Designated Survivor: New Kiefer Sutherland show

Bobw235

Bobw235

Senior Member
Location
Massachusetts
I watched this last night and really enjoyed it. I think this is going to be on my viewing list this season. Summary here.

Kiefer Sutherland Takes Over The Oval Office As The 'Designated Survivor'

Television used to be careful when it told fictional stories about the presidency. It was bound by a sense of decorum. But things changed forever with the famous commercial for the movie Independence Day that wowed those watching the 1996 Super Bowl by blowing the White House sky high. Ever since, presidents have been fair game. You can portray them as thugs, schemers or murderers — or knock them off to boost ratings.


The latest show to occupy the White House is Designated Survivor, a new ABC series created by David Guggenheim, best-known for writing thrillers like Safe House. To judge from its pilot, the show hopes to capitalize on current anxieties about everything from our divided government to the threat of cataclysmic terrorism.


Kiefer Sutherland stars as Tom Kirkman, a lesser Cabinet member who, on the night of the State of the Union address, has been chosen as, well, the designated survivor. That is, he's the one sequestered away so the U.S. government still has a top official to run things in case of a freakish calamity.


Naturally, the calamity occurs. To Kirkman's horror, an explosion takes out the U.S. Capitol — and everyone above him in the pecking order. Suddenly, this thoughtful liberal must commandeer the Oval Office during a crisis.


Making matters trickier, most White House insiders — from the chief of staff to a presidential speechwriter played by Kal Penn — think he's not up to the job. He is barely sworn in before he is dealing with their machinations, even as he tries to discover whether the terrorist attack came from the outside or within the government. Watching this decent, sober man learn the ropes is a bit like seeing a character from The West Wing be parachuted into an episode of Sutherland's old show, 24.
Click to expand...
 

Sounds interesting, Bob. I'm sure there's a way to for us to view it.
 

Watching now on Netflix. So far it looks really good!!

That was riveting, Bob. Thanks for suggesting it. Husband just happened to turn on Netflix and it was the first show that popped up.
 
Bob, thanks for mentioning that show. I just watched the pilot for free from iTunes, and it looks like it's going to be a great show to watch. We don't have it on Netflix here, but the ABC channel allows free streaming for regular episodes a week or two behind.
 
bluebreezes said:
Bob, thanks for mentioning that show. I just watched the pilot for free from iTunes, and it looks like it's going to be a great show to watch. We don't have it on Netflix here, but the ABC channel allows free streaming for regular episodes a week or two behind.
Click to expand...

We watched it on Netflix UK - shown the next day. We were wondering why we could only get one episode. Usually any Netflix production is released with the entire series so you can binge. We don't like to watch a series once a week, we like to binge. So we'll wait a few weeks and watch several episodes at one time.
 
Bobw235 said:
I'm very curious to see where they take this show. Lots of possibilities here.
Click to expand...

Yes, there are many possibilities. It will be tough waiting until the end so we can binge watch them. Poor husband didn't realize we could only watch one episode and he was very disappointed.
 
Ameriscot said:
We watched it on Netflix UK - shown the next day. We were wondering why we could only get one episode. Usually any Netflix production is released with the entire series so you can binge. We don't like to watch a series once a week, we like to binge. So we'll wait a few weeks and watch several episodes at one time.
Click to expand...

Yes, binging is so much fun and I prefer it too. One reason I gave up cable TV years ago was that I didn't want to watch on a specific time schedule, often one that was later than my work/sleep schedule allowed.
 
bluebreezes said:
Yes, binging is so much fun and I prefer it too. One reason I gave up cable TV years ago was that I didn't want to watch on a specific time schedule, often one that was later than my work/sleep schedule allowed.
Click to expand...

We gave up our satellite tv - we only have one option - for various reasons, years ago. We watch Netflix, BBC channels, Amazon Prime UK.

My sister - in US - has cable and she likes to binge as well. So she DVR's programmes she likes so she can watch whenever she wants.
 
I'd forgotten about DVR as an option too. Sometimes the Internet/cable TV with DVR promotional offers seem pretty tempting.

Retirement has certainly changed the whenever we want part. Having been a strictly night time watcher, only recently I realized that watching something in the middle of the afternoon was kind of nice and different. Guess it takes time to undo some of the routines one lives by when working full-time.
 
bluebreezes said:
I'd forgotten about DVR as an option too. Sometimes the Internet/cable TV with DVR promotional offers seem pretty tempting.

Retirement has certainly changed the whenever we want part. Having been a strictly night time watcher, only recently I realized that watching something in the middle of the afternoon was kind of nice and different. Guess it takes time to undo some of the routines one lives by when working full-time.
Click to expand...

We don't generally start watching anything but the news until dinner time. We always watch a series or a movie while we are eating dinner and the rest of the evening.
 
Tivo is our friend. Have one in living room and one in the family room so there's always something to watch. Still attached to cable (ugh!), but gives us tons of choices between HBO, Netflix, Showtime, etc.
 
Bobw235 said:
Tivo is our friend. Have one in living room and one in the family room so there's always something to watch. Still attached to cable (ugh!), but gives us tons of choices between HBO, Netflix, Showtime, etc.
Click to expand...

I think Tivo is what my sister has.
 
I watched it also. Looks like it is going to be a winner. I think Kiefer is such a good actor. I also enjoy Madam Secretary. I wonder if they are going to bring that back,although I think Designated Survivor will pay more attention to actual details of how the government handles things in reality.
 
I liked Madam Secretary a lot too, and it's fun to know that Tea Leoni and Tim Daly are a couple in real life too. The season 3 premiere date is on October 2.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top