It's no 'West Wing'

Tonight I watched the premiere of "Commander in Chief," the ABC television show about Geena davis becoming the first female president. Her character, Mackenzie Allen, ascends to the presidency upon the death of the president from a brain aneurism and stroke. The plot is complicated by the fact that Allen is an independent picked to balance the ticket of a power-hungry conservative Republican. The president, on his death bed, asks Allen to resign so that the super-conservative Speaker of the House, played convincingly by Donald Sutherland, can continue the agenda of the late president. But Sutherland's Speaker says the wrong things to the acting president, and she refuses to resign.

That's the basic plot of the pilot episode. Of course there were a few side issues, too, but the purpose was basically introducing characters and establishing the long-term conflicts.

It's a solid enough idea, and Davis and Sutherland are sure quality actors. My problem is with the details. My main gripe is that if the show does not work hard on details, the show is not believeable. If the details are unbelievable, how is the viewer supposed to accept the premise of something that has never happened before, namely that a woman became president.

I hate to compare this show to "The West Wing," but such a comparison is inevitable. "The West Wing" is head and shoulders above "Commander in Chief," though.

Here are some of the details I found annoying:

• President Allen addresses a joint session of Congress. The room appears mainly white. The chamber of the House of Representatives, where this speech would take place, is not white. It's red and blue and wooden. She also makes her way down the center aisle (at least the sergeant-at-arms announced her "Mr. Speaker..."), but almost no one gathered in the chamber reached over to shake her hand as always happens when the president comes. I imagine that the first female president would be absolutely mobbed by Congressional hangers-on who want a glimpse on TV shaking hands with the president. Also, in this Congressional speech, the Speaker sits behind and to the left of the president. The Senate president (in this case, the President Pro Tempore since there was no vice president in office) sits behind and to the right of the president. Sutherland was here; he's the Speaker.
• In earlier scenes, Davis is shown arriving at the White House and coming out of her limousine in open air. I imagine that simply would not happen, especially with heightened security. The president would exit the limo under the portico of the White House. And still, the press would hardly be watching quietly from behind a rope line; they'd be shouting questions like crazy.
• She is also shown without much of a security detail during the episode.
• One of the most unbelievable instances came at the beginning of the show, when the hospitalized president's chief of staff and the U.S. Attorney General travel to France to meet then-Vice President Allen and inform her about the president's aneurism and stroke. I would hope that in a time when the 25th Amendment to the Constitution should clearly dictate that the president is incapacitated and the vice president should assume the role of acting president, that two government officials would not make a long plane trip before telling the vice president about it!

These are a few of the details that jumped out at me. I have come to rely on "The West Wing" as a fictional account of insider Washington; I know it's fake. But it is successful and compelling because the story and characters are fictional in a mostly plausible world where actual incidents and traditions and protocols are respected. In one of the worst ironies, the new "FLOTUS" -- President Allen'd husband -- meets with the First Lady's staff member who runs the protocol office! The three separate slams on Hillary Clinton are also unnecessary. Sure Hillary Clinton ruffled a few feathers, and perhaps one joke about her office in the White House's West Wing would have been tolerable. But the show also displays a huge portrait of Nancy Reagan -- yet there's no mention of her wacky astrology and penchant for fancy clothes, let alone her nasty temper.

All in all, I think I'll come back next Tuesday for another episode of "Commander in Chief." After all, no presidential administration should be judged by its first 100 days, and no show about the presidency should be judged just on its pilot.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.