‘Commander’ feels pressure from ratings
Can this administration be saved?
No, not W.
We’re talking about the presidency of that Connecticut Yankee played by Geena Davis in ABC’s “Commander in Chief.”
The show started with massive approval ratings. Thanks to the 16 million viewers who tuned in for the debut, “Commander” was the only new series this season to crack the Nielsen Top 10.
But the polls – er, ratings – have been trending down.
On Nov. 29, the last time an original episode aired, the massively promoted addition of Mark-Paul Gosselaar (“NYPD Blue”) to the cast swelled the audience back up to 13.6 million. But “Commander” still finished third in its 9 p.m. Tuesday time slot behind NBC’s “Biggest Loser” finale and Fox’s “House.”
The next fresh episode isn’t scheduled until Jan. 10.
So what’s the rub? It’s obvious people were drawn to the concept of a female chief executive. They wanted to like the show. But the weekly serving of hokum and sanctity is proving tough to swallow.
After a gripping pilot in which Mackenzie Allen (Davis) inherited the Oval Office, “Commander” devolved into a dull and predictable mix of international and very domestic affairs: “How do you expect me to root out that terrorist camp in Lebanon when my teenager just got caught cribbing his history paper off the Internet?”
The show’s creator, Rod Lurie, clearly envisioned it as an exploration of a woman trying to balance her career and her home life on the world’s largest stage. But making her such an involved mom also makes her a rather implausible leader.
How does she find time at the end of the day to check on the kids’ homework and boost her daughter’s self-esteem? Shouldn’t she be sitting next to the sultan of Bhutan in the East Room, listening to Yo-Yo Ma saw away on the cello?
The other sticking point is that President Allen and her staff all seem so faultlessly noble and principled. That simply doesn’t jibe with the Washington we know, where if you’re not under indictment, you’re clearly not trying very hard.
Maybe the saintly quality of her character explains why Davis seems to be having trouble getting a handle on the role. She delivers her lines so stiffly, it sounds as if she just underwent a dental procedure requiring Novocain.
After a handful of bland episodes, ABC deposed Lurie and replaced him with veteran TV producer Steve Bochco (“Hill Street Blues”). The most salient change was bringing in Gosselaar as political consultant Dickie McDonald; when your audience is 61 percent female, it makes sense to augment the stud quotient.
Other changes include moving the stories involving the first children onto a remote back burner and inviting the president’s battle-ax mother (Polly Bergen) to live at the White House.
Several flaws have yet to be addressed. The president is still too good to be true; in the Thanksgiving episode, she threw over a fiercely held political policy because someone gave her a sappy, handwritten greeting card. Imagine how quickly she’d cave if Cindy Sheehan camped on her lawn.
And the whole show needs to be opened up to reflect the complexity of Washington and the constant demands on the president. As it is now, the entire federal government seems to consist of Donald Sutherland’s nefarious House speaker, Nathan Templeton.