\Yes, birthday parties for 2-year-olds can seem a tad frivolous.
There’s too much noise, too little substance. But one such party led to “Line of Fire” (shown here), which debuts at 10 p.m. Monday (Sept. 21) on NBC, the first new, scripted show of the broadcast-network season.
That started three years ago, with a party for Barbara Bush’s daughter. Guests included Jenna Bush Hagar (Barbara’s twin sister) and writer-director Joshua Safran, a neighbor whose daughter was a friend of the birthday girl.
The conversation, Hager said, got around to the Secret Service people who protected their father (President George W. Bush) and his family. “We talked about this dynamic of people who are putting other people first, in many circumstances. What happens in their own family is complicated.”
That clicked Safran’s interests from two sides.
“Josh has (made) ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘Quantico,'” said Ben Spector, another writer-director on the project. These were “very different totally, yet elements of those come together in this.”
Like “Quantico” (the FBI show Safran created), “Line of Fire” has tough pros in high-stakes jobs. Like “Gossip Girl” (which he ran), it has lots of personal moments, through its main characters.
Mike Hollingsworth (Peter Krause) is a Secret Service agent, nearing retirement; his wife Jane (Hope Davis) is a U.S. Marshal. Their daughter is in the FBI; their sons are in the Secret Service and the Department of Justice.
And how does that work out personally?
“Well, they’re not living in the same house when the show opens,” Davis told the Television Critics Association, “What does that tell you? We have some secrets from one another and some things that we never could agree on.”
Each week has a stand-alone story, involving one or more family members. But there are also longer stories — including a big, perplexing one that booms in near the end of the hour.
Hager — who co-hosts the fourth hour of NBC’s “Today” — is one of the producers, with an eye for detail. She asked Safran to “bring on a former Secret Service man that I admire and adore.”
He’s now one of several consultants on the show and can divulge details about the Bushes … but not gossip-girl-type details.
“He pointed out that President Bush was particularly punctual with Air Force One,” Krause said. “Unlike some others, apparently.”
At a tot’s party, a Secret Service show emerged
\es, birthday parties for 2-year-olds can seem a tad frivolous.
There’s too much noise, too little substance. But one such party led to “Line of Fire” (shown here), which debuts at 10 p.m. Monday (Sept. 21) on NBC, the first new, scripted show of the broadcast-network season.
That started three years ago, with a party for Barbara Bush’s daughter. Guests included Jenna Bush Hagar (Barbara’s twin sister) and writer-director Joshua Safran, a neighbor whose daughter was a friend of the birthday girl.
The conversation, Hager said, got around to the Secret Service people who protected their father (President George W. Bush) and his family. “We talked about this dynamic of people who are putting other people first, in many circumstances. What happens in their own family is complicated.” Read more…