This show was so much fun, perfect for a news junkie like me
because every second shot has people in the White House looking at newscasts on
the TV. The number of TVs in the fictional White House is extraordinary, people
seem to stop in the hallway all around the place catching the latest on one
screen or another. Sometimes you get the extremely weird occurrence of you
looking at the TV watching other people watching their TV. If that group of
people were watching another group of people watching TV is would be a quoted
quoted quote.
All highly meta.
The story behind this show is that the State of the Union
address is bombed, half the Capitol Building is destroyed, and the entire government
cabinet, as well as most of the Senate and House of Representatives, Chief of
Staff etc is killed. Keifer Sutherland plays Tom Kirkman who is the “designated
survivor” allocated the job in such an event to become president.
Sutherland is brilliant as the independent Kirkman who must
then go on to win an election despite not having the apparatus of a major
political party behind him. The thing about Kirkman is that he’s a thoroughly
decent guy, sort of like Samuel Richardson’s ‘Sir Charles Grandison’, an 18th
century novel that Jane Austen liked.
The secondary characters including chief of staff (Italia
Ricci), press secretary (Kal Penn), Defense secretary (Adan Canto) and a
designate FBI agent (Maggie Q) are absolutely brilliant assisted by a stunning
script. I just lapped this show up it has everything. In one scene people are
in the White House Hallway watching TV in the next scene FBI agent Hannah Wells
is storming a house in Maryland gun drawn.
Because Penny Kirkman (Mckenna Grace) the daughter is now grown up it would be impossible to have a fourth season but it was great while it lasted, I developed an attachment to all the main characters and will remember the highlights, and certain scenes (like White House staff watching TV in the hallway) as long as I’m alive.
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