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Anybody watch the series designated Survivor


John from Riverside

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It had an interesting premise, with fairly strong leads (Keizer Southerland, Maggie Q, the blonde lady senator whose name I forget now…), and cool sets. The writing and acting was a major off-put for me, though; it was very try-hard and followed a lot of standard political trope that “The West Wing” frankly did much, much, much better. It also cribbed from the Geena Davis-as-the-impromptu-President series. With the Netflix pick-up of the series, all of this just got much worse and it turned into a thing of characters’ interpersonal relationships conjuring all the hot-button issues (with a leftist slant) of the time wrt transgender / gay, fairly stupid and derivative conspiracy that had some interest to it but was dropped cold, addiction, White House kids with the stereotypical problems. It was a lot of recycling of old things and strained to come up with the political intrigue material it wanted to address. If you want to watch a presidential drama, The West Wing is and ever will be the gold standard.

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I watched the first two seasons.  Designated Survivor had a hard time deciding whether it wanted to be Scandal, 24 or West Wing.  The show had numerous showrunners, so each season felt differently story wise.

 

I feel Designated Survivor and the Andre Braugher led "Last Resort" that was on ABC for a year suffered because they were high concept political thrillers on a network that wants to play it safe.  You put Designated Survivor on say, FX, and the show would have been a lot more interesting.

 

There was a day when the networks were cool with showing nuclear war (The Day After), the Soviets taking over the United States (Amerika) and the FBI in a running gun battle in broad daylight (Line of Duty, the FBI Murders, retelling of the 1986 Miami Dade shootout between the FBI and Matix/Platt).  

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11 hours ago, John from Riverside said:

Anybody watch the series designated Survivor

 

i’m binging this right now into season two I got to say I’m hooked


As others said, it was great the first two seasons, and the last Netflix season was just plain awful. Got away from its roots to create something more edgy. Also, as I recall, not a very satisfying ending to the series. 

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On 1/11/2022 at 7:35 AM, PastaJoe said:

I enjoyed it. The last season had some significant twists. But like the Jan 6 insurrection it was a bit frustrating in how long it took to uncover the ringleaders.

 

You're going to be incredibly frustrated then...

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8 minutes ago, ndirish1978 said:

First couple of seasons were not bad. The third is simply a different show. 

 

Yeah.  My wife watched the first 2 seasons and then the 3rd and was struck by all the swearing, after not hearing any the first 2 seasons.

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