In just looking at the trailer for “Designated Survivor,” ABC’s new show starring Kiefer Sutherland, it’s easy to be reminded of the terror-fueled popcorn film “Olympus Has Fallen” or, more specifically, given its lead actor, “24.” (Or for “Battlestar Galactica” fans, President Laura Roslin.)
In the new fall series, a low-ranking member of the presidential Cabinet (played by Sutherland in an everyman Ivy League sweatshirt) is tasked with being the senior government figure at a secure location while the president addresses Congress in the event of a disaster.
It’s a real-life contingency that made an appearance in the first season of “The West Wing.” And though “Designated Survivor” is built on the horror of a worst-case scenario attack that leaves Sutherland’s character as president, the series creators said they are looking beyond that initial horror to drive the drama.
“I think there are a few tones at play,” said producer Jon Harmon Feldman at the Television Critics Association press tour this week. “There is a ‘West Wing’ component of a man governing and his team governing; there’s also the ‘Homeland’ aspect of investigating a conspiracy; and it’s also got a ‘House of Cards’ component, which is the characters and the business of government through the eyes of these characters.”
For Sutherland’s part, he explained he had no intention of returning to TV when he read the script by “Safe House” writer David Guggenheim. “I was very busy but I felt that I needed to give the script a cursory read so I could at least respond with some intelligence and explain why I couldn’t do it. And I found myself on Page 22 and I remember saying, I’ve got to go back and start from the beginning.”
The series also functions as a family drama with Natascha McElhone portraying the wife of Sutherland’s character, and she cited the importance of the experience of cast mate (and onetime White House staffer with the Obama administration) Kal Penn in building her character as she navigates high-powered Washington politics. “Kal’s a great resource for all of this — am I allowed to say this? — because of his real-life work as well as his work as an actor,” she said.
Sutherland also said he tried to look at the “common sense” presidential style of Franklin D. Roosevelt in preparing for his role, but the shadow of Jack Bauer remained hard to shake. Asked at one point what the “24” action hero would think of the more mild-mannered, accidental President Tom Kirkman, Sutherland couldn’t resist.
“Good-looking guy,” Sutherland joked. “I really should lose the glasses.”
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