Hail to the chief!

NBC's "The West Wing" has accomplished the impossible this season. It's made me an obsessed fan — again.

Despite the fact that I have to watch every new show at least a few times, there are certain shows that I go out of my way to watch every week. And, despite the fact that there are not enough TV-watching hours in the day if you're a TV critic, I'm a pretty loyal fan of shows that I like. They have to get really bad for me to give up on them altogether.

Or, at least, really boring.

Like most critics, I adored "The West Wing" when it began. I clearly recall a set visit/interview session during the TV critics press tour midway through the first season of the show that was astonishingly like a "Star Trek" convention — a room full of fans who had obviously seen every episode and were asking questions about sometimes minute details of plot and character development.

There was some grumbling (including from me) over the first three seasons. The assassination attempt, the killing of C.J.'s Secret Service agent/boyfriend, the way the president's MS diagnosis played out . . . but then no show is perfect.

By season 4, however, the grumbling had turned to disdain in many quarters. Quite frankly, when President Bartlet's (Martin Sheen) daughter was kidnapped by terrorists and he turned the government over to the Speaker of the House (a member of the opposing party), "The West Wing" had nearly fallen into the category of bad soap opera.

And by last season there were a lot of weeks when I would forget "The West Wing" was on. And, thus, forget to set my VCR to tape it. And not feel like I'd missed anything.

Usually, when I give up on a show, that's it for me. But I came back to "The West Wing," and I'm glad I did.

The current season didn't start off with any great promise, although it took a couple of episodes to clean up the mess left at the end of last season. (Donna as a bombing victim — more soap opera.) But the addition of Jimmy Smits in the fourth episode as congressman/presidential candidate Matthew Santos brought a spark "West Wing" had long lacked.

This faux presidential campaign has been far more interesting than the real one last year. And, unlike so many real-life campaigns where so many voters are choosing between the lesser of two perceived evils, the upcoming "West Wing" general election promises to be tough on viewers for the opposite reason — both Santos and the already-nominated GOP contender, Sen. Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda), are guys you actually want to vote for.