What Are We Thinking About State of Affairs?
LatestMonday night was the premiere of State of Affairs, NBC’s new DC drama and Katherine Heigl’s solemn return to television. I’m glad NBC decided to fill this void because between Scandal, House of Cards, Veep, Homeland and Madam Secretary, I was seriously craving a television program that gave me an inside look into a fictional White House.
The best way to describe my reaction to State of Affairs is: huh. It’s not just that the plot is a bit convoluted or that Heigl has the charm of a plastic bag—there are just so many aspects of this show that I simply don’t know what to do with.
We have to start with the single most distracting thing about State of Affairs: Heigl’s character’s name. She plays a woman named Charleston Tucker. Charleston. CHARLESTON. Every once in a while, someone calls her “Charlie,” but most of the time they go right on ahead and say the whole damn thing. Her name is so obviously ridiculous that it was hard for me to get past to anything else.
Charleston is a CIA analyst responsible for compiling and presenting the President’s daily briefing. The show is set a year following the death of Charlston’s fiancé, Aaron Payton, who also happens to have been the son of the nation’s first black female president, Constance Payton (THESE GODDAMN NAMES), played by Queen Alfre Woodard. Aaron was a humanitarian aid worker who died in a foggy (both literally and figuratively) terrorist attack that Charleston may or may not have been involved in. HERE IS A PICTURE OF CHARLESTON RIGHT AFTER THE ATTACK: