You're listening to The West Wing Weekly. I'm Rishi K. Shereway.

And I'm Joshua Molina.

And today we're talking about On K, its episode 14 of the fifth season.

It was written by John Wells, directed by Alex Graves, and it first aired on the 18th day of

the second month in the year 2004. The NBC official synopsis and the TV Guide synopsis,

both of them are wrong, I think. The TV Guide one begins, a Navy fighter collides with

the North Korean jet and the US crew is missing. The Warner Brothers official synopsis says,

when five crew members of an airborne thunderciefe are shot down by North Korean jets

near the hostile country, President Bartlett dispatches a Navy SEAL team to retrieve them.

But in both cases, that's not the case.

Well, you know, it speaks to something that did peak my interest, which is why and how did the

crew go down? Yeah, because they only mentioned that I'm aware of in the sit room is that a

mig, a Korean mig was off their wing as close as 10 feet. Here's what General Alexander says.

And E2C Hawkeye was being harassed by two North Korean migs over the Sea of Japan.

The migs had made two non-firing passes, one less than 10 feet off his wing. The crew made it.

And then there's no actual direct indication of what forced them either to eject or why they

went down. And it seems clear that the people in the sit room are concerned about North Korea

becoming aware of these down fighters. So clearly they didn't shoot them down.

Right. They would know that there had been military interaction. The whole thing is a little bit

odd and perhaps intentionally so. Yeah, let me read what the rest of the official synopsis says.

President Bartlett dispatches a Navy SEAL team to retrieve them, prompting Leo to recall his own

harrowing experience when he was downed as a pilot over North Vietnam. Leo's good friend and

...