There is sex in this administration, but it is more idiotic than anything we heard about during the Lewinsky scandal. The episode starts with Rob Lowe, as Sam Seaborn, the deputy communications director, sitting in a bar with a male journalist. A woman keeps eyeing him. ''I never know if they're looking or not,'' he says, almost innocently. Sure. That slick line is a nice touch, but if Seaborn is supposed to be the administration's primary spinner, why is he stupid enough to sleep with the woman without realizing she's a hooker, then walk off with her pager instead of his own? That first scene seems to exist so Seaborn can explain a pager message that Potus has been in a bicycle accident. Potus is not a friend's name but a title, he explains. With a self-importance and clunkiness typical of the show, Seaborn turns in the doorway with a dramatic pause as he leaves the woman's apartment and says, ''President of the United States.''

Back at the White House, several other promising plots kick in. Cuban refugees are heading toward Miami. When Seaborn makes a naive comment about the situation, his balding, irascible boss, the communications director, Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff), says, ''Mind-boggling to me that we ever won an election.'' The press secretary, C. J. Gregg (Allison Janney), has to keep journalists from laughing at the President for running into a tree on his bike.

Mr. Lowe is charming, but he and the other actors are often saddled with plot summaries masquerading as dialogue. ''Please believe me when I tell you that I'm a nice guy having a bad day,'' Seaborn tells a visitor, launching into a litany that reminds viewers (duh, dumb us) about all the stories in motion.

Bradley Whitford is especially vivid as Josh Lyman, the deputy chief of staff, who may lose his job over a comment he made on a talk show. ''Lady, the God you pray to is too busy being indicted for tax fraud,'' he tells a woman from the religious right. In a peacemaking meeting between the White House staff and the outraged religious leaders, it is possible to see the seeds of the textured, absorbing series ''The West Wing'' might have been and might still become. Who will make what political compromises to save a piece of legislation or to save his own job?

But in the middle of this meeting, Martin Sheen enters as the President and ''The West Wing'' falls apart. His first words, in answer to a question about one of the Ten Commandments, are, ''I am the Lord your God.'' The entrance is meant to be sly but the character is written and played for maximum hokiness and cracker-barrel wisdom. When the President praises the Cuban refugees, the camera moves in for his close-up as he intones, ''With the clothes on their backs they came through a storm,'' seeming less like a 90's President than an actor auditioning to play Abe Lincoln.