Mr Bauer goes to Washington
DESIGNATED SURVIVOR NETFLIX
AS MORE episodes of the second season of Designated Survivor continue to drop on Netflix during May, this might be a good time for anyone who missed the first season to acquaint themselves with one of the madder shows on the box.
Kiefer Sutherland plays Tom Kirkman, a very accidental president.
When a terrorist attack destroys the Capitol building during the State of the Union and kills all the politicians, from the president down, the previously obscure secretary for housing and urban development (Hud) suddenly finds himself in charge.
It’s a good set up for a show – and was used as plot point in an early episode of The West Wing, if I recall correctly – but what makes Designated Survivor so weirdly compelling is that it really, really shouldn’t work – but it does.
Sutherland plays Kirkman as the idealistic everyman who is thrust into a position he never wanted or considered and has to swim with the sharks in the dark waters of Washington Beltway politics.
Combining the earnest cutesiness of The West Wing with the diabolical shenanigans and political skulduggery of House Of Cards, the show that still looms largest over Designated Survivor is actually 24.
Not because it wants to be like 24, but because it is so desperate to avoid any comparisons.
In fact, it’s hard to escape the impression that the star is somehow trying to atone for his role as everyone’s favourite CTU torturer and the president he plays here is so unbearably nice and decent that it feels like Mr Bauer Goes To Washington after a personality transplant.
Yet it is bizarrely watchable .
It’s always easier to explain why a show fails than why it succeeds, and Designated Survivor should fail on every level, yet it doesn’t.
In fact, once you manage to get Jack Bauer out of your mind, the whole quest to get to the bottom of the terrorist conspiracy while trying to get the American government back on its feet is ridiculously entertaining.
Of course, all eyes will be on Lisbon tomorrow night for the Eurovision Song Contest (RTÉ 2, BBC1, from 8pm).
Ryan O’Shaughnessy led the whole country in a sigh of relief when he qualified for tonight’s final and while the song more than likely won’t win, it’s the taking part that counts.
Isn’t it?
There’s a genuine sense of futility whenever it comes to us and this bloody song contest.
We used to treat it with derision and scorn because we kept winning it, now we treat it with derision and scorn because we always lose.
Ah, it’s the Irish way...