Why Aaron Sorkin Left The West Wing

In 2003, creator and showrunner Aaron Sorkin abruptly left his acclaimed and award-winning NBC political drama series "The West Wing"  after overseeing it for four seasons. At the time, the show's ratings were comparatively low and there was talk of production and budget issues. Be that as it may, Sorkin still had a year left in his contract, and NBC would have welcomed him to continue, so the decision may have seemed surprising to some.

In a 2005 interview with Jay Rayner of The Guardian, Sorkin opened up on his departure from "The West Wing." One of the things he mentioned was a new contract, which changed his earnings — formerly tied to the show's success — into a flat rate:

"There was no longer a strong incentive to make it good, just efficiently, and I'm not the guy for that."

Another contributing factor Sorkin named was the major change in political status quo, especially in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks:

"'After 9/11, we all went out of our f****** minds, understandably. Suddenly, our fictional president and his charming, wise-cracking staff weren't nearly as charming any more. Suddenly, their little problems — rolling back a tax credit, writing a speech — all of these were in bad taste. We couldn't root for fictional heroes any more because there were so many real heroes."

"The West Wing" started running in the late stages of Bill Clinton's presidency, which offered a clear juxtaposition with the actions of the show's fictional Democrat President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his administration. However, Sorkin isn't alone in thinking that 9/11 affected the show tremendously. In fact, in the wake of Sorkin's departure from the series, one unnamed executive told The New York Times that trying to keep the show going took a heavy toll on the showrunner, to the point that it was understandable that he chose to quit:

”No show on television was more affected by the changes wrought by 9/11. It's been a challenge for Aaron to work with the changed zeitgeist. He's a brilliant guy and incredibly gifted, but he's also very sensitive. The falling ratings did upset him. He's been under a tremendous amount of stress. This move makes a lot of sense for him.”

Interestingly, Sorkin didn't originally even intend to create the show. The multi-hyphenate has admitted "The West Wing" happened entirely by accident after he inadvertently pitched the series to TV producer John Wells during a lunch meeting. When you couple this with the increasing challenges and waning incentives, it's indeed no surprise that he chose to leave the show behind.

Though he already had the scripts for films like 1992's "A Few Good Men," 1993's "Malice," and 1995's "The American President" under his screenwriting belt, some of Aaron Sorkin's best movies (including 2010's "The Social Network," for which he won an Oscar) were still ahead of him when he quit "The West Wing." Indeed, the show definitely lost some of its secret sauce when he lent his creative juice to other projects. As /Film's ranking of every season of "The West Wing" illustrates, the three seasons after Sorkin's departure are noticeably worse than the four he was involved with.