Aaron Sorkin Says Monica Lewinsky Scandal Delayed Season 1 of ‘The West Wing’: ‘There Was a Sense That Everyone’s Going to Roll Their Eyes’

"The West Wing" celebrated its 25th anniversary this past week, but it might've been its 26th if not for a certain Clinton sex scandal.

On September 20, creator Aaron Sorkin, executive producer and director Thomas Schlamme, and some of the cast of “The West Wing,” including the show’s fictional president, Martin Sheen, celebrated the 25th anniversary of their beloved political TV series with a special event at The White House hosted by the First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden. It was part of a reunion lap the show has been having the last few months, both in relation to the upcoming election and the release of “What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to ‘The West Wing'” by co-stars of the show Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack. In reminiscing about the show in a recent interview with The New York Times, Sorkin shared that the timetable for when the show was supposed to be made had to be shifted as a result of a real-life political scandal.

“The pilot was supposed to happen a year earlier than it did, and Monica [Lewinsky] happened, and there was a sense that everyone’s going to roll their eyes, let’s hold off for a year,” said Sorkin. “I wanted it to feel like our world. But I didn’t mention presidents after Eisenhower, maybe even earlier. I didn’t make any pop culture references, because in a world where Britney Spears has the No. 1 hit, Bill Clinton is president. That’s why everybody on the show loved Gilbert and Sullivan.”

Though getting a star like Sheen was a huge deal for the show, Sorkin initially didn’t want to overuse the impact of his presence, instead wishing to focus on the players around the president. However, as soon as they were able to shoot the pilot, Sheen fell in love with the part and wanted to do more, so Sorkin was compelled to oblige.

“I thought, ‘We can’t have a character of the president. He’ll take up all the oxygen in every scene he’s in.’ So how should we do this? Should we just see him once in a while? Should we always just be missing him? I decided he’ll be a guest character. We’ll see him every three, four, five episodes. In the pilot episode, he comes in in the last six minutes,” Sorkin said to The NY Times. “What happened was Martin had a really good time doing the pilot and came to us and said, ‘I’d really like to be in every episode.’ And because I wasn’t entirely confident there were going to be any more episodes, and I didn’t have any ideas for any more episodes, I said, ‘Sure, why not?'”