The West Wing

Season 6

N.S.F. Thurmont

1. The church where Admiral Fitzwallace (John Amos)'s funeral is held is St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis, MD - appropriate considering Annapolis is also the home of the United States Naval Academy.
2. The name of the Israeli defense minister is Doron Mazar, there is a famous Israeli singer called Doron Mazar.
3. When Donna wakes from her surgery and she says Josh's name the news woman on the in the background says that there was a car bombing in Nazarene. Nazarene is not a city in Israel the city is Nazareth, also known as the Arab capital of Israel
4. When Leo (John Spencer) and General Alexander (Terry O'Quinn) are in the Situation Room, the monitor shows air strikes being launched. The voice over announces an F-14 launching while the monitor shows an A-6 Intruder moving towards the camera (which changes to an F-14 as it moves away). In the "real" world the A-6 is no longer in service with the US Navy.
5. The title is derived from Naval Support Facility Thurmont. Popularly known as Camp David, this is the president's mountain retreat where peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians took place.
6. When C.J. (Allison Janney) and Toby (Richard Schiff) discuss in Toby's office while having snacks, at some point C.J. talks while holding the pack of crackers and one that she is about to eat. Less than two seconds later, the camera is back on her, but she is now seen putting the cap back on a water bottle.
7. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).
8. When Donna (Janel Moloney) is writing on a pad to Josh (Bradley Whitford) when awaiting surgery, she first writes "Nice hat!" A few seconds later we see the pad again, and the exclamation mark's disappeared. Shortly afterwards it comes back.

The Birnam Wood

1. Standing in for Camp David in this episode is ThorpeWood, an environmental education center located on a 110-acre nature preserve nestled in a secluded, heavily forested stream valley 1,500 feet high on Maryland's Catoctin Mountains.
2. A running gag amongst The West Wing is that senior staffers fly backwards when firing a gun. This happens to Toby when trying to shoot a shotgun, and CJ with a pistol in an earlier season.
3. Birnam Wood is a location in Shakespeare's Macbeth.
4. Mary McCormack is obviously late in her pregnancy. She's always filmed from the chest up or hiding her lower body, as in the kitchen where she's pouring tea.
5. Prime minister Zahavy's words about loosing his right eye or hand before Jerusalem is probably based on the quote from Psalms: "If I forget Jerusalem I will forget my right (hand)".
6. Makram Khoury who plays chairman Farad is actually christian and not Muslim.
7. Gen. Alexander (Terry O'Quinn) makes reference to "The Kingdom of Syria", but Syria is a republic, not a kingdom.
8. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Leo (John Spencer).
9. Some interior scenes were shot at the Thorpewood Retreat Center, in the Catoctin Mountains near Thurmont, MD - the actual "Camp David."
10. "Birnam wood" is referenced in "Macbeth": "SCENE IV. Country near Birnam wood."
11. General Alexander (Terry O'Quinn) says that the U.S. has bombed a terrorist training camp "in the Kingdom of Syria". Syria is not a kingdom; it is a republic.
12. There is a terrorist attack in the Turkish town of Antalya. On the TV screen we see a Tel-Aviv ambulance treating the injured.
13. When Farad (Makram Khoury) asks Jed (Martin Sheen) how old his children and grandchildren are, Jed tells him that Annie, Elizabeth Bartlet Westin's daughter, started high school last week. This does not fit in with the timeline of the series because Annie was twelve in the pilot.
14. The title references Shakespeare's play 'MacBeth', when an apparition prophesies "Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him." - an 'impossible' event, which then comes to pass because his opponents use a completely unexpected strategy. In this story virtually everyone predicts that Bartlett's hopes for peace will never come to pass, but his team helps bring about an agreement by likewise using an unexpected strategy to achieve an 'impossible' circumstance.

Third-Day Story

1. CJ mentions Iceland as one of the nations willing to supply peacekeepers to the Middle East. Although Iceland does not have a standing army, a small force called the Iceland Crisis Response Unit was established in the 1990s, specifically for peacekeeping missions.
2. Armin Mueller-Stahl is given a full guest star credit despite only appearing on a television set in the background showing news coverage.
3. The decorative prop in Gail's goldfish bowl on C. J. Cregg's desk is a pair of white doves, representing the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Deal.
4. Armin Mueller-Stahl is given a full Special Guest Star credit despite only appearing on a television set in the background showing news coverage.
5. Melissa Fitzgerald is given a Guest Star credit for the first time, despite appearing in almost every episode since the Pilot.
6. "Heavens to Murgatroid!" was one of the favourite sayings (the other being "'Exit stage left!") of the cartoon character Snagglepuss, who originally appeared in 1959 as a minor character on episodes of Quick Draw McGraw (1959), "Augie Doggie", and "Snooper & Blabber".
7. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Leo (John Spencer).

Liftoff

1. The representative from the Republic of Georgia refers to "President Rustaveli." Shota Rustaveli (1172-1216) is the author of Georgia's national epic, 'The Knight in the Panther Skin'.
2. This marks Jimmy Smits' and Kristin Chenoweth's first appearances in the series.
3. The spot that the Staff Sergeant directs C.J. (Allison Janney) to go to in the event of an emergency appears to be an area near Rock Creek Park, west of Dupont Circle - however there is no "Denville Road" in the District.
4. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Toby (Richard Schiff).

The Hubbert Peak

1. The title refers to the Hubbert Peak theory, which states that oil production in any given area or field will follow a bell shaped curve: starting slowly and increasing as more reserves are discovered and tapped, eventually reaching a peak and then declining, as the last of the finite amount of oil present will be increasingly difficult to extract.
2. Josh (Bradley Whitford) makes a reference to 'rats of an unusual size.' In the movie The Princess Bride (1987), Rodents of Unusual Size attack Wesley and Buttercup in the Fire Swamp.
3. Apopos is an organization that trains giant pouched rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis. These rats are endemic to the sub-Sahara region of Africa. No harm comes to these animals in their work.
4. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).

The Dover Test

1. The Cultico storyline refers to the 1984 Bhopal disaster, where a major gas leak in a local chemical plant owned by a US corporation, caused the death of thousands and injured many more.
2. The title refers to a journalistic means, describing whether or not a war the US is involved in has the support of the public. Dover Air Force Base houses a mortuary center and is one of the landing points for war casualties returning home, whose arrivals have frequently been filmed over the years, to varying public response.
3. In the episode The West Wing: The Ticket (2005) (first episode seventh season) Annabeth (Kristin Chenoweth) corrects Leo (John Spencer) how to pronounce "Santos". The assistant answering the phone in Congressman Santos (Jimmy Smits)' office apparently never got the same lesson because he pronounces it wrong in this episode.
4. The military hospital at Walter Reed, located in Washington, DC, closed in 2011 and was supplanted by the National Naval Medical Center, located in Bethesda, MD, just north of the city. The new name of the Medical Center is the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
5. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Leo (John Spencer).

A Change Is Gonna Come

1. Toby (Richard Schiff)'s perusing of the Hoynes book is a very "Washington thing" - flip to the index and see how many entries you have in the index.
2. Senator Matt Hunt (Philip Baker Hall) mentions an aircraft named the "3P-C Orion". It is actually called the P-3C Orion.
3. Some of the soldiers in the "terracotta army," referred to in the meeting with Toby (Richard Schiff) and Kate (Mary McCormack), were exhibited at the National Geographic building in Washington DC and other locations in the United States in 2009-2010.
4. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).
5. A Senator refers to "3-PC Orion" airplanes being sold to Taiwan. The correct designation for this airplane is "P3-C Orion".

In the Room

1. Senator Vinick's shoes being shined are from Allen Edmonds, famous for their handmade shoes of every US President since Ronald Reagan.
2. In one of their most thoughtful and politically charged tricks, Penn and Teller (Penn Jillette) make a U.S. flag seem to disappear by wrapping it in a copy of the United States Bill of Rights, and apparently setting the flag on fire, so that "the flag is gone but the Bill of Rights remains." In the episode, the flag remains missing, unlike in the stage version. Penn is quick to point out that, as seen in their stage show, the flag-burning routine "is astonishingly patriotic." It includes his observations about the greatness of being able to perform such a trick in a free country, proceeding to do the same trick but with the "Chinese Bill of Rights" - a sheet of cellophane - and turning around to show what happens to the flag, and finally, the flag not only reappears unscathed, but "up on the flag pole where it started, waving in the breeze."
3. The title comes from the question that many people were asking: Was the President (Martin Sheen) in the room at the time of the flag incident.
4. The pilot of Air Force One states that they would be flying close to the Hawaiian islands. International flights between the U.S. and China would not fly that close to Hawaii. Due to the curvature of the planet, flying over Canada and Alaska is a much quicker and more economic flight path.
5. This episode is about a flag burning at Zoe Bartlett's birthday party but according to everything Wikipedia, The West Wing fandom her birthday is February 20th. this episode was aired on December 8th
6. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Toby (Richard Schiff).

Impact Winter

1. The title refers to the possibility of a large asteroid hitting the planet and ejecting vast quantities of dust and ash into the atmosphere. This would significantly reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface and cause a long global winter, resulting in failed harvests and famine. A large asteroid is theorized to have caused mass extinction amongst dinosaurs about 66 million years ago.
2. This is the first episode of the season to feature the entire main cast of the show.
3. The Santos house features three different staircases in three different episodes. In the season 6 episode The West Wing: Impact Winter (2004), the staircase inside the front door to the house can be seen leading away from the door to the left of the hall. In season 7, in the episode The West Wing: Running Mates (2006), the staircase can be seen coming down from left to right behind the door in a number of scenes. Later in season 7, in the two The West Wing: Election Day: Part 1 (2006) episodes, the staircase has changed yet again, now curving upwards from the right of the door. .
4. A holiday episode, it takes place at Christmastime - though it is not the focus of the episode - Josh (Bradley Whitford) says "Feliz Navidad" and "Season's Greetings" and Leo (John Spencer) wishes the Vice President a "Merry Christmas"
5. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).

Faith-Based Initiative

1. In the first scene where CJ and Annabeth are having a "walk and talk", they exaggerated their height differences by having Kristin Chenoweth walk barefoot, while Allison Janney wore boots.
2. Bartlet has on his desk a plaque reading "O God, thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small." John F. Kennedy had a plaque with the same inscription on his Oval Office desk
3. Bartlett recites, "How body from spirit does slowly unwind/Until we are pure spirit at the end." This comes from the poem "Infirmity" by Theodore Roethke.
4. When talking to Toby, Vice-President Robert Russell (Gary Cole) reveals he has a gay nephew. He also makes a somewhat prescient comment about same-sex marriage being legal in ten years if done right. In real life, the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges, decided in June 2015, legalized same-sex marriage ten years and six months from the air date of this episode.
5. There are two fish in CJ (Allison Janney)'s fishbowl.
6. The school at which Santos announces his candidacy (Walter Reed Junior High School) is located in Los Angeles, CA.
7. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).

Opposition Research

1. This is the first episode in the series where John Spencer does not appear.
2. While Marshall Crenshaw's "Someday, Someway" plays as Josh (Bradley Whitford) and Matt (Jimmy Smits) arrive at Matt's campaign HQ, the subtitles show the lyrics to The Beatles' "Good Day Sunshine".
3. Throughout the episode, Congressman Santos (Jimmy Smits) continually asks Josh (Bradley Whitford) to call him by his first name, "Matt." Nevertheless, Josh continues to call him "Congressman Santos," or "the Congressman," even when speaking with those members of Santos' former congressional staff who are now Santos' presidential campaign volunteers.
4. Allison Janney, John Spencer, Dulé Hill, Stockard Channing and Mary McCormack do not appear in this episode. Martin Sheen and Richard Schiff appear only briefly, in telephone conversations.
5. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).

365 Days

1. The plotline for "Annabeth and the First Lady" is that the first lady will attend a Martinsville NASCAR race. This occurs the day after the State of the Union in January. There is no NASCAR race at all in January and the only one the president/first lady attends is Daytona, the weekend in the middle of February.
2. The plural form of "State of The Union," as used several times in this episode, is incorrect. The one used is "State of The Unions" while the correct one is "States of The Union."
3. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Leo (John Spencer).
4. Margaret, played by NiCole Robinson, is showing a pregnant belly. She was pregnant with her first child, Shirley.

King Corn

1. According to DVD commentary by director Alex Graves, the way each of the characters sleeps (Josh with a pillow over his head, etc.) is modeled after how their actors actually sleep.
2. Senator Arnold Vinick: "I could take these people to a DMZ, it wouldn't take their minds off ethanol and abortion." The reference to the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone) in Korea is possibly a reference to Alan Alda's role as Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H, which was set during the Korean War.
3. Before Santos (Jimmy Smits)' speech, Josh (Bradley Whitford) says, "Matt, take the pledge." The closed captioning says, "Matt, take the oath."
4. There is a train wreck news story on TV in the background of this episode (appears in all 3 candidates experiences). Strangely, the day the episode first aired, a suicidal man caused the worst train wreck in a decade.
5. In this episode, there is a scene where Josh (Bradley Whitford) and Donna (Janel Moloney) are checking into their hotel rooms. In the scene, Josh is having trouble opening his door using his key card so Donna comes over and helps him with it. This scene is reminiscent of a previous episode The West Wing: 20 Hours in L.A. (2000) where the same thing happens except at that time they were still working together and they had adjoining rooms.
6. Neither the crime of adultery nor the death penalty exists in Turkey. It is ironic that the U.S. is one of the few countries whose federal government (as well as most of the states) still allows the death penalty.
7. This is the first episode that Alan Alda is listed in the title credits.
8. In this episode we learn the names of a number of the other candidates running for both parties nominations. From the Democratic Party, Clarkson and Atkins. For the Republicans, Former Speaker of the House and Acting President Glen Allen Walken, Allard, Gibson, and Johnson.
9. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).

The Wake Up Call

1. Lawrence Lessig is a real-life constitutional scholar who was involved in drafting an early version of the Georgian constitution. Episode writer Josh Singer took Lessig's Constitutional Law course at Harvard, and remembered an anecdote told during class. Lessig approved the script, which he felt captured 90% of what was important about "constitutionalism": building a society that respects the rule of law.
2. When Korean Air flight 007 was mistakenly shot down in 1983 by the Soviet Union, aides of elderly President Reagan chose to not wake him up.
3. The poem Lord John Marbury recites to Kate Harper in CJ's office is "A Birthday," by Christina Georgina Rossetti.
4. During the conversation about the plane being shot down, Secretary Hutchinson (Steve Ryan) says "The RC 135 is roughly the same size as a 737" to which CJ (Allison Janney) responds "a 737 with a large dish on it." While it is possible this is a quip about the nature of spying, it seems to be a reference to the E-3 Sentry, another Boeing plane commonly known as AWACS, recognizable for its sizeable radar dome which looks quite like a dish. The RC 135 are reconnaissance aircraft while the AWACS are airborne early warning and control planes that provide all-weather surveillance, command, control, and communications.
5. The plausible reason offered for the shooting-down is that the plane, a 737, had a similar radar profile to a US RC 135 spy plane. The Caspian Sea is beyond the range of 737s ex London, apart from the very newest Next Gen models (relatively few of them were in service at the time of filming, and it's on the ragged edge of their range, so even then no airline would deploy a 737 on any route of that distance). The flight's destination was still some distance away, further exacerbating the problem.
6. In this series Miss World is Lyonpo Palden Wangchuk of Bhutan, outside of the West Wing The House of Wangchuk is the royal family of Bhutan.
7. The tune Annabeth is humming for Valentine's Day while handing out chocolates is "My Funny Valentine," one of the most beloved songs on Kristin Chenoweth's first solo CD, Let Yourself Go.
8. A running gag done by Annabeth is that she uses the word "ticktock." This is yet another sly reference to Kristin Chenoweth's character, Glinda, in "Wicked."
9. The times between the US, the UK and Iran are skewed. C.J. (Allison Janney) is awakened at 03:45 Eastern time by Kate (Mary McCormack) telling her about the British plane being shot down. This would have been 08:45 GMT and 12:15 Tehran time, indicating the Iranian Air Force shot down the airliner in the middle of the day, which seems unlikely if they were thinking it was a U.S. spy plane. Later, when the radio transmissions come through to the President (Martin Sheen) and Lord John Marbury (Roger Rees) we are told the Iranians could shoot the plane down at 02:33 GMT which would be 21:33 Eastern.
10. When C.J. (Allison Janney), Hutchinson (Steve Ryan) and Harper (Mary McCormack) are in the Situation Room discussing the shot-down plane, C.J. refers to the RC-135 as "a 737 with a large dish on it". That would be an AWACS, or E-3 Sentry. The RC-135 doesn't have a radar dish on it and it resembles a four-engined 707, not a twin-engined 737.
11. This is the final appearance of the late Roger Rees as British Ambassador Lord John Marbury.

Freedonia

1. Freedonia is the mythical country in the 1933 Marx Brothers film "Duck Soup". In this episode, Santos complains that political discourse has fallen so low that when one politician was asked recently about the "situation in Freedonia", he claimed he was "studying it". A similar situation had happened in real life. In the 1990s, a satirical magazine called Spy pulled a practical joke, in which they got several Congressional members to issue statements condemning the ethnic cleansing in Freedonia.
2. The scene where Santos staffers dress up as chickens to heckle Russell and Hoynes for not including him in the debates is based off an actual incident. When then-sitting President George H.W. Bush refused to debate Bill Clinton in 1992, Clinton called him 'Chicken George.' Subsequently, similar men appeared at Bush's rallies in such a costume.
3. The New Hampshire scenes (for this episode and Opposition Research) were shot in Toronto Canada.
4. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Josh (Bradley Whitford).

Drought Conditions

1. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).
2. 6.6/10 rating. 8th highest rated show of the night.

A Good Day

1. The US military's most recent contigency plan for invading Canada is actually from 1924, not 1815. "War Plan Red" was developed as an academic exercise by the Army War College. Its premise was the US going to war with the United Kingdom, and invading Canada since it was part of the British Empire.
2. This episode directly inspired a similar action in the British Parliament in 2006.
3. Mako played four different characters in four different years in the TV series M*A*S*H (1972), in which Alan Alda (playing Vinnick running for president in this series) was one of the lead actors.
4. The plan used in this episode by Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) was later copied by the British Conservative Party in real life on January 31, 2006. The vote was to support an amendment to the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 and passed by one vote, due to the absence of Prime Minister Tony Blair who was fooled by the plan.
5. The town of Chinook, Montana is pronounced "Shi-NUHK" rather than "Chin-OOK." Also, both Chinook and Lodgepole are too far from Glacier National Park for the scenario they describe to make sense.
6. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Toby (Richard Schiff).

La Palabra

1. Jimmy Smits won the 2005 Imagen Award for Best Actor TV Drama for his work in this episode. This episode won the 2005 Imagen Award for Best Primetime TV Series, Drama
2. In the West Wing universe, a bill to withold driver's licenses from illegal immigrants is vetoed by the Governor of California. In reality, it is currently not legal for illegal immigrants to obtain California driver's licenses. A bill that would have made it legal was overturned by Governor Schwarzenegger.
3. The seal of the state of California shown in this episode is not the actual seal, which depicts the goddess Minerva in a landscape.
4. Air Force Two appears as two different planes in this episode. From the outside it appears as Air Force Two, but on the inside it is the same set the show uses while on Air Force One. The first one we see is the actual Air Force Two, a C-32, which is a modified Boeing 757 (a single level plane). It is footage of the plane from outside while in the sky. It is quite obvious that it is Air Force Two because it is a single level plane, which is what you see. From the inside, the plane appears as Air Force One, a VC-25, which is a modified Boeing 747. As Donna (Janel Moloney) walks to the front of the plane to Vice President Russell (Gary Cole)'s quarters you can see a staircase which would only be found in Air Force One. That would mean that the plane they used for the inside shot was a two-level plane and not a one-level plane which is what Air Force Two is.
5. 'Air Force One' and 'Air Force Two' are not specific aircraft but ATC call-signs attached to whatever aircraft is being used to carry (One) the president and/or (Two) the vice-president.
6. Air Force Two uses the same set as Air Force One has previously in the series. Whilst technically, the call sign "Air Force Two" is used to refer to any military aircraft carrying the Vice President, The aircraft most commonly used is a modified Boeing 757, which unlike the modified 747 used to carry the President, has no second floor. Yet, a staircase is clearly visiable when Donna (Janel Moloney) goes to see Russell onboard.
7. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).
8. Governor Tillman of California appears in this story. It was a speech he wrote for Governor Tillman which first brought Will Bailey's writing talent to Sam's attention back in season 4, leading to Will's addition to the White House writing team.

Ninety Miles Away

1. Kate Harper's top secret personnel file actually consists of partially redacted pages from J. Edgar Hoover's secret files.
2. John Spencer and Brian Dennehy previously appeared together in the 1990 Harrison Ford drama Presumed Innocent (1990), which also featured Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman) and Jesse Bradford (Ryan Pierce, Season 5 Recurring).
3. This episode reveals that Leo (John Spencer) is apparently fluent in Spanish.
4. When C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) reviews Kate Harper (Mary McCormack)'s C.I.A. File, the first two pages are the same. However, the pages have been redacted differently.
5. The story that President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) relates to C.J. (Allison Janney) about President John F. Kennedy sending Pierre Salinger out to find Cuban cigars the night before he signed the embargo against Cuban products is apparently true. More details can be found here.
6. One of the entomologists makes a reference to Abigail Adams and the War of 1812. However, it was Dolley Madison in the White House in 1812, not Abigail Adams.
7. Fidel Castro is the only real-life current head of state to be portrayed on The West Wing. All other on-screen presidents and prime ministers have been fictional characters, while only a handful of others (Queen Elizabeth II, Yasser Arafat) have been mentioned.
8. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Toby (Richard Schiff),

In God We Trust

1. The issue of the "debt ceiling" became a real-life issue during the term of President Obama. The Congress raised the debt ceiling several times (also at the last minute, as alluded to in this episode) and ultimately forced a government shutdown after refusing to pass a budget in 2013.
2. Bruno (Ron Silver) says that "Republicans have won 49 states in 2 elections twice in the last 30 years." Ronald Reagan won 49 states in 1984 (after 44 states in 1980) and Richard Nixon won 49 states in 1972 (though he resigned 2 years later) which would have been 34 years before this episode takes place. Since the West Wing has never confirmed nor denied if Reagan was in fact president, this either confirms that Reagan was president or implies that Owen Lassiter carried 49 states, either way it would seem that Bruno rounded down.
3. David Broder is referenced in this episode, a rare mention of a real person. Broder wrote a politics column on the editorial page of the Washington Post for many years until his death in 2011.
4. The exterior shot prior to the scene with Senator Vinick (Alan Alda) and his Chief of Staff shows the Ronald Reagan Building and not one of the Senate Office Buildings.
5. Gary Cole (VP Bob Russell) & Stephen Root (Bob Mayer) also worked together on Office Space (1999) as Bill Lumbergh & Milton respectively.
6. While riding in his limousine with his campaign manager, Senator Vinick (Alan Alda) tells her that the answer to her son's question about the area of a parallelogram is "Length times width...it's the same as a rectangle." But the correct formula for finding the area of a parallelogram is base times height. Length and width are poorly defined properties when the corners are not right angles.
7. Alan Alda's character Arnie Vinick remarks of Don S. Davis's character: "Don Butler, one heartbeat away from the President?" Ironically, Davis died first, in 2008, while Alda remains alive and (presumably) well.
8. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).

Things Fall Apart

1. This episode's title is taken from a part of a line in the poem "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats. The phrase was also famously used by Chinua Achebe as the title of his 1958 novel.
2. The concept of a military space shuttle is first brought up in this episode. In reality, the US government was in the final phase of completing a military shuttle at the airing of the episode despite it still be a classified program at the time. The X-37 was air tested in 2006 and flew its first mission in space in 2010.
3. Regarding the ISS leak. First, the ISS is compartmentalized, so a leak in one pod can be circumvented by sealing off the module from the rest of the station. Even if the crew couldn't isolate it, sealing off the modules would allow them to do that. And if the station would have to be evacuated, it is equipped with a Soyuz landing capsule. Every few months the Russians swap out the Soyuz. They send up a new crew and the old crew takes the old Soyuz down, leaving the new one as an escape option. The capsule can fit three people. The station crew complement is usually 2-3 people. NASA was also developing a glider-type escape pod in case there is a problem with the Soyuz. So there shouldn't be any need for the Russians to organize a launch or to rush a space shuttle into service. And thus the debate over exposing a military craft is kind of pointless.
4. Since the very first crew occupancy, the International Space Station has always kept at least one Soyuz spacecraft docked as a means to evacuate the station in case of emergency; there are often several supply vehicles at the station at any given time. The ISS crew shelters in the Soyuz craft whenever there is a detected threat of debris impact.
5. NASA, Russia, or ESA (the European equivalent of NASA) anticipate problems like this and would not leave a crew in place with no way to bring them home in an emergency. But even if that somehow happened, there would be a third option which no one in this episode considers. An unmanned craft could bring a supply of additional oxygen to the ISS on short notice. Supply missions with unmanned vehicles are routine, happening several times each year. This wouldn't fix the leak or bring the astronauts home, but it would buy time until there was a way to do one or the other of those things, while keeping the military's secret under wraps.
6. During the briefing in the situation room, Secretary of Defense Hutchinson (Steve Ryan) explains to C.J. how Air Force Space Command maintains and operates the military communications and GPS satellites, but he incorrectly refers to it as Air Force Special Command.
7. Josh (Bradley Whitford)'s "Outside of Minnesota" rider to Leo (John Spencer)'s observation that, though entertaining, people don't vote for "the loudmouth in the leotard" is a reference to one-time Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, a former wrestler and wrestling commentator elected to gubernatorial office in 1998.
8. In the West Wing, NASA only has two space shuttles, while in reality there are three: Atlantis, Discovery, & Endeavor.
9. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by Leo (John Spencer).
10. Arnold Vinick's joke "We're going to run out of primetime" before his acceptance speech is a reference to Ronald Reagan when he was accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1980, where he told the crowd that wouldn't stop cheering "We're using up primetime!"

2162 Votes

1. The HP Pavillion (formerly Compaq Center) in San Jose, CA, and the Arrowhead Pond (now known as the Honda Center) in Anaheim, CA, were used for the exterior and interior shots respectively of the Democratic National Convention.
2. The person introducing Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) for his speech incorrectly describes him as a "Proud graduate of America's Air Force Academy." He is actually a graduate of Annapolis who then was commissioned as an officer in the Marine Corps.
3. This episode received a 2005 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series (Alex Graves ). This episode received a 2005 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Single-Camera Sound Mixing for a Series (Gary D. Rogers, Dan Hiland, Patrick Hanson, C.A.S.).
4. In 1969, there was uncertainty if the astronauts who landed on the moon (Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong) were going to be able to get back up to the spacecraft. William Safire, President Richard Nixon's speechwriter wrote two speeches for the president, one for success and one for failure.
5. The Democratic National Convention is filmed in Honda Center in Anaheim, California, as well as the home of the Anaheim Ducks. Ironically, an aerial shot of the convention uses footage of the SAP Center, home of the San Jose Sharks who are rivals to the Ducks. Debbie Fiderer (Lily Tomlin) mentions shin pads and a hockey mask to the senior staff before they enter the Oval Office.
6. In the hotel room before Santos (Jimmy Smits) leaves for the convention (before it has begun), the TV in the background shows a headline indicating that 'Baker is picking up momentum going into the third ballot". At that point, he's not yet in the race. The TV then flips back to the proper headline for the timeframe, speculating about a Russell-Baker ballot, as Josh (Bradley Whitford) enters the room.
7. Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) sarcastically states that Dorothy Baker (Kate Enggren) might "sell secrets for Zoloft at the corner of 16th and D", however there is no 16th and D Streetse NW. The Ellipse is bordered by 15th Street, 17th Street, Constitution Avenue, and E Street (closed to traffic).
8. When the shot cuts from Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), as he finishes his speech near the end of the episode, to the convention as shown on television, the start of the balloon drop from the end of the episode can be seen beginning. When the camera cuts to the convention when the balloon drop is actually supposed to appear in the episode, it picks up immediately where it left off.
9. "Previously on the West Wing" spoken by C.J. (Allison Janney).
10. This episode received a 2005 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Single-Camera Sound Mixing for a Series (Gary D. Rogers, Dan Hiland, Patrick Hanson, C.A.S.).