‘West Wing’ retrospective axed

As recently as last week, NBC promised that for one hour this Sunday, we could watch as “the cast of the Emmy Award-winning ‘West Wing’ pauses to reflect on the evocative drama’s seven years on NBC with a retrospective of many emotional and touching scenes that made the [Bartlet] administration come alive to millions of Americans.”

But as NBC learned the hard way, some cast members of “The West Wing” don’t cough up an hour of “emotional” and “touching” for nothing. Not even for cheap.

Turns out, playing themselves reminiscing about their years on the show as role models for millions around the world is not included in their contracts. Those appearances have to be negotiated separately.

Some cast members let it be known that an hour’s worth of emotional and touching pausing and reflecting was going to cost NBC and Warner Bros. TV.

Too much, it appears, for a retrospective on a now low-rated show, especially when the clip job was going to air on a Sunday in May at 7 p.m. -- when the HUT (homes using television) level is low.

And so, NBC decided it will not broadcast, as it had promised, a “West Wing” retrospective that will lead into the critically heralded show’s very last episode.

Instead, at 7 Sunday night, NBC will rebroadcast the show’s first episode, in which the band of thespian mercenaries is introduced to an unsuspecting public.

When NBC initially aired the pilot episode, in the fall of 1999, it clocked an average of 17 million viewers.