This is interesting: according to this press release, NBC will not be showing a West Wing retrospective before the final episode airs on May 14. Instead, they will rerun the show's 1999 pilot episode. Remember, this was back in those heady days when a) the U.S. still had a Democratic president, b) we were in that odd period after the Cold War and before the War on Terror, so the country wasn't as keen on what was going on politics-wise, and c) Rob Lowe was actually considered the star of The West Wing.

What I remember from that episode is when Lowe's character Sam Seaborn is with a hooker (played by Lisa Edelstein of House!) and his pager goes off. "What's POTUS mean?" she asks. Seaborn juts his jaw and says, semi-proudly, "That's the President of the United States." Ahhhh, memories. What a difference seven years makes, huh?

[via The Futon Critic]