The Night Agent: Right Good

The wife and I binged The Night Agent on the Netflix the past few nights, and enjoyed it.  Both the story, and the fact it was streaming rather than spun out episode by episode over ten weeks, or shown in two parts.

Shawn Ryan put it all together. He did The Shield, probably the best cop show ever on television, and Timeless, not the best time travel ever on television, but pretty good.  I'd say The Night Agent is better than Timeless and not as good as The Shield, but that means The Night Agent is well worth watching indeed.

It's the most reminiscent of 24, even though it takes longer to unfold than a day, and there's no clock literally ticking.  In fact, two of the medium important actors from 24 -- D. B. Woodside and Kari Matchett -- had important roles in The Night Agent, and they both did well.  Woodside played a President (of the United States) in 24, and Matchett plays the same in The Night Agent.

The two lead characters -- Gabriel Basso as Peter Sutherland who works for the Night Agents and Luciane Buchanan as Rose Larkin -- who evolves from depending on Sutherland for her very life to saving his more than once -- are a sharp, spunky couple, and I look forward to seeing them again, whether in another season of The Night Agent (just renewed for a second season) or in other shows.

The villains are probably the weakest part of the story, on all levels, because we've seen something like all of them in one way or another many times before.  But they propel a plot with surprises in every episode, and take part in lots of superb action scenes.

So, yeah, see The Night Agent,  hold on to your seat, and enjoy.

Barack Obama and 24

Have David Palmer and Wayne Palmer - two powerful, admirable, African-American Presidents on Fox's 24 - contributed to Barack Obama's success as the first African-American candidate with a real chance to win the White House?

Win, lose, or draw in the important primaries tonight, Obama has a already made an undeniably extraordinary impact. I happen to think (and hope) he is the next President, but even if he doesn't get there, his candidacy has already changed American Presidential politics forever, and for the better.

As a professor and author of books about popular culture and its impact, I take a keen interest in the way of our media fiction influences our real politics. I've already blogged here about the importance of the Obama Girl videos in the early days of Barack Obama's campaign.

As I also reported here last July, Obama Girl producer Ben Relles told my class at Fordham University that the original "I've Got a Crush on Obama" song was "I've Got a Crush on Jack Bauer". So Obama's candidacy and 24 were linked from the start.

More important, I'd say, was the image of African-American Presidents conveyed by David Palmer (superbly played by Dennis Haysbert) and his brother Wayne Palmer (superbly played by D. B. Woodside). Although David was assassinated and Wayne wound up in a coma, their behavior as Presidents always showed a highly intelligent Commander-in-Chief will to take on acutely difficult and internationally threatening issues, and handle these crises with grace and aplomb.

That had to have some kind of positive, educational effect on 24's millions of viewers.

Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown is fond of citing 24 for stirring up fears of nuclear terror (at one point even absurdly implying that 24's producers were in league with the Bush administration). But the far greater truth - or only truth - about 24's impact on real American politics may be the role it played in making all Americans more comfortable with the prospect of an African-American President.

A woman in the White House was powerfully presented in the excellent Commander in Chief on ABC, with Geena Davis just outstanding as President Mackenzie Allen. But that series didn't even survive one complete season...