Designated Survivor (ABC)

I would disagree with you on Lost. I got sick of the bait and switch somewhere in season 2 and dropped it for a while. I did come back to the show later, but nothing much changed. I mainly stuck with it thereafter because of the interesting characters.

 

I was referring to the fact that it was a ratings success. Whether or not viewers liked the story is entirely subjective. It can be a challenge to keep viewers glued to the television for multiple seasons with a long-running mystery series, especially if there is a central question. The writers have to find some way of keeping viewers coming back without giving too much away. I guess the trick is to give them more than one question. I guess that was what Lost did. Maybe it was a bait and switch, but I found it fascinating. With a show like Resurrection, there was really only one big question. Why the hell are all these people coming back from the dead? When it becomes apparent that that question isn't going to be answered anytime soon, the viewer loses interest and moves on. With Designated Survivor, I think there is the potential for the show to go with a new story each season. Kirkland is the Prez. There's plenty of room for new intriguing stories.

 

I've been hoping it would be a one season affair. Is it doing that well?

 

It's doing well in the ratings. It will be renewed. Broadcast shows are rarely one and done affairs unless the ratings aren't very good.

 

I think the first show I know of where the showrunner/creator sat down and actually sketched out five entire seasons of stories was Joe Straczynski on Babylon 5 in the mid-1990s. Even then, he was forced to go back and redo some stories when certain actors had to leave and the studio cancelled the show early. In the case of Lost, the 50-page show bible is out there on the web, and they outlined a couple of dozen ideas, most of which did become future episodes. But I think they never had a way to satisfactorily tie up the massive number of loose ends on that show.

X-Files was an absolute mess, and they never really explained or justified or adequately rationalized quite a bit in the show, particularly the whole "alien abduction" story arc. One hopes that modern-day producers and writers are a little more savvy and do have some kind of a solid plan to do 100+ episodes and tell a complete story, then move on to a new story. On the other hand... Eric Kripke didn't do it with Revolution, which was a trainwreck.

My favorite "complex story arc" situation was on Joss Whedon's series Dollhouse, where he had planned out for at least 50 episodes, then the show got cancelled less than 2 years in. As a result, he took the final 10 scripts and crammed them into about 3 shows, and it was the craziest, most breakneck-pace I've ever seen in a TV series. By god, everything was pretty much covered and it all made sense, at least in that goofy, sci-fi world. One hopes they won't have this problem with Designated Survivor.

 

Is it on tonight?

 

No

 

A 20/20 special is on instead about real-life designated survivors.

 

Thanks.

 

That was embarrassing - I'm out. It's now clear to me that this show doesn't know what it's doing. It will keep sprouting new, increasingly ridiculous sub-plots each week while hinting at a larger conspiracy. Stupid characters will keep doing stupid things and not communicating - I'm looking at you FBI! It's basically a never ending soap, like The Blacklist. Too bad.

 

I have not watched last night but I'm on the edge of being out. Your review confirms my fears I will be with you.

 

Yeah, I've DVR'd the most recent three episodes and ca't bring myself to watch them. Oh well, another promising premise gone off the rails.

John K.

 

Well, I'm hooked for the next episode. Yes, the situations are outlandish, and what will go wrong next.

As for the Bad B!tch whose pulling everyone's string at present, in her first appearance in this episode I was thinking she could pass for Alien with those black eyes.

And the female agent who got the call about 11:49 pm (whatever that signifies), she has been spotted by the Bad B!tch's (BB) minder when she caught her boss on camera with her.

But even the viper hoping to be VP seems worried about BBs tendency...

 

You sound like you were evesdropping as we watched last night. First of all the FBI Director would never put his family ahead of national security, and the side plots of the poisoned pollsters (sounds like the title of a Sherlock Holmes story) was just too silly and wrapped up to easily. And the sidebar w his son...oy. I am close to the end with this one.

 

I have to agree with HBBFAM above: I think they're close to jumping the shark and going way past believability on Designated Survivor. I didn't buy that Maggie Q would balk at telling the White House all she knew about the conspiracy going on and the VP being a traitor. To me, this is the writers coming up with a flimsy gimmick to deliberately delay some major reveals.

The ratings are good on the show, but not great. It's going to get renewed (barring a total disaster), but I think ABC is a little disappointed that the ratings didn't get even close to 24's ratings.

 

I starting to agree with all of that. Let's hope we are all surprised at the next few weeks. Q and her boss crap go only go so far.

 

There are apparently just two episodes left before the winter hiatus.

 

I'm out, too many ridiculous sub-plots that I simply don't care about. The show has/had potential to be really good now it feels completely de-railed.

 

I suppose all scripts for the remaining 2 episodes were firm well before recent events.

 

Yep, I'm totally sympathetic. The producers better hurry up and rationalize the myriad of plot lines and move forward. My fear is that they're not even going to lose the traitorish VP guy before the holiday break.

BTW, what the F with the rush to the election? They blow up the entire Capitol building, and they're having national elections three weeks later? I could believe three months, but not three weeks. Ridiculous.

 

and would any President be so squeamish about losing any life for reasons of state? Tom is a sensitive new age guy.

 

Nobody would believe current events if you wrote them into a TV show six months ago.

 

No, but The Simpsons nailed it 16 years ago.

 

And it was just announced that the showrunner (that is, the lead producer in charge of everything) just abruptly departed Designated Survivor and has been replaced by a new guy:

'Designated Survivor' Makes Another Showrunner Change (Exclusive) »

The original one who came up with the pilot was fired fairly quickly on, and the second one has worked up until last week. This tells me there's a lot of turmoil and dissent on the creative direction of the show. And this is not good.

 

That's okay, the show wasn't shaping up to be very good, either...and the dissent behind the scenes might be at least part of the reason why. I gave up after the first three episodes, myself, I could see the story was going to start to get silly...