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Fail to the Chief
So the news came down yesterday that Commander in Chief has been not just non-renewed, but big-time effective-immediately cancelled. As in, they’d rather show extra editions of “Primetime” than air the episodes already in the can. Let the post-mortem begin.
My prediction? We’re going to hear lots about how the country “just wasn’t ready for a woman President,” not even on TV. That it pandered to much to the feminist fringe. Or, from some quarters, that it pandered too much to the mainstream.
The truth is, it pandered too much to the Afterschool Special audience. Which hasn’t existed for at least a decade. Seriously. Witness the ratings and buzz when the show started lo these many months ago in September. The country was plenty ready for a real, complex, kick-ass woman President, at least on TV. But instead of West Wing: the MacKenzie Allen Years, we got a series of one-hour morality plays featuring SuperMom (Leader of the Free World Edition), delivering wooden dialogue from a botoxed mouth, never failing her family or her country in any way that couldn’t be resolved by the end of the episode. Who needs character development, sophisticated plotting and moral gray areas when you’ve got an “Independent” President who embodies goodness and looks great in a ball gown pitted against a cartoonish nemesis so completely nefarious I kept expecting Donald Sutherland to sprout a handlebar moustache and start twirling it?
So no. It wasn’t that we weren’t ready. It wasn’t even American Idol. It was the writing, stupid. Because stupid is one thing women most certainly aren’t, but the Commander In Chief writers never seemed to figure that out. I, for one, won’t miss it.
Comments
I had high hopes when the show first came on. But I couldn't keep up enthusiasm. After School Special, exactly. I'm not looking forward to the spin.
Posted by: Robbie | May 4, 2006 11:19 AM
I couldn't agree more.
It was only a matter of time, really, until this show failed, because despite Geena Davis's statuesque and stately comportment as our first female president, no amount of acting talent can overcompensate for the cheesy dialog, simplistic plots and lack of real poltiical understanding on the part of the writers. Unlike the West Wing, the show didn't ever feel like a real political drama - it just felt like, as you say, an after school special about President Mommy.
During Commander's first couple of months, when so many women whom I respect were still raving about the emotional impact of seeing Geena Davis as President, I wondered how long it would take for that emotional imact to wear off -- the show coasted on its premise, and won so much cache from feminists for it... but the writing was shoddy, the characters were two dimensional, and the politics were simplistic and unrealistic. I do wish they could have improved the quality and depth of the scripts -- too bad about the timing. If they would have carried C-i-C for another season, it could have been a good opportunity for ABC to snap up some of the soon-to-be out-of-work West Wing writers. There's a chance that ith some *major* overhaul, it could have been saved. But, barring that, I won't miss it, either.
Posted by: Jenn | May 5, 2006 11:16 AM
What you say in your blog is true -- it's not that America wasn't ready for a woman president. But you have to realize that that is how it will be spun, that that is the lesson that Hollywood and the major political parties will take from it. So even if it's not the truth, the spindoctors will ensure that is the message that will carry the day. Years from now, that's how it'll be remembered. And months from now, it's how Hilary's campaign will be framed. In some ways, truth doesn't matter as much as the "lesson" that "we" all learned. Sad.
Posted by: LTMS | May 5, 2006 01:12 PM
I tried to like C-i-C. I did. But yes, the bad scripts were its undoing. But I'm not sure it would have worked as a West Wing: the next generation. That said, it worked for Star Trek.
The question I have now is, are we all done with political dramas, or will there be another opportunity to get it right? It seems unlikely.
Posted by: trout | May 8, 2006 11:57 AM