‘The West Wing’ Hall of Fame: “Two Cathedrals”

The Prestige TV Podcast

The Ringer

Tv & Film

4.2 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In honor of the The Ringer’s Best TV Episodes of the Century list, Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney head to the White House to revisit and induct ‘The West Wing’ episode “Two Cathedrals” into the Prestige TV Hall of Fame. (0:00) Intro (3:21) What makes ‘The West Wing’ so special? (6:25) Why is “Two Cathedrals” famous? (30:21) Favorite characters (31:33) Best performance (37:55) Most iconic shot (38:50) Favorite underrecognized detail (40:13) Best moment (44:22) The runner-up pick Check out The Ringer’s list of The 100 Best TV Episodes of the Century! Email us! prestigetv@spotify.com Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Prestige TV Podcast’ and so much more! Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producers: Kai Grady and Donnie Beacham Jr. Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome back for the Prestiach TV podcast.
0:20.7	Me and I'm Joina Robinson. I'm Rob Mahoney. We're here with a very special episode today. Hello, welcome back for the Prestige TV podcast.
0:21.6	Me and I'm Joina Robinson.
0:22.8	I'm Rob Mahoney.
0:25.0	We're here with a very special episode today.
0:29.3	We are talking about a cherished episode of television.
0:33.8	And the reason we're talking about it is you go to the ringer.com right now.
0:34.5	What a great website.
1:00.5	There is an incredible piece or package, as we prefer to call it up on the website right now, called the 100 Best Episodes of the Century. It's an incredible, like if you scroll through it, there are so many bits and pieces to it. There's video elements. There's just like all the bells and whistles are involved. But basically the fine folks who we work with have put together 100 best episodes of basically the last 25 years.
1:02.5	An incredible list.
1:05.1	Do we agree with every single thing on the list?
1:07.7	No, but that's what one of these lists is about, right?
1:09.9	Yeah, and we would never complain about such a thing.
1:11.7	No, that's preposterous.
1:15.2	But we are here to talk about two entries on this.
1:18.6	We're going to talk about one today, and then we're going to hit another one on a different prestige episode.
1:19.3	But basically we were doing like Hall of Fame episodes about two episodes of television that are
1:25.4	on this list.
1:27.0	And we're starting with a show that you and I have
1:31.3	never talked about in any sort of depth. I've attempted to smuggle it into a couple episodes.
1:36.8	Because it's a cherished show for you. Truly. My heart is full at the possibility of discussing
1:43.8	the West Wing with you today, Joe.
	...

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