The show starts with an unthinkable tragedy and premise, a terror attack on Washington that wiped out the entire government, so the designated survivor, Tom Kirkland, who was hand picked by the plotters because he was the weakest and least ambitious among all the secretaries, was sworn in by procedure to be the “filling-in president”.
Prior two seasons are about the dealing with the crisis and the extremist group who took down the government, and season three in reelection campaigns. It is rather fast-paced, filled with cliff hanging plots (intermixed with a few stupid ones), overall, fun to watch. More over, it depicts many current relevant issues (nuclear weapons, foreign policy in Middle East, Afghanistan, North and South Korea, Russia, “me-too”, bioterrorism, campaign finance, racial profiling, discrimination and inequality, illegal immigrants, conflict between citizen’s privacy and national security, opioid crisis, assistant suicide for the terminally ill, etc. ) It is an attempt by the progressives to take on the system, although naive and clumsy at times, it hits home this idea of broken two-party political system and insider mentality of Washington. It offers the independent as a possible solution, although applaudable, sadly at this point it is just a fantasy.
The show takes time to build the characters, the president Tom Kirkland, his young and idealistic staffers, Emily, Seth and Aaron, the dedicated FBI agent Hannah Wells (although I seriously wish the bureau is much more competent in real life), the seasoned and shark campaign manager Lorraine. In all three seasons, several performances jumped out, Kal Penn (who played Seth, real funny and self deprecating but brilliant and smart White House press secretary), the old ER doctor Anthony Edwards as the new chief of staff juggling between crazy busy work and family crisis, and Julie White as the do-whatever-it-takes-to-win and no-nonsense Lorraine, Paulo Costanzo as the genius yet extremely eccentric and awkward political director Lyor.
All political dramas ask the same question: does the means justify the ends? This one tries to depict an idealist in Tom Kirkland, and even him will have to reconcile with the moral ambiguity. But in real life, politicians, I bet, especially the winners, would not blink an eye. Yet in the spring of 2020, fantasy does provide much needed solace and hope.