The critics don’t like the new West Wing (see here and here), which premieres tonight, minus its creator, Aaron Sorkin.

I saw a preview of the first episode of the season. I suspect political-junkie types and Beltwayers who watched it out of a job-obligation feeling will feel freer to cut their ties now. Based on the first episode, it’s soapy drama, not going too much beyond where the season closer left things in the spring.

I am betting, however, that Stockard Channing automatically gets an Emmy nomination again, for her distraught mother vs. HRC power First Lady schizophrenia, as evidenced in this first episode.