A Great Show

Martin Sheen stars as President Josiah "Jed" Bartlett. The show starts in the second year of Bartlett's first term. Yes, this show is sometimes hard to follow. It deals with politics as the main story line, and the staff's personal life and secondary stories are just that, secondary. But somehow, Aaron Sorkin managed to balance the drama, comedy and politics in this series very well. This show also stars: Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Richard Shiff, Rob Lowe and John Spencer.

In the pilot episode the president rides his bike into a tree, everybody's called into this White House to deal with this emergency. While having their own issues to deal with.
Deputy Chief of Staff, Josh Lyman, makes a faux pas on national TV and is in danger of loosing his job.
Deputy Commutations Director, Sam Seaborn, finds out he accidentally slept with a call girl and accidentally tells his boss' daughter that he did this. "This is bad on so many levels."
Mandy Hampton is hired to be the media director having dated Josh Lyman there's tension between the two of them.

In The Crackpots and These Women, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry tells the story of how Andrew Jackson had a big block of cheese in the foyer and invited all who wanted a piece of it. In honor of that, Leo starts Big Block of Cheese day, where the senior staff talks to people who want to talk to president but don't have the pull to get to the president. Josh calls them "crackpots" and everyone makes fun of the day. CJ is convinced that wolves need their own highway and Sam is worried there might actually be an unidentified flying object in the sky. Meanwhile, Josh is given a card that in case of an attack he'll be safe, but learns that nobody else got the card.

In the Christmas episode, In Excelsis Deo,Toby had donated a coat to goodwill with his business card in the pocket. When the goat is given to a homeless man, and that man dies, the cops call Toby. He learns the homeless man was a Korean war vet and uses his power at White House to organize a military funeral for him.

In, Take This the Sabbath Day, there's a good mixture of drama and comedy.
Bartlett must decide if a man on death row should be executed or pardoned. Josh has to meet with a campaign manger to explain why they cut funding to her candidate but the night before he goes to a bachelor party and ends up snoring on his office floor where his assistant Donna Moss finds him. His clothes are stained and smelly and Josh is suffering a hang over. Donna takes his clothes to be cleaned before his meeting. Sam was supposed to leave on a fishing trip for the weekend but the issue with pardon came up and he decided to, because of this he has an orange fisherman's outfit in his office, Josh is wearing that, when Joey Lucas comes into his office for the meeting because he clothes didn't come back from the cleaners fast enough.

In, Celestial Navigation, CJ has a root canal and Josh takes over the afternoon briefing. Where he makes more than one mistake. One of them is telling the press the president has a secret plan to fight inflation, then telling the press he doesn't support the president on it. Meanwhile; the White House is trying to get Roberto Mendozza confirmed to the Supreme Court. When he ends up in jail, Sam and Toby have to go to Wesley, Connecticut to get him out, but get lost on the way trying use celestial navigation as their map.
In the season finale cliffhanger of What Kind of Day Has It Been, there is an assassination attempt.

The extras on this DVD are amazing. They really show in depth behind the scenes of how the show is developed.