What I’m Watching: Designated Survivor

Designated Survivor: Season 1, Episode 6 “The Interrogation” (B-)

I was talking to someone about this show and she referred to it as “the new 24.” I’ve always felt that it was this show’s biggest Achilles’ heel, since trying too hard to be an action thriller detracts from it being its own unique political drama. This episode united both genres with the arrival of Nasar on American soil, and I wasn’t too impressed by either direction. The interrogation that Jason and Hannah were conducting felt rather run-of-the-mill, and it didn’t take long for them to come out with some leverage that made this internationally-known, low-grade terrorist give up all the information he had. Hannah’s shock at there not being any hits in the database sounded especially whiny, and it seems that Jason and Hannah’s lives aren’t in jeopardy but Nasar wasn’t long for this world. The gunfire during the gala was a huge disruption to Tom’s call for unification, but there’s still plenty of discord and lack of support for Tom’s presidency. Alex’s involvement in this Syrian refugee plane issue complicated things considerably, and Tom managed to win over the governors with a decision that made Alex lose some respect for him. If Canada can just accept the refugees, isn’t the problem partially solved? This show doesn’t seem to have any true stakes, and Mike getting shot but then being fine demonstrates that this show isn’t so willing to really include major twists that have an impact. I think this show could do well without too many twists in general, but I think that it’s still figuring out exactly what kind of series it wants to be, a journey that’s going okay.