--- title: The First Lady Is an Egregiously Miscast Missed Opportunity description: Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gillian Anderson play Michelle Obama, Betty Ford, and Eleanor Roosevelt in this ill-conceived FLOTUS drama canonical: https://time.com/6166639/first-lady-review-showtime/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-04-14T16:07:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:54:21.114Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The First Lady Is an Egregiously Miscast Missed Opportunity og:description: Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, vand Gillian Anderson play Obama, Ford and Roosevelt in this ill-conceived FLOTUS drama og:url: https://time.com/6166639/first-lady-review-showtime/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1aa12ad262fe8e0c/698a30e34ee26213d231a15b/TheFirstLady_101_8011_R.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 101 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The First Lady Is an Egregiously Miscast Missed Opportunity twitter:description: Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, vand Gillian Anderson play Obama, Ford and Roosevelt in this ill-conceived FLOTUS drama twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1aa12ad262fe8e0c/698a30e34ee26213d231a15b/TheFirstLady_101_8011_R.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _The First Lady_ Is an Egregiously Miscast, Emptily Inspirational Missed Opportunity > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Apr 14, 2022 4:07 PM UTC  Viola Davis as Michelle Obama in THE FIRST LADY Viola Davis as Michelle Obama in THE FIRST LADYJackson Lee Davis—SHOWTIME  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Apr 14, 2022 4:07 PM UTC _The First Lady_ could have been great. A drama that interweaves the biographies of three extraordinary FLOTUSes—[Eleanor Roosevelt](https://time.com/5793538/eleanor-roosevelt-100-women-of-the-year/), [Michelle Obama](https://time.com/5793778/michelle-obama-100-women-of-the-year/), and [Betty Ford](http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2082229-1,00.html)—is a tantalizing project for prestige TV. Such a premise could, with deeply researched scripts and evocative production design, put a compelling face on the broader history of women in America from the early 20th century through the present. You’d struggle to find more distinguished lead actors than [Viola Davis](https://time.com/collection/2017-time-100/4736294/viola-davis/), [Michelle Pfeiffer](https://time.com/4929183/michelle-pfeiffer-mother-jennifer-lawrence/), and [Gillian Anderson](https://time.com/4153871/gillian-anderson-questions/), or a stronger supporting cast than one that includes Kiefer Sutherland, Dakota Fanning, Ellen Burstyn, Judy Greer, and Lily Rabe. It would be hard to overstate how much Showtime’s _The First Lady_, premiering April 17, squanders these advantages. Given the opportunity to complicate the textbook version of American history, look beyond the sexist media narratives of each First Lady’s day, and bind together the legacies of three of the past century’s most important women, first-time creator Aaron Cooley and showrunner Cathy Schulman (a producer of the preachy 2006 Oscar winner [_Crash_](https://time.com/3992851/paul-haggis-crash-oscar/)) stick to the well-trod surface. Two of the three stars—Anderson as Roosevelt and Davis as Obama—are egregiously miscast. And series director [Susanne Bier](https://time.com/5916391/the-undoing-killer-susanne-bier/), an accomplished Danish filmmaker whose recent output ranges from the glossy fun of [_The Night Manager_](https://time.com/4296294/the-night-manager-hugh-laurie-tom-hiddleston/) to the glossy meh of [_The Undoing_](https://time.com/5902435/undoing-review-hbo/)to the sheer inanity of _Bird Box_, fails to salvage much worth watching.  Viola Davis as Michelle Obama in THE FIRST LADY Jackson Lee Davis/SHOWTIME There’s a fair amount of confusion baked into the show’s structure. Instead of telling each First Lady’s story in turn, it jumps between key moments in their respective political and personal lives, juxtaposing story lines in ways that sometimes sync up thematically and sometimes don’t. (In one episode, as Michelle faces bigotry and Eleanor crusades against it, Pfeiffer’s Betty transitions from popular FLOTUS to lonely Palm Springs party girl.) Too often, the camera cuts away from a vignette just as it’s about to get messy, never to return. There is a chronological element to the series, which opens by tracing each woman’s path to the White House and closes with a look at what they did after leaving Washington, but it also frequently returns to the First Ladies’ respective youths, in scenes where they’re portrayed by younger actors. Smoother transitions between eras would help. But they wouldn’t solve the show’s core problem: that it doesn’t illuminate much about its venerable subjects because the cast isn’t right and the writing demonstrates minimal insight into the protagonists’ inner lives or personal relationships. Anderson can be wonderful in the right role—which is to say, a lively role—whether it’s [_The X-Files_](https://time.com/4054271/x-files-1995/)’ iconic Scully or the unfiltered sex-therapist mom in [_Sex Education_](https://time.com/5492639/sex-education-netflix-review/). So I’m not sure why she keeps turning up, lips puckered as though she’s tasting a lemon, to play mirthless grand dames of politics. Sadly, her Eleanor is just as stodgy and affected as her [Margaret Thatcher was in _The Crown_](https://time.com/5907856/margaret-thatcher-the-crown/). Speaking of which: was Olivia Colman [too busy](https://time.com/6095398/the-lost-daughter-review/) to play Roosevelt?  Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt in THE FIRST LADY Boris Martin/SHOWTIME Davis, one of the greatest actors of her generation, has the opposite problem. She masters Michelle’s speech patterns and mannerisms but has too inherently formal a manner to telegraph her character’s disarming warmth. This poor casting choice is compounded by the mistake of pairing Davis with O-T Fagbenle ([_The Handmaid’s Tale_](https://time.com/5614125/the-handmaids-tale-season-3/)), a relatively chill presence who’s more than 15 years her junior, as Barack. When they’re together, POTUS reads as a bit of a twerp. Meanwhile, the events of the Obama sections happened recently and publicly enough that the relationship between real footage of the couple and these reenactments verges on uncanny. Pfeiffer’s Betty Ford is the only lead performance that feels like more than an impression. A masterly portrayer of women with demons who’s in the midst of a marvelous second act, she gives us a strong, principled yet serially wounded First Lady who spends decades trying to regain the sense of purpose she felt as a young dancer. All of her struggles, from breast cancer to addiction, are rooted in a body that habitually betrays her conscious will. The character lends itself to melodrama. But Pfeiffer tempers Betty’s extreme highs and lows with intelligence, humor, and empathy. These choices give her segments a sense of purpose that the others lack.  Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford in THE FIRST LADY Murray Close/SHOWTIME They also throw into relief the shoddiness of the show’s overall construction. A drama about real political history, with such an epic scope, should be scrupulous in making each story feel true to its era. Instead, contemporary buzzwords keep invading 20th-century vernacular. We hear about “racial justice” in the 1930s, “mental health awareness” in the ’70s, “culture fit” in the ’80s. While the series fails to make meaningful connections between each heroine’s antagonists (Franklin’s mother for Eleanor, [Rahm Emanuel](https://time.com/4464757/rahm-zeke-and-ari-emanuel-growing-up/) for Michelle, [Dick Cheney](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,999185-4,00.html) and [Donald Rumsfeld](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1004099,00.html) for Betty) it makes their male counterparts interchangeable, essentially framing FDR (Sutherland), Ford (Aaron Eckhart), and Obama as the same spineless, distracted, wishy-washy guy. To the extent that there’s an overarching argument here, as there always should be in historical fiction, it’s that Mrs. Roosevelt, Mrs. Ford, and Mrs. Obama served as the consciences of their husbands’ administrations, even as those presidents and their aides sought to limit each woman’s influence. The ladies’ moral purity tempers the men’s ambition. Unfortunately, that takeaway is just as trite as it is gender-essentialist. As a result, the show doesn’t even succeed as hagiography. By positioning these bold, weird, brilliant, troubled, singular women as selfless American saints, _The First Lady_ robs them of something every compelling character needs: humanity. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6166639/first-lady-review-showtime/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6166639/first-lady-review-showtime/"},"headline":"The First Lady Is an Egregiously Miscast, Emptily Inspirational Missed Opportunity","datePublished":"2022-04-14T16:07:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:54:21.114Z","description":"Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Gillian Anderson play Michelle Obama, Betty Ford, and Eleanor Roosevelt in this ill-conceived FLOTUS drama","url":"https://time.com/6166639/first-lady-review-showtime/","keywords":["Television","review","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1aa12ad262fe8e0c/698a30e34ee26213d231a15b/TheFirstLady_101_8011_R.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Judy Berman","jobTitle":"TV Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/judy-berman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1aa12ad262fe8e0c/698a30e34ee26213d231a15b/TheFirstLady_101_8011_R.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"101","caption":"101","creditText":"Jackson Lee Davis—SHOWTIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6166639/first-lady-review-showtime/","name":"The First Lady Is an Egregiously Miscast, Emptily Inspirational Missed Opportunity"}}]}] ```