Requiem for The West Wing

After coming up for nearly two years, I have just watched the final episode of The West Wing. I've dedicated approximately 150 hours, spent time with the characters, learned about incredible TV writing (from Aaron Sorkin), laughed, cried, understood what the Electoral College is...

... and all I can say is: wow. Brief lull in the fifth series, where the lack of Aaron's writing really showed (he wrote the first four "Emmy winning" seasons single-handedly) but it picked up again in season six.

A (wise and US-TV obsessed) friend said to me, when he realised I was only in season three, how lucky I was to have it all before me, waiting, for the first time. And it's only now it's over that I understand what he meant.

I'm going to miss all the characters. They really felt real. I'm totally going to miss the weird out-of-context Jewish references (often by not-even-Jewish characters) that I feel like Aaron wrote just for me to spot.

And I feel inspired. To write. To walk-and-talk. To say "what's next" (ironically, of course), and to imagine the lives of the people I got to know (Josh, CJ, Donna) afterwards. That's the power of really good writing: it lights a touchpaper in your imagination.

What's next?