yesthattom | Last Night's West Wing episode

It's a little known fact that in 1975 the U.S. passed a law requiring TV stations to produce at least one "View the show from a reporter's eye" episode per year. The law went into effect in 1976 and kicked off with the famous episode of M*A*S*H that used this theme. While most such episodes dropped into obscurity some episodes, such as the Babylon 5 episode And Now A Word, became famous for their creative use of this plot vehicle.

This year the rotation moved to NBC to produce the plot line required by law. Unlike other networks that rush the episode through at the end of the year, NBC took the unique tact of producing this episode in March, presumably to get it out of the way.

When compared to other such efforts, entertainment critics report that the West Wing effort was above average, but lacked the innovation of other attempts. For example, the Babylon 5 episode used the piece to move the "story arc" forward, while previously other attempts had merely used it as a filler "slice of life" episode, often as a professed protest against the U.S. government's law which TV producers feel violates their right to creative control.

We hope you enjoyed this week's column. Next week we'll have an exclusive interview with Will Smith where we'll ask him about his new movie "I, Robot" and he'll talk about his feeling toward the 1995 law requiring Hollywood to release a science-fiction blockbuster starring him every other July 4th weekend.

APRIL FOOLS!