{"id":8267,"date":"2017-01-20T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=8267"},"modified":"2017-01-15T14:36:51","modified_gmt":"2017-01-15T20:36:51","slug":"the-flags-on-designated-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2017\/01\/the-flags-on-designated-survivor\/","title":{"rendered":"The flags on “Designated Survivor”"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I’ve mentioned before<\/a>, I’m trying to hold interest in “Designated Survivor” but there are plot elements rubbing me the wrong way. The “winter finale”, which included a woman walking away from a serious car crash and being well enough to run\/drive\/shoot a gun not long thereafter was clearly “24”-esque, and I accepted the nature of that show’s universe, but it didn’t work for me here.<\/p>\n

While trying to be grounded in reality, the show keeps taking shortcuts and, for a political thriller, appeared to be completely lost on how vacancies in the two houses of Congress are filled.<\/a><\/p>\n

Then I saw the flags. Not the ones the audience is waving, or the ones that feel like overcompensation because the show is filmed in Canada<\/a>, but the ones on the partially ruined Capitol.<\/p>\n

\"designatedsurvivorflags\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a screen capture from the last episode, when the vice president is to be sworn in. The set designers\/CGI artists obviously modeled the whole thing after Barack Obama’s inauguration. But two of those flags have meaning. The second and fourth flags represent the president’s home state<\/em>. Those flags have 21 stars, representing Illinois<\/em>. We were given no indication of where Bauer’s character is from \u2014 although it’s likely New York (the Cornell sweatshirt), Maryland, or Virginia (being a Cabinet secretary) \u2014 and all of those would get a 13-star flag. But this ceremony isn’t for the president, it’s for the vice<\/em> president, and it’s been made clear he is from Oregon. (And that’s\u00a0another<\/em> thing \u2014 a character with MacLeish’s background can only be from one district in that state, and it’s not any of those near Portland.)<\/p>\n

It’s just a teeny tiny thing, I know. But man, it’s attention to detail that makes things work and allows viewers to accept the universe of the show. For all the detail paid to making a replica of the Oval Office (in the link above), this seems like something someone should have caught.<\/p>\n

(This counts as my inauguration-related post.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m trying to hold interest in “Designated Survivor” but there are plot elements rubbing me the wrong way. The “winter finale”, which included a woman walking away from a serious car crash and being well enough … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8270,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8267\/revisions\/8270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}