Has Anybody Seen This Gal?
Well I was hoping someone else watched this - after all, with "House, MD" on hiatus, what else is there? - but I kinda liked "Commander-In-Chief".
Liked it? Heck, I may have to start setting the VCR when "House" returns for one of those watch one/tape one showdowns.
I only caught a few minutes of the series debut, but I was glued to the set for the following episode.
Now I've never watched "West Wing" or "24" or "Prison Break" so I don't know how this stacks up against those other Presidential shows. And it's been a long time since I watched "Mr. President" (early Fox sit-com) or that show where Delta Burke was the first lady.
So without any precedents to provide easy comparisons, I have to judge "Commander-In-Chief" on its own merits.
I found it to be of exceptional quality. If it hadn't been a TV Series, I think it was riviting enough that it would have made an excellent film. Especially with a cast including Geena Davis, Donald Sutherland, Mary Page Keller (as the out-bound former first lady), Nastasha Henstridge, Peter Coyote and a few others whose faces I recognized but couldn't connect with names. But as good a film as there was to be made here, I expect they have too much area to cover with this premise than a single film or even a TV mini-series could cover. (Though it might have made an interesting HBO or Showtime series.)
It would be disingenious to ignore the novelty of the series core premise: Geena Davis becomes the first female US President.
Of course it's the shows _other_ high concept that really skews it into the realm of fantasy: Her character is a political independent stunt-appointed as a vice presidential candidate to balance a Republican ticket. When her President dies, she steps into the job. With the knowledge that a third party candidate has no chance of re-election, she is totally free to spend two years in the Oval Office with only one priority; do what's best for the nation. (One wonders how they plan to deal with that limitation just in case the series runs more than two or three years.)
One of her first major acts is to appoint a vice-president. Although in office on a Republican ticket, she choses a Democrat and war hero for her second in command, based on what she describes as the "going with the best man for the job plan".
Actually, if a comparison need be made, the political outsider serving her ideals and striving to do what's best without political considerations of obligations might remind one of the Robert Redford classic "The Candidate". (Or maybe "Dave".)
The creators of this series have stated that they are all huge fans of "West Wing" and intend to try very hard not to clone that series. One of their first choices is to place more emphasis on the domestic side of her life, as a wife and mother of three.
One wonders how the feminists attracted to a series about a first woman president will react to her being President first but "Mom" a very close second. Move aside Lynette Scavo, if there's ever been a story about a 'working mother' "trying to have it all", this is it.
Emphasizing the family component is not unique among televison shows. I've noticed, reading the comments on "Medium" at the Jump The Shark web site, that a lot of people seem to hate her husband and their constant irritable squabbling. They clearly don't get that the domestic component of her life is an essential component of the shows formula and without it she'd just be a generic super-hero sans tights, or a cop show with a supernatural gimmick.
I enjoyed the 'lost diary' subplot: it was a clever way of quickly introducing the kids and their interrelationships, and clearly showed the stress placed on the 'first family". If you ever kept a diary, imagine the humiliation of trying to reconstruct, from memory, its contents so the US Secret Service can determine if it contains any information that might prove damaging to your mother - and then discovering the absent volume was in your little sister's possession the whole time. (That's cute and horrifying at the same time.)
One thought among many tugged at my mind. Will a show about an idealistic president who wants to do what's good be seen as criticism of the current real life US President and his fluctuating approval rating? Actually, my conclusion was no.
President Mackenzie Allen has her fiercely dedicated loyal supporters and her vicious detractors and conniving and outspoken political foes. There are those who question her qualifications and subject her to brutal and often ungrounded criticisms. Through it all she does what she believes to be right, allowing her morality to serve as her compass.
Whether there's a political metaphor to be seen there or not may depend on how you feel about the Oval Office's current occupant.
I'd still like to know what anyone else thought about this show, especially any fans of that show it will inevitably be compared to...
= Napoleon =
Liked it? Heck, I may have to start setting the VCR when "House" returns for one of those watch one/tape one showdowns.
I only caught a few minutes of the series debut, but I was glued to the set for the following episode.
Now I've never watched "West Wing" or "24" or "Prison Break" so I don't know how this stacks up against those other Presidential shows. And it's been a long time since I watched "Mr. President" (early Fox sit-com) or that show where Delta Burke was the first lady.
So without any precedents to provide easy comparisons, I have to judge "Commander-In-Chief" on its own merits.
I found it to be of exceptional quality. If it hadn't been a TV Series, I think it was riviting enough that it would have made an excellent film. Especially with a cast including Geena Davis, Donald Sutherland, Mary Page Keller (as the out-bound former first lady), Nastasha Henstridge, Peter Coyote and a few others whose faces I recognized but couldn't connect with names. But as good a film as there was to be made here, I expect they have too much area to cover with this premise than a single film or even a TV mini-series could cover. (Though it might have made an interesting HBO or Showtime series.)
It would be disingenious to ignore the novelty of the series core premise: Geena Davis becomes the first female US President.
Of course it's the shows _other_ high concept that really skews it into the realm of fantasy: Her character is a political independent stunt-appointed as a vice presidential candidate to balance a Republican ticket. When her President dies, she steps into the job. With the knowledge that a third party candidate has no chance of re-election, she is totally free to spend two years in the Oval Office with only one priority; do what's best for the nation. (One wonders how they plan to deal with that limitation just in case the series runs more than two or three years.)
One of her first major acts is to appoint a vice-president. Although in office on a Republican ticket, she choses a Democrat and war hero for her second in command, based on what she describes as the "going with the best man for the job plan".
Actually, if a comparison need be made, the political outsider serving her ideals and striving to do what's best without political considerations of obligations might remind one of the Robert Redford classic "The Candidate". (Or maybe "Dave".)
The creators of this series have stated that they are all huge fans of "West Wing" and intend to try very hard not to clone that series. One of their first choices is to place more emphasis on the domestic side of her life, as a wife and mother of three.
One wonders how the feminists attracted to a series about a first woman president will react to her being President first but "Mom" a very close second. Move aside Lynette Scavo, if there's ever been a story about a 'working mother' "trying to have it all", this is it.
Emphasizing the family component is not unique among televison shows. I've noticed, reading the comments on "Medium" at the Jump The Shark web site, that a lot of people seem to hate her husband and their constant irritable squabbling. They clearly don't get that the domestic component of her life is an essential component of the shows formula and without it she'd just be a generic super-hero sans tights, or a cop show with a supernatural gimmick.
I enjoyed the 'lost diary' subplot: it was a clever way of quickly introducing the kids and their interrelationships, and clearly showed the stress placed on the 'first family". If you ever kept a diary, imagine the humiliation of trying to reconstruct, from memory, its contents so the US Secret Service can determine if it contains any information that might prove damaging to your mother - and then discovering the absent volume was in your little sister's possession the whole time. (That's cute and horrifying at the same time.)
One thought among many tugged at my mind. Will a show about an idealistic president who wants to do what's good be seen as criticism of the current real life US President and his fluctuating approval rating? Actually, my conclusion was no.
President Mackenzie Allen has her fiercely dedicated loyal supporters and her vicious detractors and conniving and outspoken political foes. There are those who question her qualifications and subject her to brutal and often ungrounded criticisms. Through it all she does what she believes to be right, allowing her morality to serve as her compass.
Whether there's a political metaphor to be seen there or not may depend on how you feel about the Oval Office's current occupant.
I'd still like to know what anyone else thought about this show, especially any fans of that show it will inevitably be compared to...
= Napoleon =
posted by Napoleon Park at 6:14 PM
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