Designated Survivor

Apparently there is life after 24 as Keifer Sutherland proves with this expensive new ABC pilot. Sutherland plays Tom Kirkman, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who, after an act of terrorism that destroys the Capital Building, kills the President, and most of Congress and the Cabinet, becomes the POTUS.

The pilot had some very predictable elements that were expected from such a premise...of course we have the remaining Cabinet and military personnel trying to keep the country from panicking while simultaneously trying to mask their contempt for the new leader of the country, but I love the way the show looks at the character of Kirkman, a man whose given the ultimate responsibility but the writers keep a very human face on this character through some effective details that we don't see coming...I love the fact that for the majority of the pilot, Kirkman is wearing jeans, a hoodie, and coke bottle glasses and the show really hooked me when, shortly after becoming the President, the pressure on Kirkman is beautifully documented by the guy running into a bathroom and throwing up.

The large cast behind Sutherland is solid, especially Natascha McElhone as his wife (good to see her back on my TV screen, missing since Californication), Maggie Q as a rogue FBI agent, and Kal Penn as a Presidential speech writer. As long as the writing remembers to keep the mystery of what happened to the Capital Building front burner as well as the moves of the new President, this show could really be spectacular. Like the FOX series Pitch, a lot of money is being poured into this show and it's going to have to attract big numbers almost instantly for ABC to keep it on the air.

Episode two was just as compelling as the pilot...we still have a man who may be in over his head and a number of people not willing to let him forget for a minute. From my view, Kirkland (Kiefer Sutherland) appears to be doing everything right but a lot of the people surrounding him aren't really noticing. This episode was brilliantly directed...when Kirkland visited the bomb site, that long shot of the destroyed capital building was shocking. This show is being produced with a lot of care for authenticity as well as dramatic effect and I like that.

The good news is that I watched two episodes of "Designated Survivor", and I like the show a lot. I have a slight problem with trying to remember that Kiefer Sutherland isn't supposed to be Jack Bauer, but I think that will get easier as I watch more episodes.

The bad news is that after we watched the pilot episode, Hubby accidentally started the wrong episode, so we watched episodes 1 and 3, but we accidentally skipped over episode 2, and we didn't realize it until it was too late. So we'll be watching episode 2 out of order some time this weekend.

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OPEN FLOOR.

Something tells me that this is not a show you can watch out of order, LOL!

We watched the second episode tonight, and it wasn't too bad out of order, probably because it's so close to the beginning of the show, but we'll have to try not to do that again.

Just finished episode 3 and it is becoming obvious that Keifer Sutherland is the executive producer of this show because it seems like some of his own political leanings are creeping into the writing, he needs to watch that. Still, a solid show around a central character who doesn't seem to have anyone he can REALLY trust...there are so many places this could go. I will definitely continue watching.