cvbear

If that's the case, I clearly missed it. :) But still, to try and frame it in the State Dept. as something surprising still seems silly. In these days of mass media, nothing escapes notice. (Except to me, obvs.)

I realize adding a daughter is post-pilot tinkering, but to frame it as a "secret daughter" State has to deal with is just ridiculous. It wasn't going to come out at a confirmation hearing or on the news or the Internet, social media or Wikipedia that she had a third kid of college-age? It sounds more absurd than usual. Željko Ivanek is still Snidely Whiplash without the mustache, Bebe Neuwirth has nothing to do, and the cast is so overpopulated with characters so early that they haven't still explained everyone away, and with the Crisis of the Week, there's always 2-3 more coming. And the sad thing is, the similar-sounding show NBC has coming with Diva Heigl as a SoS sounds worse. So a smart, network drama on government still has a vacuum, because this one is rapidly losing steam for me.

I didn't hate it, keeping in mind this was the pilot, and in pilots they're obligated to introduce so much in so little time that sometimes it feels like so much so soon. Still, you needed a flow chart to keep up on everything. I'm still not sure who George was in relation to MadSec (CIA, yes, but how do any of these people know each other?). Perhaps the very first hour isn't the best time to introduce a conspiracy atop political intrigue, a hostage situation, a Trotskyite son and a moody daughter. I'm rooting against a Crisis Of The Week approach, the Chief of Staff, and President Carradine's re-election. But once Tea's character found a little footing she wasn't hard to like a little bit. It had enough interesting supporting cast members to see if it can carry over into something watchable for a few episodes.

Just to get my feet wet: I have not been able to understand how TPTB this season have been able to mix an attempt at complex procedural mystery one week in with the Encyclopedia Brown-level mysteries like this, where subplots don't so much combine or collide as uncomfortably co-exist. The only reason this episode seemed to exist may well have been to give Brian Dietzen something to do this season. (For the record, his performance was affecting, but usually the human moments on this show have some generally generic tie to the plot.) The less said about the main plot, the better. It seemed to be lifted from a movie one of the writers was watching on TCM. Think "Larceny, Inc.", at least in part. I will say, though, the comic parts of that Mr. Palmer's Adoption subplot were pretty funny at times: how many highly-educated NCISers does it take to install a child safety seat?