Kent Eanes/ABCGeena Davis plays Mackenzie Allen, an Independent vice president who finds herself ascending to the presidency, in ABC's "Commander in Chief," premiering tonight.
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When: 9 tonight on WTAE.
Starring: Geena Davis.
The best new fall drama airs in one of TV's most competitive time periods. ABC's "Commander in Chief" (9 tonight, WTAE) faces strong opposition, namely the hits "House" (Fox), "The Amazing Race" (CBS) and even the winning "My Name Is Earl" (NBC), which had a strong ratings debut last week.
But that's no reason to skip this politically tinged family series that's both idealistic (complete with neck-hair-tingling speechifying) and wonderfully humane (in its lighter, more humorous moments).
Geena Davis stars as Mackenzie Allen, the 45-year-old vice president of the United States. She's also an Independent to a Republican president. That alone shows we're in fantasyland plot-wise. But if you can get over that -- 23 million viewers suspended their disbelief while watching "Lost" last week, so the lack of verisimilitude in "Commander" should be easy to get past -- "Commander in Chief" offers a compelling, satisfying premiere hour.
The premiere begins in France as Allen is pulled out of a children's choir performance with the news that President Teddy Roosevelt Bridges (Will Lyman) has been hospitalized and may not recover. Her motorcade drives through the streets of Paris, and French citizens line the road waving American flags. (OK, so that's probably far-fetched these days, too.)
Allen prepares to take the oath of office, but she's stopped cold when the president's chief of staff, Jim Gardner (Harry Lennix), and the attorney general (Leslie Hope, "24") suggest she step down so the Republican Speaker of the House, Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland), can assume the presidency.
Allen resists, at first, and then the president recovers enough to see her.
"You and I, Mac, we just see a different America," the president says, urging her to step aside to make way for Templeton. "He shares my vision, supports my will."
Allen prepares to make that sacrifice until she has a face-to-face with Templeton during which he insults her gender and refers to a Nigerian woman, scheduled to be executed on an adultery charge, as "a lady who couldn't keep her legs together."
Hearing that, Allen overcomes her doubts and moves into the Oval Office.
While the setting obviously brings to mind NBC's "The West Wing," creator Rod Lurie said he was more influenced by "The Sopranos."
"Tony Soprano is like the president, and you see him at work, and you see him go home and deal with his [stuff] at home," Lurie said at an ABC party in July in Hollywood. "Commander" will straddle those two worlds, concentrating equally on Allen as president, wife to Rod (Kyle Secor) and mother to teenage twins Horace (Matt Lanter) and Rebecca (Caitlin Wachs) and 6-year-old daughter Amy (Jasmine Anthony).
"This is an area that is so unmined by any other shows that we have all the stories available to us," Lurie said. "Private school vs. public school, what do you do? What do you do when your daughter wants to lose her virginity under the biggest microscope in the world? What happens if your son wants to run for class president and it becomes a [news] story?"
Lurie -- who wrote and directed the politically themed 2000 movie thriller "The Contender," starring Joan Allen as a vice presidential nominee (Davis' character is named after Oscar nominee Allen) -- said he originally became interested in powerful women when his daughter wondered why there were no female presidential candidates in the 2000 election.
"I want her to have that opportunity. I want all women to have that opportunity," Lurie said. "We've knocked out of contention 50 percent of the chance for greatness in our leadership."
He concocted Mackenzie Allen's path to become the first female president for both attempts at realism ("It would be naive and fairytale-ish to assume right now than an Independent herself would come to power at the head of a ticket") and drama ("I couldn't think of another way to get her into power where basically her own cabinet is against her").
Lurie and Davis are both Democrats, but Lurie said he wanted Allen to be an Independent because he wanted her to be beholden to neither major political party.
"She feels she can't win two years from now ... so she can do whatever she wants, which means what is right for the country," Lurie said. He expects Allen will take conservative stands (pro-abstinence education, for instance) on some issues and a liberal position on others.
Although Sutherland's Templeton is clearly, if not a villain, at least Allen's antagonist, Lurie said the character will gain more dimension as the series progresses.
"I personally don't believe he's the devil incarnate. I think he's a rather delicious character, and you're going to see him be right on several occasions," Lurie said. "He's a guy who's worthy of being, in the eyes of America, the president of the United States."
(Lurie said he vacillated on whether to make Templeton a Republican or Democrat, and ultimately settled on Henry Hyde, a Republican congressman from Illinois, as a model.)
In addition, Jim Gardner is a Republican who's portrayed as "an extremely likable, good, decent man," Lurie said.
In future episodes, actor Peter Coyote arrives as a new vice president and Natasha Henstridge debuts as Templeton's chief of staff.
Although "Commander in Chief" deals with serious matters, Lurie's writing allows for lighter moments. Whether it's Allen responding to the president's concern over her deployment of the Sixth Fleet ("I was bored," she replies. "I'd already read all the magazines on the plane.") or a member of the first lady's staff who keeps advising the first first gentleman not to do things as Hillary Clinton did ("It didn't go over very well" is her refrain), "Commander in Chief" is willing to find humor in the new waters through which its characters swim.
And that may be the show's saving grace, if it can overcome the suspicions of conservative viewers; critics' doubts based on Lurie's last series, ABC's "Line of Fire," which started strong and disappointed after the pilot; the objections of Neanderthal men who can't accept a woman president, even in fiction; and, oh yeah, those ratings challenges.
That's a full first-term agenda, but if I were a voter (re: Nielsen family), I'd happily pull a lever for "Commander in Chief."
Kent Eanes/ABCIn "Commander in Chief," Donald Sutherland has his eye on the presidency, but Geena Davis ruins his plans.
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First Published: September 27, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
