Does anyone besides my wife and I think that the real White House is behind NBC's decision to move The West Wing to Sunday night and by NBC's apparent decision to let this wonderful show die a premature death in what is rumored to be its last season?

The West Wing shows us what how an intelligent President and an honest White House would function - thus further emphasizing the failings of this current regime.

Our guess is that NBC is being pressured by the WH withholding access as long as this show is on.

Thoughts anyone?

But why would the real-life White House have waited so long? West Wing has been on the air since 1999; Bush took office in January 2001, in the middle of the show's second season. Would they really have waited this long, particularly now that the show is *less* popular than it's ever been?

I completely agree with Matt.

I don't agree with the contention that the show is about to die a premature death, to begin with. The show's quality has declined and most of the characters that the audience really liked have left/died (Sam, Toby, Charlie, Leo... *sniff*).

This does not a continuing show make.

Sparrow, I will say this. A bad episode of WW is better than 99.999% of the manure that is on TV today.

It saddens me that ER has been propped up for so long, but NBC can't give WW more support.

There is the not-insignificant fact that ER has always done much better in the ratings than West Wing, even when the latter was at its height.

See, I really don't want to see WW becoming like ER, hanging on long past its prime when its writers can come up with neither good characters nor good stories. I'd rather see it come to a graceful and natural end.