The special is expected to be released before the November US presidential elections.
By HANNAH BROWNRob Lowe (left), Allison Janney and Martin Sheen in ‘The West Wing.’ (photo credit: WARNER BROS. TELEVISION)
If you’re nostalgic for a US president who is intellectual, idealistic and a Nobel Prize-winning economist – in short, if you’re missing President Josiah Bartlet, the fictional US head of state on The West Wing – you’ll welcome the series upcoming return to the small screen.HBO Max announced on Tuesday that West Wing creator/executive producer Aaron Sorkin and executive producer Thomas Schlamme, both of whom are Jewish, will team up with the original cast of the series to create a special episode to benefit When We All Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, which was founded to increase participation in every election in America.The episode will be a theatrical stage presentation of the “Hartsfield’s Landing” episode from the show’s third season. The West Wing, which ran from 1999-2006, stars Rob Lowe, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney, Janel Moloney, Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford and Martin Sheen, who will reprise their roles from the episode. Excitement is running high over the reunion and Entertainment Weekly featured a cover story on the cast this week.“Hartsfield’s Landing” is a fan-favorite episode, featuring the White House staff waiting anxiously to discover the winner of the first US town to count its presidential primary votes, while President Bartlet (Sheen) plays Toby (Schiff) in chess and Charlie (Hill) and C.J. (Janney) pull a series of pranks on each other.Sorkin said: “Tommy and I are incredibly excited to be getting The West Wing cast back together for this staged reading and to support When We All Vote in their efforts to get all of us involved in this election.”This theatrical reading format fits right in with Sorkin’s theatrical background, since he started as a playwright and recently won acclaim for his Broadway adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.No date has yet been released for the special, but reportedly it will air in the fall, before the upcoming presidential election.
