DVD Review: Designated Survivor The Complete Series

 

Designated Survivor was a drama that ran for three seasons from 2016 to 2019. It starred Kiefer Sutherland, Maggie Q, Adan Canto, Italia Ricci, LaMonica Garrett, Kal Penn, and Natascha McElhone. Paulo Costanzo and Ben Lawson joined the cast as series regulars in the second season, and the recurring characters included McKenna Grace, Malik Yoba, Virginia Madsen, Ashley Zuckerman, Rob Morrow, Breckin Meyer, Michael J. Fox, Kim Raver, and Reed Diamond. The premise of the series is that the HUD Secretary, Tom Kirkman, played by Kiefer Sutherland in his first major role since leaving Jack Bauer behind and deciding not to continue his appearances on 24, is named the Designated Survivor (the one cabinet member that does not attend the State of the Union) and becomes President when a terrorist attack wipes out the entire government (almost) on an attack on the Capitol during the State of the Union address. The first two seasons aired on ABC before being canceled and subsequently picked up by Netflix for a third and ultimately final season.

The first season of the show was great, as it effectively intertwined two storylines. The first was trying to figure out who was behind the attack on the Capitol. The second storyline involved Kirkman figuring out how to be President, trying to rebuild the government, and navigating how to run the country with the majority of the government gone. The two storylines largely remained parallel to each other, only intersecting at certain times. Maggie Q, arguably the second lead of the series, played FBI agent Hannah Wells, who was the lead agent tasked with uncovering the conspiracy. The White House Staff included Adan Canto (playing the Chief of Staff Aaron Shore), Italia Ricci (playing Advisor Emily Rhodes), LaMonica Garret (who played lead Secret Service Agent Mike Ritter), and Kal Penn (who played Press Secretary Seth Wright). Penn was also a consultant on the show and provided insight into his experience working in the White House during the Obama Administration.  The rest of the cast was rounded out by character actors including Natascha McElhone as the first lady, McKenna Grace and Tanner Buchanan as Kirkman's son and daughter, Malik Yoba as FBI Deputy Director Jason Atwood, Reed Diamond as the FBI's version of the head of Internal Affairs, and Virginia Madsen as Congresswoman Virginal Hookstraten, who was the Republican Designated Survivor.

Season two jumped ahead in time by one year and focused more on Kirkman's efforts to govern. The conspiracy from season one was wrapped up very early into season two (which I think was a mistake), and the show tried to shoehorn another conspiracy into the show that I do not think the fans were nearly as invested in. There was some cast turnover in season two (mainly additions to the cast). Paulo Costanzo was brought in to play Lyor Boone, a political strategist; Zoe McLellan was added to play White House Counsel Kendra Daynes; and Breckin Meyer was added to play Tom's Brother, Trey.  Michael J. Fox also had a recurring role toward the end of the season, and Kiefer's fellow 24 alum, Kim Raver, had a recurring role throughout the season. 

The third season involved another time jump. The focus of this season was the upcoming election and the corresponding campaign, and Kirkman trying to get re-elected. He is also dealing with the fallout of one of the major storylines from season two. There was a lot of cast turnover in this season, both with characters leaving and the additions of Anthony Edwards (in his first major TV series role since ER) as Chief of Staff Mars Harper and Julie White as Lorraine Zimmer, the Campaign Manager for Kirkman's election campaign. They also came up with yet another major conspiracy, which somewhat bordered on the ridiculous, and was in some ways prophetic, given the COVID-19 outbreak. And, they definitely made good use of the ability to swear on Netflix, as there were a lot of f-bombs dropped. 

The DVD set is a 15-disc set, comprising 6 discs for seasons one and two, and 3 discs for season three. The packaging is horrible. Instead of giving each disc its own holder, you have to stack discs on top of each other, and they definitely come loose during shipping.  Therefore, you may end up with scratched discs, so it's essential to play them before the return window closes, regardless of where you purchased them. As some may know, Season 1 received a US DVD release, and Season 2 received an international DVD release. Season three had bootleg releases, but no official release until this complete series release. Season one had all the same extras (behind-the-scenes material) as the US release. In the version of Season 2 I had, the only extra was an interview with Paul Constanzo, which was not included in this set, but there were some other behind-the-scenes features that were not included on the set I already owned. For Season 3, only the episodes are included; there are no extras. There are English and French captions for each season, and the DVD menus are in English and French. 

Overall, I would say the series was good. Season 1 was outstanding, but the show's quality declined with each successive season. I think the show would have been much better served to drag out the season one conspiracy longer (at least until the end of season two) instead of revealing it all by the end of season one. I think that made the show suffer from what many shows that were tied up in a mystery face when the mystery is solved (e.g., Twin Peaks). Namely, where to go from there. The writers definitely used events from the current political climate in the series (although there was no direct mention of t***p, you can tell that the show was in part a commentary on the state of the country under his "leadership"). The show was mostly well-written and always well-acted. Although it could not maintain the same quality as the first season throughout its run, I think it is still worth checking out.