Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Carla Gugino, James Wolk, Sebastian Shaw, Brittany Ishibashi, Ellen Burstyn, Ciarán Hinds
Creator: Greg Berlanti
Genre: Drama, Miniseries
Rating: B
I'm a bit undecided about this show. On the one hand, I really enjoyed it and found it fun, but on the other hand if that's how it ended I'm going to be really annoyed. The entire season/series is really well written (albeit a bit soap opera-y), but the problems aren't wrapped up in the end. If this was intended to be a mini-series then it's annoying that there isn't any real resolution in the end - if you know your show is only going to last for six hours then wrap the plot up at the end of that six hours. If the show wasn't meant to simply be a mini-series and happened to be cancelled then that just sucks but I'll forgive Berlanti and Mark. That being said though, I really hope there's a second season.
Sigourney Weaver is Elaine Barrish; former US First Lady, ex-wife to former President Bud Hammond (Hinds), and Secretary of State to the current President Paul Garcetti (Adrian Pasdar), and mother of two, Douglas (Wolk) and TJ (Shaw). After leaving the White House Elaine ran for the Democratic nomination for president and lost out to Garcetti; now two years later, after divorcing her husband and being a very successful Secretary of State Elaine has decided to run for the Democratic nomination for president again; the show follows her and her family in the very short period after she makes this decision. Her family is one of controversy; Bud is a womanizer, TJ a promiscuous, gay, drug addict, and her mother (Burstyn) an alcoholic and former Vegas showgirl. The only one who appears to have it together, beyond her, is Douglas, her chief of staff, although even he and his fiance Anne Ogami (Ishibashi) have their share of secrets. Looking into these secrets, and the family at large, is Washington Globe reporter Susan Berg (Gugino).
I really liked the characters of this show. The core is the family and Susan, and each individual has really good characteristics as well as really bad characteristics. Even when the plot ideas might be a bit stale the way that they do it is still enjoyable. My favourite character by far is Margaret Barrish, Elaina's mother. She's just such a gem. She seems to understand the other characters the best, and has this nice eccentric way about her. She's totally the cookie grandmother. I love it. My second favourite would be TJ, who I was rooting for the entire time. I don't usually root for the character on drugs, so that says something.
As for the politics... honestly, I don't really have the best understanding of the American political system. I never have, and not being American I don't see all that much of a need to understand it. As such, I can't really comment on how the show portrayed the situation there, although I do have to say as an outsider it looked believable. I bought into most of it although I do kind of question how far some issues went. I liked the idea of Elaine being somewhat of a backstabber and the way that they tried to approach it - I thought they nicely handled both her being politically ambitious and also trying to do the best for her country. I also loved the way she paired off with the current president - Adrian Pasdar, by the way, was amazing - and the other members of his administration. Overall, I thought it was really well done and I really hope that it gets a second season because, as I already mentioned, it didn't feel like it ended.
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