The Duke In The Duke marks the return of Oscar winner and TV lead Geena Davis to the small screen. Playing President Mac Allen, the first female President of the United States, Davis is actually a leader in the primary. However, this Leader In The Master doesn’t do much ruling the world of children as the show is more about the family and personal issues the Prez must face in his new job.
Author Rod Lurie, who put a woman in the VP slot in the movie “Contender” with Joan Allen (as in Mac Allen…) as the lead, now run by Steven Bochco, has Davis to thank. It highlights other mediocre stories.
The leader In the leader said from the get-go, he is not looking for the next The Wing Wing. Good, there is no reason. Detail, realism, complexity? Not here. Absolutely. The problems are too simple, the bad guy – Donald Sutherland’s Republican speaker Templeton – is too bad (where’s the moss twisting?) and it seems that his only enemy is a politician, the monologues don’t always hit the mark, and he acts like a stick. when, hello man (Kyle Secor) is weak, young, small, and does not fill the show. No, not with Marco-Paulo Goesselar.
As President In The Master, President Geena is very good. The supporting cast has good actors in it, but it doesn’t really play great characters. Sutherland’s Templeton and the others are, uh, a little flat, which isn’t good for a show that’s mostly about these characters and not the ins and outs of politics. Kyle Secor is probably the most interesting, if not the most likable, as the nice President, but “he’s also got some suspicious questions and his husband’s kind of whiney.”
Journalist Mac-Carridine (Ever Carridine) who has an affair for her husband Mac, is ill. CJ Cregg would have it for lunch and dinner, and there’s something else. There is also his chief of staff, and, wearing nothing, and some other guy who is gay from Palestine.
And well, that’s about it. Plus Mark-Paul Goeeslar for a savvy politician named Dickey and the Mac Allen kids, two typically annoying and brooding and rebellious teenagers and one cute little daughter who, awww, you just want to pass in the room until the show. Awww More Allen’s mom.
Where is CJ? The Toby, Josh and Leo on Commander In Chief? Mac Allen might be able to give Barlet a run for his money in his personal guard, but when you ask his team? There was no need for treatment. Give us something to work with, Geena, how can Peter Coyote outlast Mac’s mavericky VP? And stop by everyone resigning and then coming back, which two of their three staffers did.
As for world affairs and politics, these are not really treated with the focus of fact, reality, or depth as in West Wing. For the show it is content to have kids own things doing, Davis ways to deal with them, Secor and Davis again, ways to deal with him, and then deal with Templeton (he seriously needs more enemies for God’s sake…) and some presidential stuff .And whenever Davis is just kind of nothing.
While the political decision to be working as a leader has been a solid ratings hit for ABC, you have to wonder: where does it go if it continues for another season? After the husband presses his affair with the girl he totally wants, after the daughter breaks the day of losing her virginity, again, after her son fights over his father being a wus, and after the youngest daughter does cutesy things – what’s left? I don’t see that kind of character having much of an arc, not one that can last more than half a term. Where are you going to the show?
Personally, I hope to be in the direction of a more serious, topical and deep political drama, or at least better in the drama genre. The West Wing isn’t supposed to be good, but they show that the first woman president could stand to be a little more commanding.
