I Like to Watch | Designated Survivor, Season Three
Of all the many things that got me through the eight years of George W. Bush (rage, vitriol, a massive sense that things had gone completely wrong in the country, a belief that Cheney would figure out how to install himself as dictator, the horror of a pre-emotive war that was protested by more people than the Vietnam conflict, and writing about all these things daily) was Martin Sheen, Aaron Sokrin and The West Wing.
President Bartlett and his staff of plucky intellectuals gave me the hope that there actually could be a presidency worth believing in. Each week as they dealt with global and domestic crisis all while handling their soap opera-like personal problems and, through it all, maintaining a sense of pluck and moxie that only they could, I held on to the wavering faith I had in the American system of governance.
Seriously, Sorkin and Co. Gave me the ability to survive those years of the burgeoning Iraq war and the War On Terrrrr. I never missed an episode and bought the DVD box sets when they’d go on sale and rewatch them. Once Obama was elected, I’d rewatch certain episodes and pretend that CJ Craig worked for him and that there was the same walk ‘n talk banter in the Obama White House as there was on my television.
Then came Trump.
Suddenly the rosey vision of a staff of intelligent, liberal-minded political strategists seemed out of date. Quaint, even. I tried watching some episodes during that first year of the Trumpization of America and wondered how Martin Sheen would handle him and his addiction to social media and fast food and locker room talk. It wasn’t the same because even W. Was of the same political universe as Bartlett. Trump represented some bizarre turn down an overgrown forest pathway that wasn’t even a pathway.
When Kiefer Sutherland, no longer the grizzled Right Wing fantasy of Jack Bauer and Hilo’s torture fetish, appeared on ABC as Tom Kirkman, the accidental president in this new show Designated Survivor, I wondered how it might be the Trump antidote, that beacon of hope and faith that Sorkin gave me back in the Dark Ages of the beginnings of the 21st century.
It was not.
The premise was interesting:
As a lower-level cabinet member, Tom Kirkman never imagined something would happen that would catapult him to the oval office. When a devastating attack on the night of the State of the Union address claims the lives of the president and most of the Cabinet, the Housing and Urban Development secretary — who was named the designated survivor in case of such an event — finds himself promoted to leader of the free world. Suddenly thrust into his new position of power, Kirkman struggles to keep the country from dissolving into chaos and must adjust to his new normal, unaware of what fresh horrors may await the United States.
The cast was solid and included Sutherland, Maggie Q, Kal Penn, and some new faces I hadn’t seen before.
But it was just a movie of the week sort of thing. Entertaining on a few levels but not a show that made me feel like it represented an America I either knew or wanted to live in. Domestic terrorists, a few stabs at anti-Alt Right plotting, some political chess-playing. It was fine but nothing worth writing home about. It was cancelled by ABC after two seasons.
But something happened that could only truly happen right now at this time in the ever-changing world of televised and streaming entertainment: Netflix decided to buy and produce a third season.
Designated Survivor, Season Three is something else. Something more. Something deeply complex and almost Greek in its depictions of good people struggling with their flaws on a world stage where what they do and say actually matters to millions of people. Kirkman has survived his first term as an accident and is now actively running, as an Independent, for a second term.
In now seeking the office (and also on Netflix), the character now can curse and struggle with the quest for power and what that does to the soul of an honest man, the show can show pretty steamy sex between two black men, pivot a transgender sister-in-law to the president (played by a transgender actress), deal with assisted suicide, bio-terror used to wipe out populations of color, political ratfucking (watch All the President’s Men if you aren’t familiar with the term) and perhaps the wokest fucking show on television. What makes it truly woke rather than woke for show is that the issues of racial inequity, intolerance, white supremacy and what it may take to beat these things are never answered easily.
Sutherland goes from a simple TV role to really showing some serious acting chops and the supporting cast (including the spectacular Julie White and a grand performance by Anthony Edwards) get to really chew on the raw meat of genuine moral quandary.
This third season didn’t actually make me feel the same kind of naive hope that The West Wing did but it did make feel that there is a path through the fear and despair so many feel with Trump at the helm. The path is not easy and there is no Good and Evil. There is no War on White Supremacy anymore than there is a War Against The Rapidly Roasting Planet. There are just good people out there, warts and all, who believe enough in democracy and the potential of the country to actually give a fuck about how we fight the fights we fight. Sometimes dirty, sometimes ethically, sometimes sidestepping to let the other side trip but always striving to be better than the other side. To have better solutions to the problems.
There will be a life after Trump. The Big Question asked by Designated Survivor, Season Three is: will we be able to look ourselves in the mirror when he’s gone and wonder if we could have fought more cleanly, more ethically, with less hatred? The answers, even on the show, are not readily available but the question remains.
I think it’s an important one.
