Anthony Edwards walks briskly through the White House in the opening scene of Netflix's "Designated Survivor," spraying comments and commands to the people he comes across as the camera wheels through the set to keep up.
Then it hits you: It's Dr. Mark Greene of "ER" on "The West Wing"! The mind reels. One or both of the NBC series was nominated for the best drama Emmy every year between 1995 and 2006, symbolizing quality network television for its era. Here they are blended together, like chocolate and peanut butter.
That scene was admittedly an inside joke by Neal Baer, the top "Designated Survivor" producer who also worked on "ER" during its heyday. The now-canceled Netflix revival is also an illustration of how television has changed in a remarkably short time.
This image released by Netflix shows Kiefer Sutherland as Tom Kirkman in "Designated Survivor," created by David Guggenheim. Netflix revived “Designated Survivor” for a single 10-episode season after it was canceled by ABC, but opted not to renew it for a fourth season. The show’s top producer says he was not surprised at the decision because Netflix, which offered him greater creative freedom than the network, was upfront that the show would have to clear a high bar to get a renewal. (Courtesy of Netflix via AP)
The drama built around Kiefer Sutherland's character of Tom Kirkman, a Cabinet member suddenly thrust into the presidency after a terrorist attack, was cast aside by ABC after two seasons. Baer rebuilt it, adding new characters like Edwards' White House chief of staff, and used the "ER" blueprint of interlocking story lines supporting the frame of Kirkman's re-election campaign.
As is Netflix's tradition, it didn't explain why the show won't get a fourth season when it released a statement last month thanking Sutherland, Baer and other creators for their efforts. Nor did it make available any viewership statistics that might have made the decision obvious. Even Baer hasn't seen them.
"They were very upfront with me from the beginning that there was a very high bar to reach," he said. "It wasn't like I was stunned or shocked."
FILE - In a Monday, Sept. 3, 2012 file photo, actor Kiefer Sutherland speaks during a press conference on his TV drama "Touch" in Tokyo. Netflix’s revival of ‘Designated Survivor’ is an interesting failed experiment. Producers tried to create a new series out of the ashes of a cancelled ABC show. They learned how the television world has changed. (AP PhotoKoji Sasahara, File)
The 10-episode season, which remains available on the streaming service, was crafted so the final episode could serve as either a satisfying conclusion or a jumping-off point for new episodes. Turned out it was the former.
Netflix offered Baer greater creative latitude than he would have gotten on network television, which he used in part to include story lines that featured a gay romance between an HIV-positive White House aide and a Secret Service agent, and another with a transsexual sister-in-law of the president.
What he missed was the ready-made audience of 20 million to 30 million people that "ER" routinely had. Although the new "Designated Survivor" got some positive reviews, and Baer relished a tweet where writer Stephen King called it "tough-minded, complex and involving," getting attention in a crowded marketplace proved difficult. Baer was surprised, for example, that his stories didn't create more of a ripple in the LGBTQ community.
This image released by Netflix shows Kal Penn as Seth Wright, left, and Kiefer Sutherland as Tom Kirkman in "Designated Survivor," created by David Guggenheim. Netflix revived “Designated Survivor” for a single 10-episode season after it was canceled by ABC, but opted not to renew it for a fourth season. The show’s top producer says he was not surprised at the decision because Netflix, which offered him greater creative freedom than the network, was upfront that the show would have to clear a high bar to get a renewal. (Courtesy of Netflix via AP)
"There is so much choice that you can gorge yourself only on what you like, and not get challenged," he said.
If there's a fault to the new "Designated Survivor," it's that it often seems bursting with stories, as if producers tried to fit a traditional network's 22-episode season into 10 hours. There's plenty to digest: cheating spouses, opioid abuse and corporate responsibility, genetic engineering by white supremacists, an FBI probe that leads to a character's death, political dirty tricks, assisted suicide, ethnic identity in politics, romance and ambition.
It was a challenge to appeal to the show's old audience, used to simpler story structures that focused chiefly on Kirkman, and also try to convince people who saw the old name that it was an entirely new series worth checking out, Baer said.
Still, excessive ambition is preferable to too little.
"I hope it's not messaging," Baer said. "I hope it is a show that tells a really great story. My intention was to tell the best stories I can, that were modern and path-breaking."
Brian Lowry, television critic for CNN, said the show "didn't really pop creatively."
Lowry feels that "Designated Survivor" was essentially a better idea for a limited series, since it was hard to attract new viewers once the initial story of an inexperienced leader who suddenly becomes president wears off. The idea of Kirkman running for president as an idealistic independent also seems out-of-place for these turbulent, partisan times.
"I felt it was sort of naive," he said.
Netflix also seems to have matured beyond the point of having to recycle ideas from old network shows, he said.
Baer found it an interesting experiment to bring back a show in this manner. He has no regrets.
"I got to do everything I wanted to do," he said.
VENICE. Italy (AP) — Jeffrey Gibson’s takeover of the U.S. pavilion for this year’s Venice Biennale contemporary art show is a celebration of color, pattern and craft, which is immediately evident on approaching the bright red facade decorated by a colorful clash of geometry and a foreground dominated by a riot of gigantic red podiums.
Gibson, a Mississippi Choctaw with Cherokee descent, is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. For context, the last time Native American artists were included was in 1932.
Gibson, 52, accepts the weight of the honor, but he prefers to focus on how his participation can forge greater inclusion going forward.
“The first is not the most important story," Gibson told The Associated Press this week before the pavilion’s inauguration on Thursday. “The first is hopefully the beginning of many, many, many more stories to come."
The commission, his first major show in Europe, comes at a pivotal moment for Gibson. His 2023 book “An Indigenous Present" features more than 60 Indigenous artists, and he has two major new projects, a facade commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and an exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Gibson’s eye-catching exhibition titled “the space in which to place me," features text in beadwork sculptures and paintings taken from U.S. founding documents, music, sermons and proverbs to remind the viewer of the broken promises of equity through U.S. history. The vibrant use of color projects optimism. In that way, Gibson’s art is a call to action.
“What I find so beautiful about Jeffrey’s work is its ability to function as a prism, to take the traumas of the past and the questions about identity and politics and refract them in such a way that things that realities that have become flattened … can become these beautiful kaleidoscopes, which are joyous and celebratory and critical all at the same time," said Abigail Winograd, one of the exhibition’s curators.
“When I see people walk through the pavilion and kind of gasp when they walk from room to room, that’s exactly what we wanted," Winograd said.
Entering the pavilion, the beaded bodices of sculptures in human form are emblazoned with dates of U.S. legislation that promised equity, the beading cascading into colorful fringe. A painting quotes George Washington writing, “Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth," in geometric letters that meld into a colorful patterned background.
By identifying specific moments in U.S. history, Gibson said that he wants to underline that “people who are fighting for equity and justice today, we’re not the first.
“This has been a line in the history of American culture. But I’m hoping that people will think about why … some of these things … have either been revoked or have not come into fruition,” he said.
Craft is at the center of Gibson’s art, both in defiance of past denigration of craft and as a way to confront “the traumatic histories of Native American people,” he said.
“There is something very healing about the cycle of making," Gibson explained.
The pavilion’s intricate beaded sculptures owe a debt to Native American makers of the past without imitating them, employing couture techniques to create something completely new. In the way of his forbears, Gibson uses beads sourced from all over the world, including vintage beads from Japan and China, and glass beads from the Venetian island of Murano.
Paper works incorporate vintage beadwork purchased from websites, estate and garage sales in mixed media displays that honor the generations of Native American makers that preceded him.
Gibson's themes fit well into the message of inclusion of the main Biennale exhibition, titled “Stranieri Ovunque -- Strangers Everywhere,” which runs in tandem with around 90 national pavilions from April 20-Nov. 24.
His personal history has placed him firmly in what he calls the “diasporic history of Indigenous people.” His father's job took his family abroad when he was a child to Germany and then South Korea, and he later studied in Chicago and London. His partner is Norwegian artist Rune Olsen.
Through all of this, Gibson has picked up traditions and practices that go beyond his Indigenous background.
“I’ve looked at op art, pattern and decoration. I've looked at psychedelia, I have taken part in rave culture and queer culture and drag and the whole spectrum," Gibson said.
"And so for me, I would not be telling you the whole truth if I only chose to spoke about indigeneity. But my body is an Indigenous body — it’s all funneled through this body,'' he said. ”And so my hope is that by telling my experience, that everyone else can project their own kind of intersected, layered experience into the world.”
Artist Jeffrey Gibson, right, poses with artist Mark Bradford at the U.S. pavilion during the media open day at the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Visitors look at sculptures on display inside the US pavilion by artist Jeffrey Gibson during the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Visitors look at sculptures on display inside the US pavilion by artist Jeffrey Gibson during the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Visitors look at sculptures on display inside the US pavilion by artist Jeffrey Gibson during the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Visitors look at sculptures on display inside the US pavilion by artist Jeffrey Gibson during the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
From left, Curator Abigail Winograd, artist Jeffrey Gibson, and Curator Kathleen Ash-Milby pose at the US pavilion during the media open day at the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
From left, Curator Abigail Winograd, artist Jeffrey Gibson, and Curator Kathleen Ash-Milby pose at the US pavilion during the media open day at the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Artist Jeffrey Gibson poses at the US pavilion during a media open day at the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Artist Jeffrey Gibson, right, poses with artist Mark Bradford at the U.S. pavilion during the media open day at the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Artist Jeffrey Gibson, right, hugs artist Mark Bradford at the U.S. pavilion during media open day of the 60th Biennale of Arts exhibition in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Artist Jeffrey Gibson poses inside the US pavilion during the media open day at the 60th Biennale of Arts in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. A Mississippi Choctaw of Cherokee descent, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest contemporary art show. Gibson mixes Western modernism and Native American craft in his vibrantly hued paintings and sculptures. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
