The Wake Up Call
Encyclopedia
Plot
The episode opens with the President listening to opera in the Oval Office and C.J.C. J. Cregg
Claudia Jean "C. J." Cregg is a fictional character played by Allison Janney on the television serial drama The West Wing. From the beginning of the series until the sixth season, she is White House Press Secretary in the administration of President Josiah Bartlet...
tells the President to go to bed by 8:30pm and gets Margaret to move his morning wake up call to later in the morning.
When a British passenger aircraft is accidentally shot down over Iran, causing an international crisis, C.J. tries to handle the crisis without waking the President; as a result, she is caught in the middle of a battle between the President and the First Lady over how much to let Bartlet's MS affect his schedule. The situation is made worse when the First Lady appeals to Kate Harper, leaving Kate confused about where the First Lady is in the White House "chain of command."
Lord John Marbury makes an appearance as the British Ambassador by initially calling out "Gerald" in the halls of the White House looking for Leo; he expresses the doubt of the British Prime Minister in trusting the Iranians.
C.J. comes up with a diplomatic solution that the President goes with, but the two clash over his treatment of her in front of other White House staff.
Because of the precise wording of Toby's press statement (referring to the efforts of "the White House" as opposed to the efforts of "the President") a Washington Post reporter correctly intuits that the President's wake-up call was delayed, and starts demanding a look at the "tick tock," a document specifying the details of the President's schedule; Annabeth distracts the reporter by introducing him to Miss World
Miss World
The Miss World pageant is the oldest surviving major international beauty pageant. It was created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951...
from Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
, who had been scheduled to meet with C.J. and Toby as previously Leo had met with the Miss World winners.
Meanwhile, Toby and constitutional scholar Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
(played by Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He is best known for playing Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, and Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He played Reverend Jim Ignatowski in the television series Taxi and more...
) work with Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
ian diplomats on a new constitution. Toby insists the US constitution is an unwise starting point, since former dictatorships like Belarus would be vulnerable to a strong executive branch that would result from a U.S. model, but Lessig explains that the point of starting with the U.S. Constitution is to focus on the document's values rather than its details.
The episode ends with Abby and the President arguing in the Oval Office over his MS and his schedule and C.J. overhears the details in her office.