Thursday, September 29, 2005

TV Series Premieres Part V (Five, the last, maybe)

Well, this is the last of my series premiere reviews, unless there's something else I feel like watching and writing about. Whew. That was a lot of work.

ABC

Commander in Chief
(Tuesday at 9:00)

Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis; Beetlejuice) is the Vice-President of the USA, an independent, and a woman. This becomes a problem when the Republican President has a stroke and later dies. She is asked to resign by both the President before he dies and by the Speaker of the House, Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland; Animal House) who would then step in as President. Templeton believes that Mac was only given the running mate slot as a campaign gimmick to increase support from women voters, and that her policies would not concur with the former president's. She is about to hand in her resignation when she get a speech from Templeton telling her that it's best that she resign because women just wouldn't be able to do the job. This basically convinces her to take over as President, and sets up the major conflict between her and Templeton.
It seems that this will be underlying plot, with Templeton trying to undermine her authority and prove that she is not capable of handling the responsibility and power that comes with being President. There are also other smaller conflicts with her children and husband. I thought the show was pretty good, though heavy-handed at times with it's agenda. Geena Davis is as usual, good, and Donald Sutherland plays the duplicitous Templeton with appropriate evilness. I wasn't immediately struck with a sense of "this is really good" but it did draw me in and make me want to continue watching. It has a lot of room to explore much of the same territory as The West Wing, but with a different perspective. I like it.

A-

1 comment:

Jay Anderson said...

What about Alias, man?!?! :)