00BAMA
Webseries Review
When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he was seen
by many of his supporters as a different kind of politician, someone
who could be trusted and capable of bringing a more solution-oriented,
civic-minded approach to running the country. Candidate Obama offered
a positive message of hope, summed up in the simple phrase “Yes
We Can,” and his easy-going charm and charisma made him a popular
figure both in the United States and abroad.
It has
often been stated that it is both different—and maybe even easier—to
run a political campaign than it is to actually govern, as President
Obama no doubt learned early in his administration. With a two-party
political system and deep philosophical divisions throughout the country,
achieving the necessary consensus to initiate policy changes can be
a tedious and often unsuccessful task. Writer Todd Berger seems to ask
“what if it was simpler than that” in 00BAMA,
a webseries that turns the Forty-Fourth President of the United States
into a 007-style undercover agent capable of implementing his “yes-we-can”
optimism into reality with both ease and finesse.
In the
first episode, for instance, a suspected terrorist with knowledge of
an imminent attack on U.S. soil is captured. When President Obama’s
covert team of Joey B (Jeff Grace), Hill (Elizabeth Sandy) and Rahm
(Blaise Miller)—send-ups of Vice President Joseph Biden, Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel—are unable
to ascertain the needed information through normal interrogation, the
President refuses to utilize more aggressive Jack Bauer-type techniques.
“This is America, man” he replies. “Save aggressive
techniques for the bedroom.” Instead Obama himself questions the
suspect and when that yields no results, he opens a box containing a
freshly-baked apple pie and begins eating until the terrorist finally
breaks.
Other episodes
include Obama and his team going undercover in a Moroccan bar where
Kim Jong-Nam of South Korea and Vladimir Putin of Russia are having
a clandestine meeting. Instead of using threats of physical force against
the newly-formed alliance, President Obama literally throws the keys
to the White House on the table and challenges them to a drinking game
a la Raiders of the Ark to resolve the question of world domination.
In another installment, the Big Three automobile-makers hold American
jobs hostage in exchange for millions of dollars in bail-out money only
to have their plan thwarted by Obama.
Although
the idea of the President of the United States masquerading as a covert
undercover agent could easily turn into a half-baked late night comedy
sketch, 00BAMA rises above such simplistic depictions with
a slick, polished look and professional air to its episodes. The writing,
meanwhile, is both witty without being patronizing as well as fresh
without falling into predictability. And while actor James Jolly may
not be a dead-ringer for the actual Barack Obama, there is enough charm
and charisma in his performance to indeed illicit comparisons to the
leader of the free world—and even Sean Connery’s interpretation
of James Bond.
00BAMA
is not Todd Berger’s first venture into the webseries medium.
In 2008 he created the four-episode Time
Dealer—about
“a time traveling drug dealer as he alters history, on ounce at
a time”—for the now-defunct 60Frames. While 00BAMA
offers an optimistic viewpoint on both present politics and President
Obama’s administration, Time Dealer offers a glimpse
of the past that is more in line with the ramblings of Timothy Leary
than anything learned in high school. Like some burned-out Dr. Who or
Sam Beckett, the mysterious lead protagonist (D.C. Pierson) indeed travels
through space and time, meeting many historical figures along the way.
He then introduces them to some form of illegal drug which in turns
leads to the past recited in history books. Joan of Arc, for instance,
experiences visions of God urging her to lead the French army against
the English while wasted on mushrooms. A writers-blocked Thomas Jefferson,
meanwhile, finds the right words for the Declaration of Independence
after a night of “tweaking” with the time dealer.
In 1999,
the television drama The West Wing premiered on NBC. The series
depicted politics in the United States in the ideal sense, with a president
who adhered to a set of beliefs and an opposition party that was both
open and willing to compromise. 00BAMA offers its own idealistic
viewpoint, transforming the charismatic Barack Obama into a James Bond-style
covert operative that is capable of bringing about his policies of change
in a hands-on and successful manner. While more fantastical than The
West Wing ever was, the webseries still manages to convey the optimism
that President Obama initially invoked in his supporters while likewise
being both humorous and entertain.
On 00BAMA,
“Yes We Can” has never been more fun.
Anthony
Letizia (March 22, 2010)
MORE
WEBSERIES REVIEWS
FOLLOW
ALTERNA-TV.COM: FACEBOOK
- TWITTER
- RSS
FEED
