While on maternity leave, I became shamefully addicted to reruns of The West Wing, which airs on Bravo every weekday morning for two hours. Ah, the Hollywood president! The rapid-fire dialogue and instant recall of the most arcane statistics. The improbably hot DC wonks. I was intoxicated (and still am, it must be said).

Two senior industry people have confessed to me that they, too, have recently spent an unhealthy amount of time with the show, which went off the air ...