Once again, as with the other episodes in this first season after the departures of Sorkin and Schlamme, the writing, including the stories themselves but especially the dialogue, comes close to parody of what the real The West Wing is. Every line of dialogue is overwrought, as though written by committee in which they're all trying to mimic Sorkin. The problem is, of course, that Sorkin's dialogue is cohesive and authentically brilliant. This stuff in the 5th season seems to come from people who read 2 or 3 newspapers on Monday, then wrote stories and dialogue by Friday. Depth is gone, after Sorkin and Schlamme left. It's important to note that in addition to story lines becoming pedestrian - typical TV soap opera dramas - direction similarly becomes a sad combination of wannabe plus film school pretension.
Review of Constituency of One
