Starring: Tea Leoni, Tim Daly, Zeljko Ivanek, Bebe Neuwirth, Keith Carradine
I might have found my new favorite fall show. Granted, I’ve only seen a handful of pilots (Red Band Society, A To Z, Selfie, and The Mysteries Of Laura), but this is the best one I’ve seen so far. It has influences of The West Wing, which is good, but we haven’t yet started to explore the supporting cast in the way West Wing did. The big names, Daly and Ivanek have a bit of character development, but there are a lot of new faces whose characters need more than one episode for them to come to the front.
The key here is Tea Leoni, who is smart enough, and strong enough for her role. The writing is good, and as far as a pilot goes, it did what it needed to do in order to keep people interested. The pilot involves our “Madam Secretary” getting her position, and her first big epidemic, which is two kids being held captive in Syria. She handles that with ease and wisdom, and has enough time to look pretty, and make political enemies. Oh, and there’s this little subplot that someone in the White House may have gotten the last Secretary of State killed. Obviously, that’s the season long arc, and I can’t wait to see how that plays out.
Hopefully this show plays out better than Political Animals and Commander In Chief. I already like it way more than Political Animals, and I can barely remember Commander In Chief. This is the first fall show I can say is a “must watch”, and the first to earn a season record on my DVR. I hope we see more from the supporting cast, specifically Bebe Neuwirth, who wasn’t given much to do in the pilot, and is capable of so much more.
FINAL GRADE: A
