KING ME: Last week's episode of "The West Wing," Aaron Sorkin's final hour at the helm of the show he created, was the long-faltering series' best episode in recent memory, one which had the feel of seriousness (as well as greatness) missing from the show the past two years.
(Spoilers begin here:) From the starting point of the kidnapping of President Bartlet's daughter, the president was forced to make the gut-wrenching decision to temporarily step down from power- and since the Vice President character (Tim Matheson) resigned a few weeks prior, the presidency was thus thrown to the Republican Speaker of the House (John Goodman).
This is historically significant for three reasons: one, those ideas by Patrick Ruffini, Mickey Kaus, and others about having "West Wing" go GOP have finally been vindicated. Two, after (to the best of my knowledge) no television series in history had ever had a plotline involving the invocation of the 25th Amendment, two series ("West Wing" and "24") have done so just in the past month. And three, with his ascension to the presidency, Goodman joins a select fraternity of actors who have portrayed both the President of the United States and the King of England on screen (he played the latter, you may remember, in "King Ralph.") I don't have a full list of other such actors in front of me, but the only one I can think of right now is Anthony Hopkins, who portrayed Richard III in "The Lion in Winter" (among numerous other Shakespearean kings) and both Richard Nixon in "Nixon" and John Quincy Adams in "Amistad." Goodman also has the added distinction of being the only man to play both a president, a king, and Linda Tripp (which he did on "Saturday Night Live" back in '98; then, last week, he portrayed Anna Nicole Smith).