Customer Reviews

The West Wing - Complete Season 1-7 [DVD] [2006]

If you are new to The West Wing, I cannot tell you how good it is. I remember when I bought the Season 1 box set a number of years ago. At the time, I had no interest whatsoever in politics and I was merely going on a handful of recommendations. I had no idea that I would be buying not only the best TV show ever created, but also the best piece of entertainment ever created in ANY format.

First and foremost, the writing is of the absolute highest quality. The only thing that comes close to the intelligent and often hilarious writing is Aaron Sorkin's (creator of the show) other work, i.e. A Few Good Men, The American President (which is like a condensed, movie-version of the show). Sorkin wrote nearly every episode of Season 1-4 and I think he is the closest thing we have to a modern day Shakespeare. The fast paced, overlapping dialogue that he penned is simply sublime, as brilliantly crafted, heavyweight characters spar with each other over colossal issues that impact millions of people or over the day-to-day banality of working in the office (albeit the most important one in the world). Sorkin has taken the senior staff of a White House Administration and created a unique and endearing character for each position. The pitch perfect casting of these characters is the second thing that makes the show so special.

I can praise the standard of writing or the exceptional acting forever, but perhaps the biggest compliment I can pay is to reveal how inspirational this show has been for me. Before I bought The West Wing, I was languishing in my final year at University, simply going through the motions of trying to briefly memorise facts and figures for exams. After watching this show, I developed a thirst for knowledge and a desire to become more dynamic. I wanted to debate two sides of an important issue by calling upon a body of knowledge and citing numbers from `three sources'. I wanted to be this informed and resourceful individual who could delve into his college work in an organised `what's next?' kind of way. I stopped reading my textbooks simply for the sake of reading them and I even based a vital university assignment on the first year episode that dealt with a delivery company strike over two-tier hiring. The pros and cons of two-tier hiring were superbly argued in this episode and, by expanding on the points raised, I received a very good mark for my `Strategic Human Resource Management' assignment. Please don't be put off, however, by talk of mundane things like two-tier hiring. Even if The West Wing did an episode on wheat prices in Russia, it would still be an outstanding piece of smart and funny entertainment.

For those of you who didn't know, this complete box set contains the region 1 extras that aren't available on the individual box sets. This includes deleted scenes and features - a whole wealth of bonus material that has never been available to region 2 DVD owners before.

It is a big investment to buy all 44 discs and 154 episodes at once, but I couldn't imagine spending all this money on any other show. The series is understandably affected when Sorkin departs at the end of Season 4, but I would give anything to discover The West Wing again. I had to wait for several agonising months before I could see what happened after the amazing season one cliffhanger - I am green with envy to think that you can switch discs in a matter of seconds to find out what happens next. Then again, you never got that great feeling I did on the day when the old `Season 2, Part One' box set was FINALLY released.

I didn't actually see The West Wing when it was first broadcast on TV and I bought this box set after having only seen the first two seasons (which I rented on DVD). Four months on, I've now watched the whole thing and I have to say it was worth every penny.

As has been suggested in other reviews, the first four seasons (written by Aaron Sorkin) stand out as the best but that doesn't mean there is a nosedive in quality once you hit Season 5. Certainly the show does change direction but I think it's realistic to expect that in any long-running series.

There are so many things to admire about The West Wing and previous reviewers have described the series much better than I can - in fact they convinced me to buy it! I can only agree with everything they've said. A brilliant ensemble cast, intelligent scriptwriting, thought-provoking storylines and a mind-boggling array of famous guest stars all combine to make this a truly outstanding TV programme. It's impossible to give it anything other than 5 stars.

Fantastic stuff!

I sold all of my individual sets to buy this overview of every episode of the greatest TV show ever made, and I am not regretting it for a second.

Any box set bringing together seasons of the West Wing has an excellent starting point. And this new set does its subject matter proud, improving on the individual season sets in a number of ways.

For a start, it offers five hours of pretty excellent extras - documentaries, bloopers, deleted scenes, among other things. It is a shame there are no cast or production commentaries on any of the episodes, but the extras are all fine in themselves.

The previous packaging for the season-by-season sets - the card-based, expanding boxes, which show wear and tear and are darned unwieldy to open - have been replaced by slimline DVD cases, holding two discs each, all packaged within season-by-season slip cases.

The whole thing is packaged in an elegant, exceptionally compact box, which you would never guess holds more than 150 episodes of the best television money can buy.

For us foreigners (i am Dutch, living in Germany)with good knowledge of the English language and also for a lot of native Englisch speakers, English subtitle comes in very handy to assure a relaxed viewing.
I have been reading the technical information and feedbacks on Amazon USA and UK (and lot's of different places) and find it very hard to find the information i am looking for: Which subtitles are supplied with the West Wing Collection? The only way to find was to order the damn thing which i, ofcourse, do not regret at all.

To solve the subtitle mystery i had to unwrap the box, so far for a refund when dissapointed. For all you not native English speakers and people withe a hearing problem, i have good news!

1. All discs have Engish subtitles AND English for the hearing impaired.
2. There are lot's of other subtitles, not the same on all discs:
Season 1: Engish + English for hearing impaired
Season 2: Engish + English for hearing impaired
Season 3: English for hearing impaired, English, French, Arabic, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Hebrew.
Season 4: English, English for hearing impaired, Frensch Arabic, Dutch, Swedish, Hebrew, Norwegian.
Season 5: English, English for hearing impaired, French, Arabic, Hebrew
Season 6: English, English for hearing impaired, Dutch, Greek, Finnish, Swedisch, Hebrew, Arabic
Season 7: Says on the box only English/Dutch but in menu of dvd: English, Dutch, Norwegian, Portugese.
Bonus Features DVD: English, Danisch, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Swedish
French soundtrack on season 3 and 4 (says on the box, not checked...)

I hope this is helpfull!
Regards, Victor Janssen, Germany

This new set is really ultra sleek and slim packaged. Still the same west wing and to my mind needs no introduction. Engaging, witty and entertaining - arguably the best political drama ever made. In seven seasons of fast paced, quirky and original white house drama you will meet president Bartlett and his team and gain an insight into the running of the white house and the American political system.

There is no difference between this and the old boxset in DVD content and content of the special features dvd, but while the old box set has each season's six discs in three individual dvd cases, making it two discs in one case, the new slim boxset has all six discs in one multi dvd case with trays. The only downside of this is that the plastic holding the trays can sometimes get damaged but with care this should not happen. I love this new set for the slim packaging, compactness and convenience for travelling, but the old boxset has its merits too. This one also has a complete season 1-7 booklet with pictures and episode guide. You can't go wrong with this DVD boxset.

This is a beautifully packaged set. The inclusion of the booklet outlining all the episodes is a great idea since the early seasons don't use the episode titles on the disc menus. I agree with other reviewers that the quality and format of the picture leaves something to be desired for some of the seasons, but I found that it really didn't bother me too much - the stories and characterisations carry you along so well that this can be forgiven. My only problem with the set was that having worked my way through it from the beginning over the course of 5 months, I came to Season 6 only to find that I did not have Disc 1 episodes 1-4, but had instead been blessed with 2 discs of episodes 5-8! I was lucky in that when I contacted the seller they very kindly found and sent me a copy of the missing disc - and this was 5 months after they had sold me the set, so I'm not sure that they were obliged to do so. I strongly recommend therefore that anyone who buys this should check their set carefully on arrival to make sure they really do have the Complete Season 1-7!

A few years ago it used to be common for British critics to crow about what wonderful intelligent drama we produce and how U.S. television lagged far behind us in sophistication. We haven't heard that view so much of late and The West Wing is one of the prime contributing factors to their silence.

The West Wing wasn't just another drama: it was a phenomenon. Literate, clever, witty and profoundly serious, it set out a vision of "liberal" politics that took the ideals of the Clinton White House and recast them on a heroic scale. In Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) the writers created a Democrat president who brought the charisma of the JFK era into the twenty-first century, while his staff - the zealous ideologue Toby Ziegler, pragmatic fixer Josh Lyman, Capra-esque innocent Sam Seaborn, sassy press secretary C. J. Cregg and irascible Chief of Staff Leo McGarry - provided an articulate forum for the ideas under discussion. The acting was rarely less than superb; the scripting consistently evocative of Preston Sturges and the golden age of Hollywood dialogue.

Over the seven seasons, the quality falters occasionally, but never for long. Some of the more sensational plot threads - an abduction, a state-authorised assassination, some improbable foreign policy manoeuvres towards the end of the administration - stretch the credulity of the audience, suggesting that the writers occasionally struggled to maintain the narrative over such a long run. Nevertheless, there are sequences of episodes, such as the assassination attempt on Bartlet, or the long campaigns that dominate seasons six and seven, that can be counted as some of the best political drama to see the light of day in any form. During the long close of the series, the performances by Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda are themselves outstanding examples of television acting at its best, and there are recurring characters (such as those played by Adam Arkin, Oliver Platt and Emily Procter among many) that go a long way to explaining why this has been regarded as one of the strongest ensemble casts of recent years.

Especially noteworthy is the fact that the series only very rarely stoops to soap opera. Tendencies in that direction - the relationship between Charlie Young and Barlet's youngest daughter, or C. J.'s relationship with a Secret Services bodyguard - are quickly curtailed, sustaining the integrity of a body of work whose worst moments of self-indulgence (such as the presidential debate in series seven - which was performed live by Smits and Alda - or the "Access" mockumentary on the work of the White House press secretary) were always noble in conception, intelligent in approach.

There are full seasons here that I must have seen approaching ten times, and their ability to educate, inform and entertain is unrivalled in my DVD collection. There are plenty of my TV-on-DVD purchases that have failed to repay the investment of purchase ... this is emphatically not one of them.

The West Wing has got to be the best drama ever to appear on television and in the top three shows of all-time.

From the pilot, the storylines, scriptwrting and acting simply blow you away. By the end of the first episode you find yourself connected to the show in a way that rarely happens. There are very few bad epsiodes and only season 5 is disappointing overall. For us non-americans watching there are some very patriotic and sometimes over the top "God Bless America" moments, but I suppose that was inevitable with it being about American politics.

I think one of the reasons the show has been so successful is because it took place alongside the Bush Administration, and comparing the two, almost anyone would prefer to have Bartlet in the Oval Office. Its a kind of "if only" scenerio.

Just buy it and be ready to give up a large portion of your life to it. Superb.

This will count as one of my best buys on AMAZON. I watched the first series having never followed it on channel 4, and my family and I were hooked, unfortunately the high cost of each series meant we could not just buy it all at once. If you have never seen the series nor heard about it before, West wing is a political drama about the American politcial system and the White house. With a fictional president Bartlet and his team we are given an insight into the workings of the White house and the American political system; how the president and his team operate on a day to day basis facing many difficult challanges and overcoming obstacles. The series is captivating, fast paced, filled with humor, quirky and really good drama. I had to buy this box set after reading other reviews and taking advantage of the reduced price offer on Amazon. I was very happy to buy it because it meant an uninterrupted viewing of the entire seven seasons and it did not disappoint. It just leaves you with hope and longing that one day the world will have a real president like president Bartlet and his team. With the recession looming, and cost of holidays very high, you can just escape for a week with this box set in the comfort of your own home and believe me at the end you will feel refreshed. The box set comes with great special features which I think is not available in the individual season packs on sale, so you will be getting much more for your money. If you love West Wing or good political dramas, this is a definite keeper.

I've wanted to do a review on this series for a couple of years now, but never seemed to be able to do it justice. This is without a doubt, a series with the best writing, best cast ensemble and best storylines. It's no coincidence that the cast and crew were drowning in Emmys by the end of series 7.

I was never into politics, and certainly not American politics. I knew enough to know George Bush was the devil, and that Tony Blair was infinitely better for us than Maggie Thatcher, but I was in my early twenties and well, there was beer to drink and parties to go to.

I'd taken ill a few years back and had to spend a couple of weeks stuck inside with only Virgin on demand and a handful of DVDs. I'd exhausted myself and the poor offerings on the TV and spotted the first five episodes of The West Wing. I watched them in an evening, pausing after the first episode to jump online and buy this boxed set.

Aaron Sorkin is a genius. He introduces us to the fast paced life in The West Wing immediately. We see the lives and jobs of the President's senior staff - boy wonder Josh "Lemon" Lyman, sad and cynical Toby Ziegler, sassy and smart CJ Cregg, dependable Leo McGarry and soulful Sam Seaborne Each character is unique and you warm to them and their foibles imediately.

The series is based around a democratic administration, and we track the 8 years (plus some great flashbacks) of President Bartlet and his staff try to push their agenda and bypass the attempts of the Republican senate to block all their legislation. Medicare, gun control, banking regulations - all issues that raised their head in my lifetime and I learnt a lot from just watching this show. Josh and Donna would regularly debate the issues at hand, a great way to see two sides of each story.

The plot develops and characters intertwine over the 7 series. The complexities of the American political system are explained well and political and philosophical themes were explored. This sowed a seed in me and I began to learn much more about American and British politics.

The cast bounced off eachother - with passion, with anger, with humour. There are some genuinely hilarious moments, the type where you rewind the DVD and watch and laugh. And the dialogue. Oh the dialogue. Fast paced, heavy hitting and just perfect. This show is heavy on words and I loved each and every one of them.

I've watched the entire series a few times now. I've compared it to shows like The Wire, 6 feet under etc and it never comes up short. There are some wonderful episodes that echo real life and its enthalling and exhilarating watching them.

Interestingly, the inspiration for Matt Santos was a little known senator called Barack Obama - watching this series a few years after it was shown made me see how insightful the wrting was, and how astute the political research was.

I paid much more for this boxed set, but at this price it's a bargain. So much so, I've bought another one - just in case. From a personal persepctive - this series opened me up to so many new ideas and beliefs.