Would Showtime’s “The First Lady” work better if it hadn’t cast such famously recognizable actors to play Michelle Obama, Betty Ford and Eleanor Roosevelt? Who’s to say, but I found it more difficult than usual to suspend my disbelief over the course of this 10-part series, which toggles between the three eras of each woman.
Projects like this need big names to get the green light, so here we are, with fully committed, if not always successful, performances from Viola Davis (as Michelle), Michelle Pfeiffer (as Betty) and Gillian Anderson (as Eleanor) in service of an approach that is more history class diorama than the stuff of riveting drama. Any one of these presidential first ladies could have — should have — been the subject of a stand-alone series, and threading their stories together feels arbitrary except for the fact that they collectively span the last century or so, leaping forward in three-decade increments with a focus on the Roosevelts in the ‘30s and ‘40s, the Fords in the ‘70s and the Obamas in the early 2000s.
It’s always fun to speculate about the marriages of public people — what are their conversations like in private? — and that’s primarily what the series has going for it. Early in the campaign, we see Michelle rushing to her Chicago home, concerned when her daughters inform her Secret Service agents are now installed at the house. Her husband is not even the nominee yet and he needs this level of protection? Barack (played by O-T Fagbenle) tries to lighten the mood as he coolly strolls into their kitchen: “Boom! Your man kicked the Secret Service outta the house. I said, ‘Look, fellas, I don’t care how many guns you got, my wife doesn’t like it — get to steppin.’ Now, strictly speaking, they can’t leave the property …” She’s not having it: “It’s not funny, Barack.” It’s not the only time his political aspirations and her focus on practical realities will come into conflict.
