CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Paradise on Disney+: This ghastly US President almost made me glad we've got Starmer!
Paradise (Disney+)
Disney executives have designed the template for their perfect U.S. President . . . and it's not reassuring.
James Marsden, in Paradise, plays the world's most powerful man as a vain boozehound with the brains of George W. Bush, the morals of Bill Clinton, the sex drive of JFK and the attention span of Donald Trump.
His proudest trophy is a photo of him with Bono. His idea of putting people at ease, as they walk into the Oval Office, is to order them to take off their shoes and then chuckle, 'I'm just f***ing with you.'
Foreign policy isn't his strongest suit, as he tells his new head of security, Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown): 'I couldn't really tell you where Syria is on the map, but leaders of other countries seem to trust me.'
Most ominous of all, he's so convinced that his presidency will end in 'an extinction level event', he's making plans for a perfect world in its aftermath . . . and the rest of humanity isn't invited.
Half an hour into Paradise and I was beginning to think how lucky we Brits are to have Keir Starmer.
No surprise that, by the end of the first episode, President Cal Bradford is dead on his bedroom floor in a puddle of blood and whisky.
Before he died, he inscribed a clue on a cigarette — he's so thick, it apparently didn't occur to him to write on the fag packet instead.
The big problem of Paradise is not convincing us that America's figurehead is such a ghastly human being. Most of us can stretch our credulity that far.
James Marsden (right) in Paradise plays the world's most powerful man as a vain boozehound with the brains of George W. Bush, the morals of Bill Clinton , the sex drive of JFK and the attention span of Donald Trump
But it's difficult to believe that Agent Collins would be so eager to take a bullet for the man, which he does on the White House lawn, or that he'd stick by him for years, despite all the insults and betrayals.
It's obvious there's no friendship between the pair.
On the night of the President's death, Bradford tries drunkenly to apologise for some unspecified treachery, and Collins retorts, 'I'll forgive you when I can sleep again and I'll sleep when you're dead.'
Why we're supposed to admire the bodyguard's loyalty, or care who the killer is, I'm not sure.
And although the show is from Dan Fogelman, who created the subtle and complex This Is Us, some dialogue in Paradise is bad enough to set your teeth on edge.
'Wildcat is down,' barks Collins when he finds the body. 'It's a Code Red. Call it in.'
More interesting is the revelation that all this happens inside some kind of artificial world, where the sun is a massive lamp under a plastic sky and even the ducks on the town pond are electric.
Sterling K. Brown plays Xavier Collins, the president's new head of security in Paradise
Although the show is from Dan Fogelman, who created the subtle and complex This Is Us, some dialogue in Paradise is bad enough to set your teeth on edge
That idea has been done before, for instance in The Truman Show with Jim Carrey or Stephen King's serial Under The Dome.
But a Disney version of the perfect American universe, as a sort of neighbourhood theme park, is bound to be intriguing.
I just worry about their choice of President.
