weigh the risks against waking up the president, who’s been ordered to get extra sleep due to his MS flare-up. Clashes with Great Britain, the First Lady, and Bartlet himself ensue, delivering a tense episode that’s all about CJ finding her footing as a leader.

Another one of those staple West Wing episodes about the staff working late and trying their best, “Stirred” follows Josh, CJ, and Toby as they explore replacing the vice-president, Leo and Sam trying to protect the VP, and Bartlet dealing with a major radiation scare in the middle of the country. We also get a lovely moment of magic between the president and Donna, who’s trying to honor her favorite schoolteacher.

A rather scattered installment of The West Wing where everyone’s got something different going on, “War Crimes” covers everything from the investigation into Bartlet’s MS disclosure to Leo’s meeting with a military official over certain criminal concerns, all while Sam is exploring getting rid of the penny. It’s fast-paced, often breezy, and thrilling to watch, even if it does feel like Sorkin spinning too many plates at times.

Named for the Catholic charity function of the same name held in New York City, this episode sees Vinick and Santos dancing around each other, trying to nail down debate rules, and doing their best to balance their own pro-choice positions against some very pro-life potential supporters. It works well in establishing how these two will play off one another and culminates in a wonderful backroom-deal-making scene.

The only episode to deal directly with Leo’s service in the Vietnam War, “An Khe” flashes back to a near-death experience Leo had during his military service, then jumps forward to show how one of his oldest friends twists the chief of staff into a political and personal knot. It mostly serves a showcase for John Spencer, though we also get a harrowing look at how public service and personal devotion don’t always go hand in hand.

The Election Night victory party continues, and the Bartlets just want some time to themselves despite numerous issues developing. Sam’s facing reports that he’s about to run for Congress, CJ is smacking down people trying to take credit for the election win, and Toby’s revealing that he’s about to be a dad. There’s plenty to like here, particularly when we get to see Martin Sheen and John Spencer play men who just want to, for the love of God, finally get laid.

As the primary campaigns rage on, Leo sets himself up in an empty office in the West Wing to take stock of the Bartlet administration with just one year left in their term. Like season one’s “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet,” it’s a chance for Leo to try to motivate his co-workers into doing some good, and while it doesn’t work as well as that episode, it still works pretty damn well.

The Bartlets’ middle daughter, Ellie, is getting married in the White House at Christmas, and it’s all very lovely, but dang it, there’s an international crisis to contend with right in the middle of the rehearsal dinner. Throw in a battle over leadership of the Santos campaign that leaves Josh reeling, and you’ve got a solid 45 minutes that sets up some of the best storytelling of the final season.

Though it’s primarily remembered as the episode that kills off the president’s faithful assistant, Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten), “18th and Potomac” is also a fantastic showcase of Aaron Sorkin’s ability to push multiple story lines toward a major turning point at once. Mrs. Landingham’s death is just the final minute of the episode. The rest is focused on the president’s MS disclosure, a crisis in Haiti, and the plan for running for reelection, and it’s all compelling.

The Santos-campaign story line is at its best when the operation is scrappy, and it doesn’t get much scrappier than this. The bulk of the episode follows Josh fighting hard to get his candidate into a debate ahead of the New Hampshire primary, during which he resorts to everything from hurried meetings to big chicken suits and clashes with Santos over how to run a campaign. It’s good, but more important, it’s a sign of bigger and better things to come.

With the Democratic ticket set, the Santos-McGarry campaign struggles to take shape as the two personalities at the top seem like a strange match, and Josh wrestles with the responsibility of running as the nominee rather than the underdog. Back at the White House, CJ contends with the fallout from a military space-shuttle leak and builds the primary engine of tension that will take up the first few episodes of season seven. It’s not the best season premiere in the history of the show, but it’s a very solid introduction to the new dynamic for the final run of episodes.

A telltale flash in the middle of an ocean reveals to the Bartlet national-security team that there’s a new secret member of the nuclear-powers club. While the staff scrambles to deal with who the new player might be and what it all means, Vice-President Russell proves himself worthy of his new post. Meanwhile, CJ fights with a talk-show host and Josh goes stargazing with a beautiful NASA scientist. The middle of season five is a step up in post-Sorkin West Wing storytelling, and this episode is a big reason why.

Season seven really gets cooking with this episode, which balances the Santos campaign’s quest to lead the charge for education reform with a major crisis on the international stage back at the White House. It’s one of the best episodes of the final season when it comes to walking the line between what’s happening in the West Wing and what’s happening in the campaign, and it all builds to a stunning revelation that shapes one of the season’s biggest emotional arcs.

Perhaps better known as “The One Where Josh and Toby Fight,” this episode follows a West Wing in shambles as CJ and Toby scramble to cover all their bases with both Josh and Will (Joshua Malina) out on the campaign trail. It’s not going well, and it gets worse when Josh comes back full of resentment and Toby reveals some heartbreaking news about his astronaut brother. This one’s worth it for Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff alone.

Toby and Sam argue over a speech to an environmental group. CJ tries to get a famous comedian to do the administration a favor, and Lord John Marbury (Roger Rees) annoys Leo while being charming and eccentric to everyone else. “The Drop-in” is a fun episode full of great comedic moments (Donna looking for eligible royal men to court is particularly delicious), and it’s perhaps only ranked this low because the season-two episodes around it are even better.

Named for the congressional resolution that will officially censure the president in the eyes of the public and the U.S. government, “H. Con-172” is a battle between Leo and Bartlet over how they want to be remembered for the MS disclosure. It’s also a battle for Josh to try and successfully court Amy and for Charlie to try and hang up a nice map he bought for the president. The stories never quite jell as much as you’d like them to, but it’s still a solid episode that helps launch one of the best runs in the show’s history.

There’s less than a week to go before Election Day, it’s Halloween, and Jon Bon Jovi is on the Santos campaign bus! Another season-seven episode that strikes a very nice balance between campaign and governing, this one brings us a debacle of a Halloween night for the Santos family and an emotional peak in Toby’s story as he weighs going to jail versus giving up his sources and staying home with his kids.

The post-Sorkin West Wing is often at its best when it’s reaching for truly huge ideas, as we’ll see later, and this episode definitely fits that bill. It’s basically about Leo and Bartlet trying to covertly reopen American relations with Cuba, complete with a cloak-and-dagger meeting with Fidel Castro himself and a flashback to Kate’s days as a spy in the Caribbean. It’s exciting, it’s sexy, and it’s one of those story lines that reminds you just how much fun this show could be when it comes to solving real problems with fictional characters.

Featuring the debut of the great Roger Rees as the title character, a fan-favorite West Wing guest star, this episode launches the president into a crisis over Kashmir with India and Pakistan both stepping up as the White House tries to get them to back down. Rees is a born scene-stealer, but that’s far from the only thing this episode has going for it. It’s a major international crisis for Bartlet early in the series, which brings out the best in Martin Sheen, and we also get the beginnings of the Zoey-Charlie romance.

With the season winding down, the staff deals with Sam’s call-girl relationship getting out, impending drug-sentencing reform proposals, and a poll that will finally tell them if their hard work is paying off in the eyes of the public. It’s not quite as fun as what comes before it or as thrilling as what comes after, but it’s one of those breezy, invigorating West Wing episodes you can’t help but rewatch.

With the vice-presidential debate on the horizon, Josh worries that Leo is not up to the task, an opinion that’s reflected in media coverage of the event. One of the show’s last major spotlights on the late, great John Spencer, it’s a reminder that Leo’s always thinking a few steps ahead of everyone else and that Josh still has a lot to learn.

While the staff in Washington deals with the impending primary season and word that an asteroid might strike Earth, Bartlet wrestles with semi-paralysis and exhaustion in China after a major MS attack. The China stuff is great, because it gives you a real sense of Bartlet’s determination and steel in ways no other episode ever quite has, and it’s balanced nicely with Josh’s impending decision to enter the campaign fray.

Toby Ziegler’s great strength, and his great weakness, is his bulldoglike inability to let things go, to keep plugging away at the problem until it’s solved or he’s beaten to a pulp. In this episode, that problem is Social Security reform, a heavy topic for any season of The West Wing. Toby thinks he can fix it, the president lets him try, and the show’s most persistent intellect finds himself bogged down in political quagmires that make for a wonderful Richard Schiff acting showcase.

An issue with a female fighter pilot inspires debate around the White House, and Josh tries to play matchmaker for Donna. Those story lines are good ones, but they’re not what make this episode sing. That honor goes to the duo of Richard Schiff and Joshua Malina, who play the first meeting between Toby and Will, and its resulting collaboration, note-perfect all the way through.

Leo tries to whip the upcoming Democratic convention into shape with three candidates still vying for the nomination, while Bartlet deals with a major crisis on the International Space Station. This is the episode that sets up the military-space-shuttle-leak story line, as well as the prelude to one of the _West Wing_’s best hours, and it handles the setup of both quite beautifully while also serving as a tense portrayal of a NASA nightmare scenario.

As tensions rise on the international stage and Josh tries to reconnect with Toby, Vinick and Santos both go after the fabled undecided voter. For Santos, that means visiting a Black church to grieve a child who was gunned down by a Latino police officer. Every once in a while in the last two seasons, the show has the grace to just step back and let Jimmy Smits do his thing for a few minutes. This is one of those times, and it’s quite something to watch.

While Toby tries to help Sam’s congressional campaign and Will works with a skeleton crew in the speechwriting offices, Bartlet and Leo see the first major crisis of the U.S. military intervention in the fictional West African nation of Kundu. For Sorkin as writer, that means putting Leo in a room with the parents of captive Marines who don’t quite know what to make of the situation, and he plays it with a very deft hand that makes the most out of John Spencer as the often surprisingly sensitive Leo McGarry.

Primarily unfolding after the event it’s named for, this episode uses a live TV broadcast from the West Wing to unpack the State of the Union as the scaffolding for a number of crises and some surprising comedy. Come for the hostage situation in Colombia, stay for Emily Procter making a fool of herself as the brilliant but awkward Ainsley Hayes.

One of the most emotionally harrowing episodes of The West Wing, “Here Today” is set in the immediate aftermath of Toby confessing that he leaked the military space-shuttle news. It breaks CJ’s heart, it breaks the president’s heart, and it breaks Richard Schiff’s heart to play Toby as a man who’d go behind his boss and mentor’s back like this. Everyone plays it beautifully, and it’s fittingly hard to watch.

While the staff at home deals with a controversy generated by special guest stars Penn and Teller, Bartlet suffers a major MS attack in the middle of a long flight to China for a vital summit. After years of talking about Bartlet’s illness and brushing up against it a few times, this is the first full-blown attack of MS we see from the president. It’s a major pivot point in the show, and Martin Sheen handles it deftly, showing us a great mind crying out from within a weakened body.

A gimmick episode that works well, “Access” is framed as an episode of a docuseries focused entirely on a day in the life of CJ as White House press secretary. We get the requisite interviews with her co-workers, peeks at parts of the West Wing we don’t see often, and even a major hostage crisis unfolding live on-camera. It’s a very fun play on The West Wing format, and a great example of season five’s rising ambitions.

While the staff deals with the fallout from the MS disclosure and Josh and Leo try to whip Democrats into shape behind the president, Bartlet must deal with an emerging terror attack in Israel while also delivering his first-ever veto. One of those episodes that makes procedural and legislative stuff look thrilling to a TV audience, “On the Day Before” might feel like a stepping stone in season three’s larger arc, but it delivers more punch than you expect.

When the U.S. agrees to renew a military contract with an oppressive fictional Middle Eastern nation, CJ gets angry and is forced to confront the complexities of the national-security world. It’s a brutal reckoning for the character, but that’s not the gem of this episode. That honor goes to Mary-Louise Parker, who makes her first appearance as lobbyist and eventual Josh Lyman love interest Amy Gardner.

There’s a lot going on in this episode, including the arrival of Toby’s estranged father and an encroaching snowstorm, but the true heft of the story comes as Bartlet and Leo try to exorcize their guilt over the assassination of Abdul Shareef (Al No’mani), a fictional Middle Eastern country’s Defense minister (who turned out to be a terrorist), which ended season three. It’s not going so well, and Josh is the one who’s mostly paying for it, at least until everyone agrees that it’s Christmas and maybe they should go easy on one another. Not the best West Wing holiday episode, but a winner nonetheless.

As the primary season heats up for the Republican Party, the White House staff worries over how to best enter the race with Bartlet as a candidate hobbled by congressional censure. No one’s feeling it more than Toby, who confronts the president over his mental state, but that’s nothing compared to the trouble Josh is having trying to get his relationship with Amy off the ground. It’s a stepping-stone episode, but it’s remarkably well-balanced with the emotional threads it’s plucking.

A welcome CJ-focused episode in the middle of the campaign story line, “Internal Displacement” is all about coming to terms with how much good you can really get done in the time you have left. Faced with the impending end of her job as chief of staff, CJ tries to push for an end to a crisis in Darfur and a crisis in Kazakhstan on behalf of the Bartlet administration, taking Allison Janney to dramatic heights that are impressive even by her standards.

After a terrorist attack in Gaza, Bartlet deals with the fallout and works to contain the chaos in Israel, while Josh stays by Donna’s bedside (she was hurt in the bombing — see “Gaza”) and Leo fights with the president over the best way forward. It’s easy to see this season finale as a tee-up for an even bigger season six, and it is, but it’s also a remarkable exploration of the emotional bond between Leo and Bartlet that features some of John Spencer’s best work on the show.

Bartlet made an epic peace deal, and now everyone has to figure out how to make it work. While Toby and Josh clash with Republicans over how to pay for peacekeeping in Gaza, the president camps out at the hospital to be near Leo as he recovers from a near-fatal heart attack. In the end, it’s clear that a new leader is needed in Leo’s place, and the president makes a thrilling decision that sets the tone for much of the rest of the show in an emotional, gripping hour.

If you’re looking for the episode where The West Wing really got its swing back after Sorkin left the show, it’s right here. After a standoff with Republicans leads to a government shutdown, Bartlet bides his time, while Josh steps back in as a key adviser and Mrs. Bartlet finally warms to being in the White House again. It all culminates in one of the flashiest moments of drama in the show’s history, as Bartlet literally walks to Capitol Hill to force the hand of the overconfident Speaker of the House.

The Santos campaign won! Josh won! Josh is also an overcaffeinated wreck who’s so stressed and freaked out that not even the return of Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn can calm him down. Faced with the daunting task of turning a campaign into an administration, the Santos camp struggles to settle in, and it all comes to a head when everyone demands Josh take a vacation. Bradley Whitford is often at his best when he plays Josh as an all-or-nothing bundle of insecurities, and this is a prime example.

It’s CJ’s first episode as the new White House chief of staff, and it’s a doozy. Her co-workers are ribbing her, Leo’s assistant Margaret (NiCole Robinson) is dropping tons of work on her desk, and oh yeah, a former Soviet nation is trying to sell her radioactive material. It’s a great episode for Allison Janney fans, which should be all West Wing fans, and a bit of reassurance that the shake-up in the White House staff is truly a good thing.

A step up from every season five episode that came before it, this hour sees Bartlet flying out to attend a former president’s funeral with the help of a couple of special guest stars (John Goodman and James Cromwell). Bartlet didn’t agree with the dead president, but he’s still deeply affected by his passing, particularly when international turbulence has him beset by doubt. It’s a wonderfully weighty episode that doesn’t forget to bring some humor to the party.

Having lost his campaign for the presidency, Arnold Vinick is aimlessly bumming around Washington and decides to step up and do something about that while the Santos campaign is busy with their transition. It’s the last big spotlight for Alan Alda in the series, and he makes the most of it, complete with a Santos-Vinick summit that’s both heartwarming and a satisfying conclusion to the campaign arc.

Zoey Barlet is graduating college, the president is emotional about his baby girl’s rite of passage, and Josh looks for a new vice-president while Toby tries to get his ex-wife to marry him again. It’s got all the makings of an episode that sets up some big finale decisions and then Sorkin pulls the rug out from under us with a kidnapping story line leading into a tense finale. It’s a great little narrative trick, and sets up an interesting parting gift from _The West Wing_’s creator.

For the second time in the Bartlet presidency, a vacancy opens up on the Supreme Court, and Toby and Josh want to appoint the first female Chief Justice (guest star Glenn Close) in the nation’s history. But when a second position opens up, they see an opportunity to do something even more interesting with the help of another special guest star (William Fichtner). Yes, it’s another classic West Wing political fantasy, but it plays so well you can’t help but get swept up.

Speaking of big West Wing political fantasies, this episode features Bartlet and Leo hiring rising-star Republican lawyer Ainsley to join the White House staff, even as CJ and Sam threaten open rebellion. It’s one of those “Hey, we all want the country to be better, we just have different approaches!” episodes, which might be grating if it weren’t for the charm of everyone involved.

Fed up with half-measures, exploratory meetings that go nowhere, and low approval ratings, Leo decides it’s time to change up the young Bartlet presidency’s strategy going forward. As the title suggests, this means getting back to the kind of fiery progressivism that won Bartlet the White House in the first place. While it’s typically Sorkinian in its grandiosity, it works as a piece of drama, particularly when you see Martin Sheen’s face change from timidity to resolve.

After a blockbuster State of the Union performance, Bartlet is kept up late while he and Leo sort out a problem in Colombia involving kidnapped DEA agents. It doesn’t go well. In fact, it goes about as badly as a military operation on this show can go, and the resulting fallout is a welcome and emotionally heavy dose of reality in a show that’s often accused of too much idealism.

Laura Dern guest stars as a celebrated poet who’s both brilliant and beautiful, sending Toby into a bit of a tizzy, particularly when she starts talking about landmine treaties. That’s enough to carry an episode right there, but we’ve also got Bartlet making a savvy political move and Josh discovering an entire website devoted to … well, him. That gif of Bradley Whitford saying “The internet people have gone crazy”? It originates here.

With just days to go until the election, both candidates are in the home stretch, and everything is disrupted when Santos’s briefcase goes missing and winds up in the hands of Vinick’s campaign manager. The resulting moral quandary is interesting, but it’s what happens next as the candidates meet up in private (again) that really sticks with you.

After years of hounding Josh for bigger, more important work, Donna gets called up to the big leagues with a congressional delegation to Gaza, only to nearly die when her car gets bombed. This sends Josh rushing to her side while the episode keeps flashing back to what Donna learned about Gaza in her days there with the help of a sexy photographer played by Jason Isaacs. It’s a transparent attempt to put another character in peril for easy emotional hits on the audience, but we can’t argue with the results.

This ambitious two-parter jumps back and forth between recent past and present, as the Bartlet teams gets ready to start their second term while a genocide is unfolding in Africa. New speechwriter Will Bailey grills the president over his stance on the atrocities, leading to one of the most important moral and political decisions of Bartlet’s career. It’s a big, fun, often epic two-hour stretch, and it sets the stage for big stuff in the remainder of the season.

The battle for the title of Best West Wing Guest Star is a tough one, but any serious discussion of the winner must include the legendary Hal Holbrook. He shows up for the first time here as an assistant secretary of State who drives Bartlet nuts while the president weighs what to do about a missing nuclear submarine, and their rapport is both instantly satisfying and doesn’t overstay its welcome. The West Wing is a framework for great actors to work together within the confines of the White House, and this is that dynamic at its best.

The Bartlet administration is packing up and preparing to leave the White House, and that means some soul-searching for CJ. With her old job disappearing before her eyes, she’s really not sure which direction to head next, and that uncertainty is complicated by her romantic ties to reporter Danny Concannon (Timothy Busfield), who just wants to settle down with the woman he loves. It’s a moving final act for one of the show’s best characters and a reminder that Allison Janney might be the best thing that ever happened to this series.

One of the most successful single-issue episodes of The West Wing follows Bartlet as he must weigh whether or not to stay an execution, consulting everyone from staff members to priests (including the great Karl Malden) along the way. That makes it powerful, but what puts the episode over the top is the B-plot, which sees a deeply hungover Josh meeting with a California political operative named Joey Lucas (Marlee Matlin) while wearing fishing waders and a coffee-stained undershirt. Martin Sheen in Profound Mode and Bradley Whitford in Clown Mode. What more could you want?

A rare Sam-heavy episode that gives Rob Lowe some of the best dramatic work of his West Wing tenure, this story takes its name from an Eagles song and explores the rapidity with which our lives can change. It’s mostly about Sam trying to get an accused spy on the list for a presidential pardon, but it’s also about Sam’s anger and denial over his father’s infidelities. Oh, and Josh and CJ meet with some crazy mapmakers, and Toby hangs out with anarchists.

As the White House counsel’s investigation into the MS cover-up intensifies, CJ and Abbey feel the heat of questioning, while Josh, Toby, and Leo wrestle with ways to contain the damage. It’s the last in an informal trilogy of episodes following the MS issue, and while it’s the weakest of the three, there’s still a lot of gripping stuff here, particularly when Stockard Channing and Oliver Platt get to square up in a room together.

“Requiem” was never part of the plan, but when John Spencer died in December 2005, midway through filming on season seven, The West Wing had to call some audibles and set aside a whole episode just for paying tribute to an actor who often felt like the heart of the show. Packed with guest stars and sentiment that never rings hollow, it’s a fitting tribute to a giant of the series and a wonderful piece of work from a writing staff forced to contend with sudden tragedy.

CJ’s stalker heats up the death threats, while the president and Leo make a horrifying discovery that will change everything about the future of Bartlet’s time in office, and Sam’s misplaced trust leads to a huge campaign blunder. While the episode that follows, “We Killed Yamamoto,” feels a bit sluggish and bogged down, “The Black Vera Wang” moves with a thrilling pace and sets up end-of-season story lines better than its successor.

On the eve of the State of the Union, Bartlet collapses in the Oval Office, leading to the revelation (to Leo and only Leo) that he has MS. But there’s no time for the president to sleep it off. He’s got a speech to give, a crisis in Kashmir to resolve, and a staff who’s getting tangled up in their own romantic troubles. It’s an episode best remembered for the seeds it plants, but it also stands on its own as a wonderful hour early in the series.

The ambition of the post-Sorkin era of The West Wing arguably reaches its apex with this epic season premiere, which follows the staff as they head to Camp David to try to help Bartlet achieve peace between Israel and Palestine. Yes, it’s exactly as hard as it sounds, particularly with Leo and the president disappearing at every turn, and while the payoff doesn’t come until the next episode, this is still a sweeping, breathtaking return for the show.

One of the biggest domestic-threat story lines in the show’s history comes right in the thick of the presidential campaign, when a California nuclear plant that Vinick pushed to build comes dangerously close to a meltdown and causes panic on the West Coast. The political concerns are there, but they’re secondary to The West Wing just doing a good old-fashioned tension-builder as Bartlet and his team scramble to contain the threat.

Bartlet’s reelection comes without much tension. He won the debate, he leads in the polls, and everyone expects to have a good night, but there’s still a lot going on. Josh gets pranked at a polling place, Toby warns everyone to stop tempting fate, and of course Sam is terrified he might have to run for Congress. But the real emotional core of it all is the remarkable human moments between Jed and Abbey, as they realize that each new day in the White House is a risk to the president’s health.

Everyone takes time out from the campaign to focus on a stem-cell research measure that could cripple Bartlet’s commitment to medical progress, while Toby meets with a group of kids who want the right to vote, and Kate tries to stop an invasion plan for Canada (yes, really). It’s all very fun, particularly when Santos & Co. marshal their forces to put one over on the Speaker of the House. More political fantasy, maybe, but it’s exhilarating all the same.

The best episode of the rocky fifth season proves that sometimes all you have to do to reach greatness is stick some people in a room together and get them talking. This time around, all those people are literally stuck, as a potential contagion sends the West Wing into lockdown. Toby and Will have to work out their issues, CJ lays some hard truths on Donna, and Leo and Abbey have a frank discussion while Bartlet, Debbie, and Charlie are decontaminated. It’s a great conceptual hook pulled off to near perfection, and it breathes new life into the show.

The first episode after the big kickoff of Bartlet’s reelection campaign has everyone running around looking for a win, whether it’s Josh and Toby dealing with estate-tax bills or CJ trying to score a big public-opinion win by getting Congress to investigate Bartlet’s MS. Meanwhile, Donna goes on a date with a Republican and Sam works to secure a key endorsement. It’s a lot for one episode, but it plays like a breeze, and CJ’s story is particularly satisfying.

The Bartlet staff takes the president on a retreat to get him ready for his upcoming debate, and everyone’s a little on edge. The issues the debate prep dredges up send the episode flashing back to the early days of the Bartlet campaign and offer Toby a chance to reckon with what went wrong in his marriage. It’s a great episode for Richard Schiff fans and a fun balance of campaigning and governing.

Facing intransigence from both Israeli and Palestinian officials, a furious Republican Congress, and resistance from his own chief of staff, Bartlet digs his heels in and fights with every breath to reach a peace accord. In a remarkable showcase for Martin Sheen, Bartlet gets the peace he wants, but at tremendous cost, as Leo suffers a major heart attack after arguing with the president. The entire episode is thrilling, but by the end, as John Spencer breaks into heart-attack convulsions, it’s downright harrowing.

There are other things going on in this episode, including Toby in rage mode, but the heart of it comes as President Bartlet seeks help from a therapist (guest star Adam Arkin) over four consecutive nights of insomnia. Martin Sheen and Arkin, together in a cozy room in the White House residence, work so well together that you almost wish the show veered off course and just became about the president and his therapist, like The Sopranos but with fewer cookout scenes and grander executions.

Ainsley Hayes starts work at the White House, and she’s not exactly getting a warm welcome. Her new boss (John Larroquette in a guest appearance so good you’ll wish he were a regular) hates her, her co-workers are suspicious of her, and everyone seems to be arguing over the right placement of a Gilbert and Sullivan lyric. What happens next is a heartwarming moment of staff bonding, and the entire episode is a winning turn for Procter in what will become a two-season run as a supporting player.

_The West Wing_’s series premiere is not perfect. The show’s still finding a place for everyone, the president doesn’t get to do anything until the very end (which was the plan for the whole show until Martin Sheen came aboard full time), and the ensemble doesn’t seem complete just yet. Still, it’s a masterfully entertaining hour of television, from the unexpected twists of Sam’s first moments to Martin Sheen’s phenomenal, Bible-inspired entrance at the end.

A new year means a new session of Congress, and the staff is busy planning a welcome breakfast for leaders from the House and the Senate. There’s just one problem: Toby wants the breakfast to be an actual substantive debate, and the Speaker of the House’s new chief of staff (Felicity Huffman) sees an opportunity. Apart from being a nice reminder of just how good Huffman handles Sorkin’s dialogue, it’s a really solid episode of political maneuvering and leads off with one of the best (pun intended) cold opens in the show’s history.

When an online chat about marijuana use lands the surgeon general in hot water, the president’s normally quiet middle daughter, Ellie, wades into the debate, sending Bartlet into a fury. What follows is a remarkable portrait of Bartlet as a father with an ego so big he sometimes loses sight of his daughters, and as an added bonus, you get more verbal sparring between Richard Schiff and Kathleen York.

The first season finale is now legendary for its cliffhanger shooting, which fans had to wait a whole summer to resolve, but it’s also just a damn good finale that pays off a lot of stuff that’s been building for weeks. We get the ongoing threats to Zoey and Charlie, yes, but also a NASA mishap, a crisis in Iraq, and the final fade-out (with no fanfare) of single-season staff Mandy Hampton. It all builds to an unforgettably tense conclusion and leaves you begging to see more. Thankfully, now you don’t have to wait those agonizing months.

Sam’s ex-fiancee (Traylor Howard) arrives to write a feature about the State of the Union address, and Sam’s not comfortable with it. Still, her presence does give Sorkin the opportunity to leap back and forth between the writing of the address and the aftermath, exploring the president’s struggle to regain his composure after a congressional censure in the process. If the Sam Seaborn idealism doesn’t get you, then Josh Lyman trying to be romantic and failing miserably definitely will.

A masterclass in packing a lot of plot into a single hour, the season-three finale pays off the Shareef story line set up earlier in the season, sets the stage for Bartlet’s reelection campaign, gives us a massive Shakespearean musical in New York City, and ends the CJ stalker story line in tragic fashion. It’s an exhilarating finale, even if it isn’t the best conclusion the show ever gave us.

One of the first cozy ensemble-driven West Wing episodes follows Toby and Mandy as they battle Republicans over census methods, Josh and Charlie as they get to know each other, Bartlet and his daughter Zoey as they spar over Secret Service protection, and the whole staff as they get together for a poker game. The trick of making the census into a gripping subject for a TV drama is plenty to get you to keep watching this one, but this is also perhaps the earliest example in the series of how good The West Wing can be when everyone just gets to do a day’s work together.

One of the most consequential episodes of the final season (which is really saying something), “The Cold” follows the candidates as they tie in polls, sending the Santos camp into celebrations and the Vinick camp running for scapegoats. It also follows Bartlet as he realizes his military plans for the Kazakhstan situation mean he’ll need to talk to both candidates, and oh, by the way, Donna and Josh finally kiss. An epic episode in pretty much every sense.

The best of the Air Force One episodes by quite a lot, this one sees Bartlet and a sizable chunk of staff and reporters (including Charlie, CJ, and Will) stranded mid-air when the president’s plane suffers a landing-gear malfunction. Back on the ground, Leo tries to keep everyone calm and to keep the emergency secret, creating both comedy and surprising poignance for the people in the air.

The staff gathers for a late-night poker game while the president must make a very awkward phone call to his counterpart in Russia. Oh, and someone shoots at the White House, prompting a lockdown. Another of those great episodes about staying up late and being a great ensemble, “Evidence of Things Not Seen” is the last cozy Sorkin episode we get before everything goes crazy at the end of season four, so it should be savored.

While there are certainly Sam and CJ story lines worth watching in this episode, the big centerpiece comes as Toby is unexpectedly tangled in the story of a homeless Korean War veteran who just died in the D.C. winter. The first West Wing Christmas episode follows the usually prickly communications director as he tries to do the right thing, no matter how complicated it may be, and that makes it endearing and emotional.

Set amid a Daughters of the American Revolution reception at the White House, while Amy’s trying to get settled in as Abbey’s new chief of staff and Will is still dealing with New Guy hazing, “Privateers” is best remembered for offering the single greatest bit of Allison Janney comedy The West Wing ever produced. It’s also a great Jed and Abbey episode with two scenes from their bedroom bookending the whole story in a lovely way.

It’s Thanksgiving at the White House, and CJ is done with all the holiday nonsense … at least until a pair of Indigenous activists stage a sit-in while waiting for an important meeting. Other stuff happens, too, but that doesn’t matter, because this is also the episode in which the president dials the Butterball turkey hotline to ask a question about stuffing his bird. For that scene alone, it’s one of the best holiday episodes the show ever produced.

A wonderfully comedic ride through a day in the life of the White House staff, “Celestial Navigation” gives us Josh trying to do a press briefing, CJ knocked down by dental surgery, Toby and Sam arguing over how to get to one key place in Connecticut, and the president dodging his daily wake-up call. It’s all a blast to watch, and as an added bonus, you get one more guest appearance from Edward James Olmos as Supreme Court Justice Roberto Mendoza.

The Santos-versus-Vinick campaigns all lead to this, an epic two-parter that sees the race come down to a single, unexpected state, the whole country hanging on every news report, and the entire Democratic leadership reeling at Leo’s unexpected death. Engineered after John Spencer’s actual death changed the nature of the election story line, “Election Day” goes about as well as you could possibly expect and packs one of the greatest emotional punches of the show’s later seasons.

What do you do when you get Matthew Perry to guest star as a new White House lawyer? You put him at the center of a blockbuster revelation that will oust the Vice-President, of course. The tension lingering over VP John Hoynes throughout the show’s run all comes to a head with this fast-paced jaw-dropper of an episode, and Tim Matheson, who was always underappreciated as Hoynes, plays it beautifully.

The president must come clean about his MS diagnosis, and the potential that he defrauded the public, to White House Counsel Oliver Babish (Oliver Platt), who’s both exhausted and frustrated by the news. The rest of the staffers are dealing with problems of their own, including an unexpected blast from the past for Sam, but the heart of the story is Bartlet, Leo, and Oliver sitting in a room, hashing out hard truths and acting the hell out of the piece.

We’ve already talked about several episodes that try to recap an entire summer’s worth of events for the staff. They don’t always work, but “Manchester” is an example of that conceit going as well as it possibly could. Jumping back and forth between the immediate aftermath of the president’s MS announcement at the end of season two and the Bartlet team’s announcement of a reelection bid, it expertly charts tension among the staff as they blunder, rage, and generally butt heads on the road to regalvanizing. It’s a very strong way to open a season and a very good showcase of the scale The West Wing could afford after two straight Outstanding Drama Series Emmys.

Bartlet’s first Supreme Court vacancy pops up, and Sam, Josh, and Toby are convinced they’ve got exactly the right nominee for the gig. The more they dig, though, the more they realize that a more unexpected, more liberal choice might be what the president needs. It’s an idealized view of Supreme Court appointments, to be sure, but the nuance at work as Sorkin explores the scenario makes it soar.

Donna, Josh, and Toby get stranded in the heartland when Bartlet’s campaign motorcade leaves them behind. It’s a frustrating fish-out-of-water comedy situation, but it also gives Toby and Josh time to hash out their differences over the campaign, and gives Donna a chance to pay more attention to everyday Americans just trying to get through life. Episodes outside of the White House can sometimes feel like style over substance, but this one nails both. Also, it’s the episode where Lily Tomlin joins the show as the president’s new assistant, and that’s just good hiring practices at work.

The series finale feels, first and foremost, appropriately grand. Everyone’s getting ready for the Santos inauguration, the West Wing is in the midst of a move-out and move-in on the same day, and everyone’s feeling the complicated emotions of the moment. There were lots of ways the show could have played its farewell, including another last-minute megacrisis, but instead, “Tomorrow” has the grace to hit some emotional high notes and elegantly fade out on the Bartlet era, delivering one of the most satisfying series finales ever aired in the process.

In the midst of a congressional hearing about the president’s MS, Leo reminisces about the foundations of the Bartlet campaign and his own previous brushes with addiction, all while the president tries to support him from afar and Josh tries to get the hearing shut down. John Spencer was an incredible actor, and he never gave a bad performance in a West Wing episode, but even with that in mind, this is his crowning achievement, and he got the Emmy to prove it.

The president is overjoyed at the prospect of hosting a live TV event covering NASA’s new Mars probe, and frustrated that he has to go see a concert with the Icelandic ambassador the night before. Meanwhile, the probe itself starts to show signs of malfunctioning, CJ deals with backlash to a hiring decision, and Leo deals with a fire in a Russian missile silo. A beautifully crowded episode of TV that also ends on a profound note: This is fast-paced Sorkin dramedy at its best.

One of the most ambitious episodes of the first season is also one of the most intimate. The hour simply follows the staff as they deal with a bevy of issues from radical right-wing press hounding Zoey to a new panda for the National Zoo. Sorkin’s script ping-pongs between half a dozen different stories with ease and grace, but that’s not why we’re really here. We’re really here because this is the episode where CJ does “The Jackal,” and everyone loves CJ doing “The Jackal.”

The single greatest West Wing episode ever made without Aaron Sorkin’s involvement is a nail-biter on a grand scale, packed with twists and tension and soaring ambition. It’s the Democratic National Convention, there’s going to be a brokered floor vote, and no one knows who the nominee will be. It all comes down to a riveting Santos speech at the very end, and by the time it’s over you’ll wish we had more episodes like this one.

Sorkin’s final episode as _The West Wing_’s principal writer sets up a massive cliffhanger that John Wells and the rest of the team have to pick up in season five, and if it was only that, “Twenty Five” might be a weaker episode. Instead, though, Sorkin uses his last hour on the show to meditate on fatherhood, balancing Bartlet’s heartbreaking decision to surrender presidential power in the wake of Zoey’s kidnapping with Toby’s realization that, no matter what he thought before, he’s absolutely in love with his newborn twins. It’s a tearjerker and a powerful send-off from one of the most important TV writers of the last 30 years.

As a crotchety senator from Minnesota filibusters a health-care bill for unknown reasons, the staff send emails to their parents recapping how their week has gone. It’s a great excuse for comedy, from Josh slipping because he’s wearing new shoes to CJ revealing that she might have an Egyptian curse on her because she broke a statue. Underneath that, though, the episode builds to a bigger reveal, as the filibuster becomes about more than a cranky politician. There are a lot of great rewatchable West Wing episodes, and this one’s among the most consistently satisfying.

Special guest star Adam Arkin, playing a trauma therapist, arrives at a Christmas-decorated White House to see what’s up with Josh, who’s been struggling lately. The shooting at the end season one and the wounds Josh suffered led to PTSD, something Josh is unwilling to accept despite flashbacks to incidents that confirm the issue. The fiery exchanges between these characters, and the heartbreaking self-discovery Josh must face, make this the best Christmas episode of the show and Bradley Whitford’s (Emmy-winning) finest work on the series.

This is the episode where The West Wing all comes together. It’s got great chemistry between the staff, stuff for everyone to do, and a legislative story line involving a gun-control bill that Leo and Josh have to fight tooth and nail to save. Throw in a subplot about Leo’s workaholic life ruining his marriage and it’s everything you could want from this show, just four episodes in.

It’s the First Lady’s birthday, and everyone has gathered for a massive party in her honor, but not everyone’s having fun. Most everyone is getting drunk, though, giving us a boozy West Wing girls’ night so good it deserves its own spinoff, plus a great debate between Toby and Lord John Marbury. A brilliant juxtaposition of White House pageantry and back-room shit talking, “Dead Irish Writers” is my personal favorite West Wing episode, but believe it or not, it gets objectively better.

It’s finally time for Bartlet to tell Toby about his MS diagnosis, marking the first time a member of the staff besides Leo has learned the news. That means that Richard Schiff and Martin Sheen get to spend much of the episode verbally dueling with each other in the Oval Office, and that’s just damn good television any way you slice it. You almost don’t need the very entertaining subplot in which Sam and Josh try to write jokes for the president, but it’s certainly still welcome.

The resolution to the season-one assassination cliffhanger is about as riveting as network television could possibly get in the year 2000, a dizzying mixture of trauma surgeries, tears, investigations, and flashbacks to the roots of the Bartlet campaign that’ll still knock you through the back of your couch. Everyone is at the top of their game, including director Thomas Schlamme as he whips all of this drama into a cohesive whole, and by the end you feel like you’ve learned as much about these characters as the entire first season taught you. It screams “The best show on TV is back,” and that’s not bragging when you can back it up.

The season-seven debate episode is all about realism. The season-four debate episode is all about maximum tension and payoff. It’s debate time, with Bartlet’s second term on the line, and everyone is worried that he’s going to blow it, go soft, try to equivocate. What happens next is an intellectual thrashing that only Sorkin could write, a masterful showcase of Jed Bartlet’s mind and heart, and a great ensemble piece to boot.

When the cast of The West Wing reassembled in 2020 to shoot a stage performance of a single episode as part of a voting-rights benefit, this is the episode they chose, and with very good reason. “Hartsfield’s Landing” takes place as a tiny town in New Hampshire kicks off that state’s primary with their handful of votes, and as such becomes a story about the sacred trust that is voting. But it’s also about so much more, as Bartlet spends the evening playing chess with his staff, teaching Sam and learning from Toby in the process. Plus, you get a CJ and Charlie prank war that’ll make you wish they did a version of the same thing every single week. Of all the cozy, thoughtful West Wing hours, this is the coziest and most thoughtful.

It’s a White House Thanksgiving, and while CJ’s office is invaded by prize turkeys to serve as presidential-pardon candidates, Bartlet has a major issue on his mind. It seems that a group of religious pilgrims have made a hard journey from mainland China to seek asylum in the U.S., and to determine their fate, the president must weigh faith, freedom, and his own place on the world stage. It’s a heartwarming episode even before you get to Bartlet giving Charlie a family heirloom that was made by Paul Revere, at which point we all just melt into puddles of warmth basking in Martin Sheen’s fatherly glow. It’s one of the best Thanksgiving episodes produced by any show in any genre at any time in the history of television.

Every ounce of Aaron Sorkin’s dramatic prowess and Thomas Schlamme’s visual flair is applied to this masterpiece of an episode, in which Bartlet faces pressures from without and within and thinks back to how his longtime assistant, the late Dolores Landingham, motivated him to be a leader in the first place. It’s a beautifully balanced play that shifts between past and present, as Bartlet faces the toughest moment of his political life while missing the one adviser he needs most in that moment, and it culminates in Martin Sheen cursing God in Latin in the middle of the National Cathedral. The West Wing got bigger, it got grander, it got funnier, and it got smarter, but it never again achieved the sheer emotional weight and resonance of this episode. It’s a masterpiece of TV in a series full of potential masterpieces, and it still plays just as well as it did in May 2001.

All 150 Episodes of The West Wing, Ranked