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"If Bartlet's granddaughter, Annie was 12 six years during the pilot of the series, how can she be starting high school the week before The Birnam Wood" takes place?
- Tristan Weir email us to point this out. We do not have an explanation. Are we to think she has been held back in school or has she been so sick she couldn't keep up with her grade level or is she and or us in some kind of time warp? Maybe he was so concentrated on getting these people together that Bartlet misspoke and meant to say, "Annie started her last year of high school last week" and he just left out the words "her last year of".
- Timeline of the years of the Bartlet Administration
At the moment this is preliminary and just off the top of my head. I would appreciate corrections and additions (not to just anything, no matter how important, but to those things that put something into a particular year of the Bartlet Administration):
- Year One:
- January 20: Bartlet inaugurated and gives First State of the Union shortly thereafter.
- August: Bartlet rides bicycle into a tree (#101)
- Christmas: First Christmas in office (#110)
- Year Two:
- May or August: Assassination attempt (#122)
- November: The Midterms (#203)
- Second Thanksgiving (#208)
- Second Christmas (#210)
- Year Three:
- January: Bartlet's Third State of the Union (#213)
- Spring: Bartlet's MS revealed (#219)
- May Sweeps/ Seven Months before Iowa caucus: Mrs. L. killed (#221)
- Shortly thereafter Bartlet starts running seriously for reelection (#301)
- Josh says he has 30 months as Deputy Chief of Staff (#302)
- President took office 33 months ago (#304)
- Year Four:
- January: Fourth Bartlet State of the Union (#311)
- Iowa caucus coming up (#312)
- Five Days after the Iown caucus (#313)
- New Hampshire Primary (#314)
- Six weeks before Presidential Election (#401)
- Presidential Election Debates (#406)
- Presidential Election (#407)
- Year Five:
- January 20: Bartlet inaugurated for a second time (#414 & 415) This absolutely has to be year 5 since the second inauguration cannot happen in any other year --- missing Christmas/year must be after this.
- May: Zoey Graduates (and is kidnapped) (#422)
- Fifth Christmas in office (#509)
- Year Six:
- January: Bartlet's State of the Union (#511)
- A documentary is shot one year into Bartlet's 2nd term (#518)
- Missing Time - Between #414 and 519, maybe between #518 and #519, we have lost several months (maybe almost a year) including:
- A Christmas --- the administration's Sixth.
- And the Midterms that happened during Bartlet's Sixth Year (spoken of in the past tense in #604)
- If, however, Access (#518) is ignored as a source since it was completely wrong about C.J. serving two full terms as White House Press Secretary, then the missing time could be earlier and it is possible the State of the Union Address in #511, may have been his 7th instead of his 6th
- Year Seven:
- Josh tells Donna she is going on a Congressional fact-finding tour to the Middle East (#519)
- May: (near "Memorial Day") Fitwallace killed and Donna wounded in Gaza (#521)
- Late August/Early September: Peace Talks at Camp David with the Israelis and Palestinians and Leo's heart attack. As "LadyHermes" pointed out on Television Without Pity's West Wing forum, this does mean that Josh would have spent more than two months in Germany with Donna. That is difficult to fit in with what we saw but it is the only thing that would fit other things.
- Donna is still recovering from injuries but on crutches now (at least five months since she was injured) when there is a discussion that this is Bartlet's 7th year in office (#605: Will tells Toby: "this administration had seven years to make fuel efficiency a priority." Toby responds with "Seven years of a hostile congress.")
- Mid-Late October: Will says it is three months before the Iowa caucus (normally held in late January or early February of Presidential election years --- someone might round off and call three and a half months, 'three months'). Leo is walking and trying to recover appetite from his by-pass (so it is more than a month after that) (#606)
- Around December 1: Donna is walking without a limp and Leo is visiting the White House so it has been some time since the previous episode (#606)
- In "Impact Winter" it is near Christmas but Leo talks about it still being possible for Josh and his chosen candidate to meet the New Hampshire filing deadline.
- For the 2004 Presidential Election, the New Hamphire primary was January 27th and the filing deadline was in late November. But these dates change each year and one year may be later than another and sometimes the New Hampshire primary is in February so the deadline would be later. Not usually a full month later but maybe.
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