May 5, 2006

[wings'n'things] ^{5:57 PM}

The new issue of EW has a West Wing retrospective regarding the creation and pilot of the series. My personal favorite bit of the article is the alterna-castings that almost were:

President Bartlet was originally only supposed to be in 6 episodes a season. I knew that, but did not know that originally Bartlet was intended for Sydney Poitier (but he was too expensive).

Leo was originally Leo Jacocby, written with Judd Hirsch in mind. After John Spencer read the last name was changed to McGarry.

Toby Ziegler came down to Richard Sciff and Eugene Levy, and C.J. was a tossup between Allison Janney and CCH Pounder.

A mighty different show it could have been.