A flight of fancy (or another boring West Wing rant)

[avevale_intelligencer]

SOREN'S QUARTERS on the homeship. SOREN is looking through an old coup file.
ZANDER pops his head round the door.
ZANDER: Walk with me, would you?
SOREN: Okay.
SOREN gets up and joins ZANDER in the corridor. They start walking.
ZANDER: So, there's this writer.
SOREN: Okay.
ZANDER: He's good. Won some awards. Two major motion pictures behind him, some staff work, a TV series. Won awards.
SOREN: He's got some game.
ZANDER looks at SOREN oddly.
ZANDER: Yeah. (beat) So this writer decides, or is persuaded, to write a TV show about politics in his country. About the president and his staff.
They emerge into a REC AREA. Some tables and chairs, a few NYRONDS including GRENDEL sitting around eating or working, maybe one asleep in an armchair.
GRENDEL: Zander, I need the notes on the thing for the thing.
ZANDER: I have no idea what you're talking about.
GRENDEL: Okay.
ZANDER and SOREN leave the REC AREA and move into another CORRIDOR.
ZANDER: It starts out well. He's writing from his heart and his heart's on his sleeve.
SOREN: Handy for the pen. (beat) I'm just saying. Go on.
ZANDER: Then something happens. A change of government in his country. The new president is politically opposed to the one he's writing, and his authority to govern is--
SOREN: Murky at best?
ZANDER: Exactly. The fictional president is doing a lot better than the real one.
SOREN: Tricky.
ZANDER: Now suppose you're this writer. You're a high-profile celebrity in your field, admired by the critics, running a show that's topping ratings, set to be truly great. What is the one thing you do not do?
SOREN: Enlighten me.
They go down a FLIGHT OF STAIRS.
ZANDER: You do not touch down at an airport in beautiful downtown wherever with three different kinds of drugs in your luggage.
SOREN: Okay.
ZANDER: I mean you may be dumb, but you're not that dumb.
They round a corner and start up another FLIGHT OF STAIRS.
SOREN: So what happened?
ZANDER: He pleaded guilty, went to rehab, did his sentence.
SOREN: No, I mean--
The FLIGHT OF STAIRS stops abruptly in mid-air, but SOREN hasn't noticed. ZANDER looks down.
SOREN: (from below) I'm all right.
They're back on the level, still walking.
SOREN: So what do you think happened?
CLOSE UP on ZANDER's haunted face.
FADE to a FLASHBACK, in black and white. The WRITER is sitting at a table in a dingy, smoky room, surrounded by MEN IN SUITS. We don't see their faces.
VOICE: Here's what's gonna happen. You cop to this, go to rehab, take whatever pansy-ass sentence they hand down.
WRITER: What else?
VOICE: Take the shine off this president of yours. Make him a little more...realistic. He's embarrassing the administration. (little laugh) It'll add some drama.
WRITER: And if I don't?
VOICE: You're a creative type. Use your imagination.
FADE back to ZANDER and SOREN, still walking down another corridor.
ZANDER: Over the next year, the tone of the series starts to change. Things go badly for no apparent reason. The president is forced into an illegal act that as originally conceived he would never have contemplated.
SOREN: Is that enough for them?
ZANDER: Evidently not. Pressure continues to be exerted, possibly through the network. One of the principal actors leaves during the next year, and then the writer himself decides to quit, for reasons which are never made clear, along with one of the executive producers.
SOREN: But the show goes on?
ZANDER: Oh yes. It's still very successful. He created an enduringly popular format and the work being done on it is of the finest. But after his departure, the changes go right on happening.
ZANDER and SOREN emerge through a different door into the same REC AREA. ZANDER picks up some papers from a table and hands them to GRENDEL.
GRENDEL: (startled) Thanks.
ZANDER and SOREN walk on into the CORRIDOR they first started in.
ZANDER: Now, the president's staff aren't the people saying and doing the right things. Other people are having to tell them what's right. More actions out of character, culminating in a decision that is so obviously a no-brainer that--
SOREN: And the president goes the wrong way.
ZANDER: No, he goes the right way, against the urging of all his staff. It's strongly marked as a wrong decision.
SOREN: We just passed my quarters.
ZANDER: Did we? Sorry.
SOREN: I was following you.
They turn round and retrace their steps to SOREN's door.
SOREN: Is that how it ends?
ZANDER: Not quite. One more disastrously wrong decision removes a character who more than anyone else has been the president's conscience. It doesn't matter much by then, because he's in his last months in the job, but the mission has been accomplished. The integrity of almost everyone on his staff has been compromised, as well as his own. He's not the president we started with. He's no longer an example of a good man in a position of power. Just an ordinary one.
SOREN: Power corrupts.
ZANDER: Only if you let it. Or if you're forced to it. I don't think "power corrupts" was the message of this show. Not at the start.
SOREN: But all this is hypothetical, right?
ZANDER suddenly looks very tired.
ZANDER: Oh, absolutely. I mean, what kind of government would be so paranoid as to interfere with a TV show?
SOREN: Then what was the point of all this?
ZANDER: I just had to get it out of my system.
He smiles suddenly.
ZANDER: Anyway, exercise is good for you. I feel so much better.
He takes a deep breath. His eyes cross slightly, and he keels over backwards.