In Excelsis Deo

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“In Excelsis Deo”
The West Wing episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 10
Guest stars	Lisa Edelstein Timothy Busfield Paul Austin Janel Moloney Tom Quinn Renee Estevez Raynor Scheine
Written by	Aaron Sorkin & Rick Cleveland
Directed by	Alex Graves
Production no.	225909
Original airdate
Season 1 episodes
Pilot Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc A Proportional Response Five Votes Down The Crackpots and These Women Mr. Willis of Ohio The State Dinner Enemies The Short List In Excelsis Deo Lord John Marbury He Shall, From Time To Time... Take Out The Trash Day Take This Sabbath Day Celestial Navigation 20 Hours In L.A. The White House Pro-Am Six Meetings Before Lunch Let Bartlet Be Bartlet Mandatory Minimums Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics What Kind of Day Has It Been
List of The West Wing episodes

"In Excelsis Deo" is the 10th episode of The West Wing.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

1 Plot
2 Title
3 Controversy
4 Trivia
5 Quotes
6 Emmy Awards
7 Goofs
8 External link

[edit] Plot

Amid Christmas preparations, Toby looks into a homeless person's background, while Danny Concannon and C.J. discuss the possibility of a first date. President Bartlet sneaks out to go shopping at a rare book store and refuses to take photographers along, much to Mandy's chagrin. Meanwhile, Josh--who is worried about Lillienfield coming out against Leo for his drug related past--comes to Sam and proposes using his prostitute friend for leverage against Lillienfield's allies when the time comes, against the strongest objections by Leo himself. Donna pesters Josh about her Christmas gift and while he doesn't follow the list submitted, she is pleasantly surprised.

[edit] Title

The name of the episode comes from the title and beginning of the great doxology (song of praise), Gloria in Excelsis Deo.

[edit] Controversy

This episode was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Script for a Drama Series, to both Aaron Sorkin and Rick Cleveland. However, following the ceremony there was dispute about who originally came up with the idea. Cleveland cited his father, an Korean veteran as inspiration.
In a New York Times article in June 2001, allegations were made that at the ceremony Aaron Sorkin purposefully ignored Cleveland during the acceptance speech and thereby denied him a moment to honour his father. Sorkin replied online by saying the staff wrote the scripts together and rotated the Story By credit. Sorkin claims in that script much of Cleveland's focus was an alternate script regarding the First Lady's cat tripping the alarm with a vague reference to business card in Toby's coat. Sorkin claims he started again and wrote the majority of the episode.
Cleveland came back at Sorkin, directing people to check previous drafts in which he notes story ideas. Sorkin came back, thanking Cleveland for his work and apologizing for implying that Cleveland hadn't contributed. He was however, still upset about how he was protrayed in the New York Times article. Cleveland accepted the apology.

[edit] Trivia

Martin Sheen has commented that in the original script the President was supposed to attend the funeral but it was felt, that it would take away from the power of Toby and Mrs Landingham.

[edit] Quotes

Josh: An hour with you in a rare bookstore? Couldn't you just drop me off the top of the Washington monument instead?
Bartlett: It's Christmas Josh, no reason why we can't do both.

Sam: Just me, some sun tan oil and 655 pages of briefing memos.

CJ: The president is scheduled to leave for New Hampshire tomorrow morning at precisely ten on the dot. Which means he ought to be leaving around noon.

Toby (to homeless man's brother): Your brother fought in Korea!
Brother: Oh, he was always gettin' into fights

[edit] Emmy Awards

Won:

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (recipient: Richard Schiff) (The second submission is unknown.)
Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (recipients: Aaron Sorkin and Rick Cleveland) (Pilot was nominated in the same category.)

Nominated:

Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Series (nominee: Bill Johnson, A.C.E.) (What Kind of Day Has It Been was nominated in the same category.)
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series (nominees: Kenneth B. Ross, Len Schmitz, Dan Hiland and Gary D. Rogers)

[edit] Goofs

Toby seems to say near the end of the episode "I got better treatment at Panmunjeom." This is also reflected in the captions on the DVD. This does not seem to conform to Toby's backstory, as nothing is ever mentioned of military service. Also, earlier in this same episode, Toby explicitly says he was not involved in Korea.

According to captions for the TV version and other sources, the line was supposed to read "[The] Guy got better treatment at Panmunjeom," referring solely to the veteran. It's unknown whether this is a mistake in sound editing or production, a remnant from an earlier script version which was eventually reworked, or a slip on the part of the actor.