Commander in Change

By James Poniewozik

It was a U.S. President -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt--who campaigned on the slogan "Don't change horses in the middle of the stream." On Commander in Chief, the nation has to: the President dies, and Vice President Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis) succeeds him. But the presidents of ABC and Touchstone Television made the call to change horses themselves. CiC--following on Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy--was an immediate hit for the resurgent network. But creator Rod Lurie was having trouble with the grind of TV production. He was producing, writing and directing and was badly bogged down in minutiae. Scripts came late; production slowed down. ABC faced the prospect of having a new hit but no episodes to air.

So like his controversial woman President, Lurie was asked to step aside. Unlike her, he acceded. "It was painful," Lurie told TIME, in his first interview since being replaced. "But I understand their decision. The screenplays and production were lagging behind. They have an asset that needs to be protected." Lurie will nominally stay with the show, but the reins will be turned over to veteran producer Steven Bochco (NYPD Blue). "I feel like my baby is being adopted," Lurie says. "But at least it's being adopted by a Rockefeller."

Networks are usually loath to fix what's not broken, with good reason. The West Wing--that other White House drama--went into a ratings spiral after its creator, Aaron Sorkin, left the show in 2003. And the CiC change comes at a critical time. An out-of-the-box top 10 show, it has replaced The West Wing as the darling of pundits and pols. It has been cited as evidence that a woman could win in 2008, and producer Steven Cohen, a former Bill and Hillary Clinton press aide, even says it could help her do so. "For the viewing public to hear the phrase 'Madam President,'" he says, "certainly goes a great deal in getting people comfortable with the idea." (That may be a tad extreme. The argument assumes, on the one hand, that people weren't already willing to elect a woman and ignores, on the other, that CiC's viewership of 15 million or 16 million does not quite reach Ross Perot's tally in '92.)

But the show differs from the policy-heavy West Wing in that it focuses more on the President's juggling of work and family. In one scene, Allen's husband (Kyle Secor) asks the harried head of state whether she has seen their daughter's math workbook. "Under the portrait of Coolidge," Allen says. The show is really more about a working mom than a woman politician. Indeed, Lurie says Allen was inspired mainly by his mother Tamar, a successful real estate agent. The show is apolitical to a fault: President Allen is an Independent and has a knack for taking tough, principled stands almost no one could disagree with. She's against the repression of journalists in Russia and the stoning of women for adultery in Nigeria, and dammit, she doesn't care who she offends! "I'm the first to admit that in some ways, this is a fantasy President," says Davis. "We want and dream of a President who will make the right choices for the right reasons and not based on pleasing factions of their party."

CiC's fantasy has certainly pleased its fans. But Bochco's shows--from Hill Street Blues through Over There, the FX Iraq-war drama--are better known for gritty realism than uplift. Bochco wouldn't comment on his plans, and ABC president Stephen McPherson insists that Bochco is "going to be doing the same show that Rod created." But shortly after taking over, Bochco fired five of CiC's nine writers. He has a reputation for boldness, if not lately for success: he has had a string of recent network failures (Blind Justice, City of Angels, Brooklyn South).

People connected with the show say it will eventually move away from the novelty of a woman President to political questions--including base closings and disaster relief--and character development. "[Bochco] will probably be exploring characters and issues more," says executive producer Dee Johnson. But producers also say the show would have moved beyond the introductory, gee-whiz-she's-a-woman stage under Lurie too. "The early days of any presidency," says Cohen, "are about what a new leader brings to the office, what their style is and their approach and their inner makeup." They're also about transitions, early missteps and staff problems. And as CiC is learning, sometimes life imitates politics.

With reporting by Reported by Jeanne McDowell / Los Angeles