TVSquad

Rod Lurie is no stranger to writing strong female characters. In film, he wrote and directed The Contender, with Joan Allen as a woman who was being considered for the Vice Presidency of the United States.

Then with Commander in Chief on ABC, he made Geena Davis the President and actually showed her in action -- until the show was canceled.

Lurie's working on another female-driven drama now for Showtime, but this time it's not about politics. Hillary Jones is the name of the show and the character, a police detective working vice in Los Angeles during the week, but moonlighting as a hooker in Nevada during the weekend.

She's not breaking the law, though, because prostitution -- as you and I know from the movies -- is legal there.

They've done the right thing at CBS in casting -- at least it seems right. Brooklyn native Rosie Perez will play Lorna, Geena Davis' cop partner on the force in Exit 19. I say it's the right thing, and good casting, because Lorna is supposed to be a Brooklyn girl. You can't get more authentic than Rosie Perez. She's a New Yorker through and through. In Exit 19, with Geena cast as a cop who works in the city while raising two kids in Long Island, the work atmosphere will likely seem a lot more realistic with Perez as her partner. If they can muster up the chemistry of a Cagney & Lacey, they'll be well on their way to a success. Of course, with Rosie all of five feet, one and a half inches and Geena a statuesque six feet, they're going to look like Mutt and Jeff.

She's trying one more time. That'll make it three attempts, but who's counting. Three attempts since the new century, that is. Anyway, the point is that Geena Davis's new police drama, Exit 19, has been greenlighted by CBS. The Oscar-winning actress (for The Accidental Tourist), is going from playing the first female president on Commander in Chief, to an eccentric New York homicide detective who's also raising two kids -- sans spouse -- in suburban Long Island.

As Joel reported yesterday, ABC has canceled the Presidential drama Commander-In-Chief, saying it might come back as a two hour movie. But now Zap2it.com is reporting that not only will the two hour movie wrap up the storyline, but it could actually revive the series if it gets good enough ratings and the network thinks the show could succeed in a different form.

Chances of a TV movie? Excellent. Chances of the show coming back as a regular series? I'd say slightly less than zero.

Things don't look good for Geena Davis' show.

ABC is pulling the show for May sweeps, and when a network does that it's never a good sign. On top of that, they haven't announced when the show will return to the schedule.

For now, Primetime will take the show's place. Oh well. If they don't show the rest of the episodes they'll probably be on the first season DVD set.

Fans of Geena Davis' ABC drama will be happy to hear that the first season of the show is coming to DVD on October 3. Though I really hope that the box shown here is just a temporary design. I mean, it looks like the kind of design you'd find on some cheapo DVD in the bargain bin, or some badly made "best of" DVD you might see.

I've never watched Commander-In-Chief. After many years of The West Wing, the show has a lot to live up to, and I can't bring myself to watch it (unfair, I know).

This week, watching Commander in Chief, I felt as if I was in the middle of a lovable Steve Martin movie, one where the children were full of hi-jinks, the sexual escapades were many, the adults were in charge of Very Important Things and, at the end, everyone met over the breakfast table to giggle and eat homemade pancakes. In other words: schmaltz. In other words: saccharine. Gah! And just when we thought Nathan Templeton was going to be evil again.

Speaking of Donald Sutherland's evilness, I was happy to see just a glimpse of it, but it was prefaced by such a terrifically (I almost wrote, monumentally) obvious and overplayed line from Jim. I'll get to that in a minute. But first:

Isn't this show supposed to be award-winning? Oh, right, it was Geena Davis. Well, congratulations sweetie, I think you deserve it. But with dialogue like this, you may not keep the honor for long.

While I'm enjoying this show still, after this episode I had to wonder if I could have just cut-and-pasted my review from the last episode before Christmas and changed a few words. The title: over the top cute (but still far better than "First Act of War" or something). The outfits: better, especially the yummy chocolate silk jammies. The angry teenaged daughter: still angry, still whiny, still want to slap her. Nathan Templeton: no longer evil. Just... not. What's with that?

What did I like? Well, those jammies. The nicely-built cliffhanger. The way Mac answers her phone while wearing aforementioned chocolate-colored jammies. It's soooo Presidential. The developing relationship between Jim Gardner and Rob Calloway - the dynamic works pretty well, sparring but with growing respect for one another. And Gardner with the loyalty? Boy that was a nice (if canned) little speech. I could almost hear the orchestra in the background soaring as he delivered the "I love the Pres" address to the gathered generals and admirals and such. Finally, I am going on record as saying that Ever Carradine's hair was nice this time. It still needs to be shorter but, at long last, it looks like it belongs on an adult. With a job.