FISHING FOR A JOB: Malina sort of e-mailed himself onto "The West Wing" in the first place. Malina, a longtime friend of the show's creator and former executive producer, Aaron Sorkin (he has acted in previous Sorkin projects like "Sports Night," "A Few Good Men," "The American President" and "Malice"), saw an opening when former West Winger Rob Lowe started making noises about leaving.

"I read that Rob was considering leaving the show . . . and I immediately dashed off an e-mail (to Sorkin), saying, 'I'm just pitching here, but what about somebody who's less attractive and would work for less money,' " Malina said. "And very quickly I got a response saying, 'Let's get together.' "

Shortly thereafter, he signed on for a six-episode stint that turned into a regular job when Lowe left.

BROKEN "WING" ON THE MEND: According to Wells, he still consults with "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin on a regular basis. They have lunch once a month and both Sorkin (who wrote almost every episode for the first four seasons) and Tommy Schlamme, the departed executive producer who created the show's look and style, get all the scripts and see all the cuts of all the episodes.

"We hear from both of them," Wells said. "They're both involved."

Which, in the case of Sorkin, may not be such a good thing. Frankly, what he did to the show made me wonder if Sorkin was deliberately sabotaging "The West Wing" before he left under less-than-happy circumstances.

Frankly, the only way to take "The West Wing" seriously at this point is to sort of ignore what happened at the end of last season.

You may recall that, after his daughter was kidnapped by terrorists, President Bartlet voluntarily gave up power under the terms of the 25th Amendment. Oh, once the crisis was resolved early in this fifth season, he resumed his duties — but, come on, any president who did what he did would have been politically crippled.

Not only did Bartlet turn over power, but — given that he had no vice president at the time (the veep having resigned because of a sex scandal) — the Democratic president turned over power to a Republican Speaker of the House. Which would have crippled Bartlet with his own party as well.

What "The West Wing" had going for it was its sort of parallel-universe reality. Of course it's only a fictional TV show, but the fiction was plausible. This was not.

Of course, neither was Sorkin dreaming up the whole Bartlet-has-multiple-sclerosis-and-lied-about-it scandal, which has also been conveniently ignored, for the most part.

You have to give Wells and his team of writers credit for cleaning up Sorkin's mess. They dealt with the kidnapping and the 25th Amendment question quickly and as reasonably as possible, then moved on. What else could they do? Pretend it was a dream?

Well, it worked for "Dallas."

In the end, "The West Wing" has been a better show this season. Not every episode has been a gem, but the show has at least re-established its foundation in believability.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com