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Political drama of the un-cynical Kind
While I realize that few if any of you normal people out there are as compulsive as I am about television, it is my duty to suggest that everyone make plans now to set aside an hour Sunday night at 8 to watch one of the best new shows of the season.
That would be the WB’s “Jack & Bobby,” which arrives at 8 p.m. Sunday. If you’re sick of the cynical, hard-hearted tone of the current political campaign, do yourself a favor and taste this morsel of sweet, patriotic idealism.
The set-up is a bit complex, flashing back and forward throughout, and requires close attention. The forward part is 2049, the end of President McCallister’s term. In documentary style, members of his administration recall the formative years of the leader who came to be known as “the great believer.”
The show cleverly avoids any Republican vs. Democratic conflicts by revealing, in the second episode, that President McCallister is the first independent ever elected to the White House.
Most of the series takes place in the early formative years, as the two McCallister brothers navigate the horrors of a small-town Missouri high school and a complicated home life dominated by their pot-smoking, history-professor mother.
The pilot unfolds as a mystery, since we don’t know which brother becomes president and which is a supporting player in the future McCallister political dynasty. That secret is revealed, perhaps too soon, at the end of the pilot.
Jack (Matt Long) is the older brother, a popular jock; Bobby (Logan Lerman) is the younger brother, a geeky kid who’s been babied by his mom, in part because of his asthma.
Their single mother Grace (played by co-executive producer Thomas Schlamme’s wife, Christine Lahti) is a tightly wound college professor who tries to mold and shape her sons’ ideals to suit her own. She’s loving and means well, but her edgy relationship with Jack is one of the show’s most intriguing conflicts.
“Jack & Bobby” is one of the best-written, superbly acted dramas of the new season. Unfortunately, later this month it will go up against the other well-written, superbly acted new drama, ABC’s “Desperate Housewives.”
Ladies and gentlemen, start your video recorders.
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