The Pandemic Soul

I’m a big fan of Geena Davis. Although most of her movies are crap (A League of their Own aside, of course), she’s a certified genius, a good person, and really tall (6″). That being said, I do enjoy watching her because she has what I would (very naively) call a real stage presence. She commands the screen well, which makes her the perfect person to be the new president.

For those of you unaware, Commander in Chief is a drama about Mackenzie Allen, the first independent, female vice-president who is in office when the sitting president, a conservative, dies of a stroke. The president, recovers from an operation and tells Mackenzie that he’d like her to resign because her vision of the country is not the same as his. This would allow the Speaker of the House, Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland) to ascend to the position. Templeton is clearly a conservative misognyist, which we learn during a scene in which he, also, asks Allen to resign. During this scene, Allen realizes that Templeton is not the man for the job, and decides to take the oath against the wishes of most in the staff. She gives an inspiring speech, (straight from the heart after the teleprompters mysteriously wink off) and attempts to rally the country, the members of government, and even her own nay-saying daughter (another crazy conservative) to the cause of a united nation.

It’s good drama all around, and I was cheering for Allen all the way through. I respond to the criticism with barely a nod. Yes, Geena looks far too young to be credible. But can we not say the same about Jimmy Smitts as one of the two contenders on The West Wing? Listen, folks, you can expect Davis to be painted up every episode. Although the country is probably ready for a woman in the office, ABC is not going to take any chances — they want their woman beautiful, in living color, and someone that a lot of guys wouldn’t mind seeing there. That’s Hollywood, and we’ve looked past this kind of behavior before.

I do agree somewhat with the criticisms of some of the subplots. The twins thing is going to wear down fast. (Although, interestingly, Geena also has twins in real life.) The “First Husband” in a pink office was humorous (with an aide reminding him repeatedly that much of what Hillary did in the White House “didn’t go well…”), but what will we really expect from that storyline? It will be difficult for the writers to do too much with him without making this, as Mackenzie feared, the First Husband show. In general, the family portions seemed both a little forced, and a little “Leave it to Beaver.” I can’t imagine either one of the wasted Bush Twins pouring themselves into W’s sitting room to say goodnight with cherubim faces on. Nonetheless, I think that while the family aspect will probably be overworked, it will probably grow a little more natural as the show continues.

The most difficult part will be directing the show into territory that is less about the female president and more about the president. The West Wing works because it’s not about Jeb Bartlett, and it’s not about his politics. It works because it’s about the stories of people who build their lives around the oval office. Yes, I realize that Geena’s show is called Commander in Chief, but if nothing else, that will be a limitation for the writers. They need to seek new ground that TWW has not covered, and they need it to not be solely about the perils of whether to wear heels or pumps in Japan, where Allen will already be twice the size of the officials. Can they do it? I don’t know. Clearly CiC is taking a lot of queues from TWW with the cinematography an atmosphere. But just one show in, it’s hard to tell where we’re really going from here.