The stories are breathtakingly small, as though the original show has been shrunk down into a vivid maquette. In the third, Carrie pretends she has COVID to get out of recording her own audiobook. In the second, Miranda loses her phone on the beach. In the first episode, Carrie learns, via YouTube, how to poach an egg. I’ve watched the first seven episodes-each a fugue-state-inducing 45 minutes-and it’s almost awe-inspiring how little actually happens. Shows like Designated Survivor sit on the opposite end of the mindlessness spectrum to And Just Like That, the Sex and the City reboot from Max (formerly HBO Max) that’s now back for a second season. (The antidote to anxiety, it turns out, is the certainty of catastrophe within the next five minutes.) So much happens, in fact-armed shooters! bioterrorism threats! insurrection!-that the overall effect is paradoxically soothing. The show is replete with plot, which suited my jittery, exhausted state. The premise is that a terrorist attack during the State of the Union has killed the president, plus almost all of Congress and the Cabinet the lone survivor left to govern is the milquetoast Housing and Urban Development secretary, played by Kiefer Sutherland. Recently, on a week-long vacation with a couple of 2-year-olds who abjectly refused to sleep, and with only limited access to French Netflix, I started watching Designated Survivor, a truly nonsensical television show.
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