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ARTICLE
DVD Review: Commander In Chief - The Inaugural Edition, Part 1
by R.J. Carter Published: July 3, 2006
Rating: Country: USA Release Date: June 27, 2006 Distributor: Buena Vista Home Entertainment Cast: · Geena Davis · Donald Sutherland · Kyle Secor · Harry Lennix · Natasha Henstridge · Peter Coyote Related Sites: ·SirLinksalot: Commander in Chief
Grade: C+
In the wake of the announcement of the cancellation of The West Wing, viewers who had become hooked on Capitol Hill serio-dramas were left floundering for a fix. But for any network to come up with a new White House weekly was going to be a trick. Comparisons would be inevitable, and producers were going to need a new spin on things if they were going to declare their independence from that which had gone before.
Director Rod Lurie (Line of Fire) had such a twist: his President would be a woman.
But the Presidency of MacKenzie Allen (Geena Davis, "Thelma & Louise") would be a rocky one for reasons far more complicated than her gender. An Independent Vice President to a Republican chief, Allen finds herself in line for the Oval Office when a brain hemorrhage puts her boss, President Teddy Roosevelt Bridges, in the hospital. On his deathbed, he asks Allen to resign her office so that House Speaker Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland, "Lord of War") can step in. Seems he only asked her to be his running mate to get the desperately needed soccer-mom constituency.
MacKenzie Allen (Davis) takes the oath of office while House
Speaker Nathan Templeton (Sutherland) and husband Rod
Calloway (Secor) watch on.
When Allen doesn't resign, she makes a political enemy in Templeton, who does what he can to discredit her "stolen" presidency. Her husband (Kyle Secor, Veronica Mars) suddenly feels emasculated in his role of First Gentleman and wheedles himself a position on the President's advisory staff, which consistently puts him at odds with Chief of Staff Jim Gardner (Lennix, "The Matrix Reloaded"). Gardner, meanwhile, is sleeping with Jayne Murray (Henstridge, She Spies) -- who is the Chief of Staff to none other than House Speaker Nathan Templeton.
The confrontations begin with Allen's selection for a new VP -- selecting her former political opponent, General Warren Keaton (Coyote, The 4400) -- and continue through South American druglords, a hurricane in Florida that damages an oil supertanker, and a spy submarine in distress off the coast of North Korea -- all of which keeps her Press Secretary Kelly Ludlow (Ever Carridine, who's looked better in Once and Again than she's made out here) in a constant state of distress.
Further complicating matters are Allen's role as a mother to three children: teenaged twins Horace (Matt Lanter, Point Pleasant) and Rebecca (Caitlin Wachs, "Inspector Gadget 2"), and youngest daughter Amy (Jasmine Jessica Anthony, Star Trek: Enterprise). Horace warms to the role of being in the First Family and uses it to coast through school rather than study; Rebecca, however, absolutely detests being assigned Secret Service details and hates even more needing them. Amy's main role is to ask precocious questions and to serve as a method of "POTUS Interruptus" if the after-hours scenes begin to get interesting.
Commander In Chief qualifies for me as a female-led soap opera with distinctive male audience appeal. The characters are compelling, and even the backstabbers have layers upon layers of depth to plumb. However, as a DVD, there are some serious issues. First -- and most obvious -- of all is the splitting of the season into two different sets. This set collects the first ten episodes, ending with a cliffhanger. But there are no special features, no commentary, and no reason why this two-disc set couldn't have been packaged as a four-disc set collecting the entire season for only a fraction of the cost more. What's more, the cover art is decidedly bland, appearing as though very little thought went into it at all. It actually looks as though it's half of a set meant to slip into a slipcase with another snaptite case. There are no previews, and no additional features unless one counts the ability to turn on English captions as a bonus.
As a drama, Commander In Chief looks like a winner. But as a DVD, Buena Vista has succeeded at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Commander In Chief The Inaugural Edition - Part 1 Disc Guide
Disc 1
Disc 2
01. Pilot
02. First Choice
03. First Strike
04. First Dance
05. First... Do No Harm
06. First Disaster
07. First Scandal
08. Rubie Dubidoux and the Brown Bound Express
09. The Mom Who Came to Dinner
10. Sub Enchanted Evening
