Designated Survivor

As equal parts action and drama, and giving Kiefer Sutherland one of the best roles of his career, Designated Survivor is the season’s first sure thing. Make that “Designated” sure thing.

As a standalone episode of television, Survivor’s pilot is nothing to cartwheel over, but as it lays out the show’s premise, it becomes obvious why network executives would snap it up. It’s destined to become one of fall’s biggest network hits, and all because Sutherland accepted his role as the elder statesman of the small screen action thriller.

The pilot does everything it needs to, checking off the necessary boxes for the unwilling American hero-president in efficient, compelling scenes. This show isn’t going to be for everyone, but it comes with one of the highest-quality pilots broadcast is offering this fall, and it’s ABC’s strongest drama.

That B-plot is where Designated Survivor has the potential to adhere most stringently to formula, with Wells chasing down leads and interrogating suspects Bauer-style in order to prevent further chaos, but even that traditional side of the series is deftly introduced. Ideally, it will remain in the background; Sutherland is where the show soars.

In a way, all Guggenheim needs to accomplish in the pilot is to put Sutherland behind the desk in the Oval Office, and he does that. But Designated Survivor feels like it could be a whole lot more than that, perhaps if it started trying to do a bit less overall.

The problem comes in the second episode, along with a suddenly increased capacity to resist everything about Designated Survivor. Here we come up against the show’s message, or more precisely its gross political tendentiousness. ... Mr. Sutherland may not have been the best choice for the role of a virtuous milquetoast concealing a heart of steel--the milquetoast part dominates even when the steel is flashed.

Sutherland himself is cool and charming, but the boilerplate stylings and dialogue leave his character--and the series--uninspired.

Season 1 and 2 were good but I absolutely loved Season 3. Excellent character analysis. I also enjoyed how interviews with non-actors were weaved into the narrative. This season had much more dimension than the previous ones (actually, far superior to corny shows like "Scandal")

Season 1 was great. Season 2 good. Season 3 went woke and that's why it got canceled.

Starts out by really getting your attention and drawing you in. It maintains that for mostly the whole first season. But! towards the end of season one, it can't help itself but to show the true political colors of the show's writers and that color is blue. This isn't surprising, after all, it is Hollyweird, but what is a bit annoying is how obvious the bias becomes as the episodes play out. So, if you're Conservative in politics, prepare to be insulted. Only the Liberals do good things in this show and they make sure the audience knows it. It is pretty cringey. According to this show, not only do the Conservatives do bad things, they are bad people as well, who don't care about their fellow Americans. Only the Liberals care and they are magical and wholesome and do no wrong. This kind of programming is disgusting.

Although the premise of this series had potential, these episodes are universally marred by cartoonish characterisations, and threadbare, timeworn plot tropes. The character of the president vacillates from pollyanna to simp. The characters of the FBI agents swing from fool-hardy to oblivious dolts. Every other role is a hyperbolic, over-wrought caricature. There are some good ideas in the plot arcs, they are just not represented or executed very well here.

The first season was fun to watch. It was suspenseful and easy to connect with the characters. Season two was okay. Watchable but not gripping. Season three was terrible. The story line was interesting but the addition of profanity and graphic sexual content was distracting and unnecessary. This was a show I could watch with my 12 year old during season one snd two. We were very disappointed with season three and it’s “R” rated content.