New political drama, coming up on the end of the first season (already been renewed for second). After The Good Wife and The Good Fight I trusted ABC to get this kind of show right and I was not disappointed.

Premise: the Capitol Building gets blown up during the State of the Union. Designated Survivor, HUD Secretary Tom Kirkman becomes President and has to sort out the mess after the government is wiped out.

It doesn't wait to get into the good stuff and keeps challenging the HUD Secretary turned POTUS. Episodic plots play well screentime-wise with the overarching plot, which at this point looks like it'll be a multi-season affair.

Now, I think the show leans a bit too much towards happy endings, feel-good atmosphere, but the actors sell it. I really like Kiefer Sutherland as the President here and Kal Penn is my favorite of the supporting cast. Maggie Q plays an FBI agent and though I like her acting less than the others, her character does a lot of interesting stuff. I've also really enjoyed the development of Virginia Madsen's character.

I'm enjoying this show a lot, though to be honest a lot of my enthusiasm has to do with the disappointing imo 5th season of House of Cards. Designated Survivor is a good palate cleanser after the cutthroats that populate HoC.

I'd say it sits kinda between The West Wing and Scandal on the slider of White House dramas. Give it a shot. 4/5 so far.

EDIT: it's available on Netflix.

 

I watched the first few episodes of this when it first came out and for the life of me I couldn't tell you what happened in them. But as a fan of West Wing I'm still interested in this. So was it a case of a slow start, or a case of if I didn't like it then won't like it now?

 

I watched the first few episodes as they were airing, and it was pretty good. Haven't kept up after I moved though.

 

I wanted to like this, I really did. The premise is interesting, and Kiefer Sutherland is fun. Unfortunately, the execution left a lot to be desired. There are so many legitimate and realistic difficulties that could arise from that situation, and instead they do things like have the Governors try and strongarm the sitting President. Congress remaining functionally empty for far too long, when many states have provisions for Governor appointed Congressmen/Senators or special elections in the case of death. All of the drama surrounding the Congressman at the start was horribly contrived, as was the drama over the military strike. I got half a dozen episodes in, if I recall correctly? Basically, the best twenty minutes of the show are the first twenty minutes. Everything after left me disappointed, and I ended up dropping it despite my enthusiasm for the premise and the cast.

 

What a terrible show. Everyone forgot to take their chronic backstabbing syndrome pills and there's suddenly no such thing as a rally round the flag effect.

 

I suppose my lack of familiarity with the workings of the US government allows me to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy the show.

 

Same here. From episode one, I knew this would probably play fast and loose with some rules in favor of entertainment value. I'm not disappointed by the result; in fact, I've been loving the whole thing. They are not shying away from real conflict and Kirkman's learning on the fly has been pretty well done. The whole premise...imagine that a guy is elevated to the most powerful political position...and he's not a politician at all. He's actually the kind of guy who wants everyone to get along and a genuinely good man.

He's adapting to the political game, but not suddenly reaching Frank Underwood levels of deception and trickery. To his core, he remains the same, only sharper and warier. It's not like someone can just shift their general worldview on the drop of a hat (most of the time), and an overly paranoid man would miss plenty of opportunities, thus I think they reached a good balance with him. And we also dodged a few bullets, like too much focus on Kirkman's family, especially on his son.

 

It's as if the writers decided that all politics was bad House of Cards politics, with not a shred of love for country or fellow man involved. Nobody felt real in the show, just terrible caracatures designed for maximum conflict

 

Oh, I agree with you in part. The logical and even morally right decision would be for everyone to stop acting like self-interested dicks, unite and strive for the recovery of the country.

Yeah, not happening. Power vacuums tend to attract power grabbers, and it was open season on Kirkman at first. Outside people taking a few shots here and there, pushing like the Iranians did to see where the line was drawn, insiders wanting him out because, basically, a newbie had wormed his way to fucking President of United States and the big conspiracy that was so entrenched within the government that they could blow up the Capitol and beyond. Let's not forget the crisis itself either, since it's the exact kind of event that invites extremism and stupid decisions like the Governor's.

Not exactly a trust nurturing environment. And even like this Kirkman manages to build a circle of trust, and not everything is what it seems to be at first glance (I'm guessing that you stopped watching early).

 

Except we've had disaster before, and it's been well documented that people come together. Often to make boneheaded decisions, but it doesn't trigger the power grabbing reflex; that's what rally round the flag is all about! After Reagan got shot it was "we're all Republicans today." After 9/11 it wasn't immediately Loose Change, it was AMERICANS TOGETHER.

People will cling harder to the existing power structures. They don't immediately go into undermine mode. The Iranians aren't going to push, they're going to send condolences and not risk looking like they're taking advantage of a situation everyone else in the world will pounce on them for.

The show out-cynicaled House of Cards. That's not a good thing.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. Where I'm from, politics and self-interest walk very closely together so it's not hard at all to picture the scenarios I described. Also, I never said everyone goes power-grabbing, but you have to admit that amongst the upper echelon of any government, it's likely that there are more social alpinists than in any other place in the country. A few of them are bound to test the waters so to speak.

Regarding public approval, Kirkman's is pretty high as a matter of fact. The people like him, even with his lack of experience. If you go by the numbers, he has more supporters than critics but, hidden within both of them, are people with unknown - possibly dangerous - motives and allegiances. Well, it's a political drama, so that's a given.

And you forget that crises are unpredictable. This time the blow was stronger than any other in USA's history. You just can't predict the results, the whole thing is unprecedented and absurd. In real life, it could go as you said, or it could not. I don't have a solid opinion, the American context is kind of foreign to me.

So, I sit back and enjoy the show.

 

Honestly...the fact we didn't bomb the hell out of the Middle East in the first few episodes broke my suspension of disbelief.

 

It has an interesting premise as already said and at least 2 quality actors. But it has an awful script, focused on family by committee crap and has this US "establishment" pseudo liberal agenda.

 

Interesting concept and overall story. Not enough focus on the politics and actual re-build, far too much focus on the conspiracy, and at least 75% of the dialogue is just fuckinggodawful. And yet, I keep watching.

 

Started it recently after House of cards left me so terrible disappionted that I had to stop mid season 2.
This was a lot more to my taste, while the overall arcs aren't nearly as good designated survivor didn't had so many characters I gave not a single shit about.
I don't know how much of it is realistic given that my knowledge of american politics is limited but I liked the political ever present turmoil.

 

Relevant bump. Season 2 premiere was aired on ABC Sept 27th and Netflix says new episodes are coming tomorrow. Will be watching.