History Series / DesignatedSurvivor

** While Amy Bleecker does leave London to go back to DC with Hannah at the end of Season 2, she's then written off at the beginning of Season 3 as having been sent to live with family.

** PutOnABus:
*** Leo Kirkman is absent during Season 3, but the end of Season 2 brought up him going off to college at Stanford having just gotten accepted there. The likely reason for this being that Creator/TannerBuchanan was committed to ''Series/CobraKai'' at that point--which ironically, was also a show bought by Netflix.
*** While Amy Bleecker does leave London to go back to DC with Hannah at the end of Season 2, she's then written off at the beginning of Season 3 as having been sent to live with family.

''Designated Survivor'' is a 2016 [[Post911TerrorismMovie terrorism]][=/=][[{{ConspiracyThriller}} conspiracy]] drama airing on Creator/{{ABC}}.

[[caption-width-right:300:"I Thomas Adam Kirkman do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God."]]

*** Leo Kirkman is absent during Season 3, but Season 2 brought him going off to college at Harvard having just gotten accepted there. The likely reason for this being that Creator/TannerBuchanan was committed to ''Series/CobraKai'' at that point—which ironically, was also a show bought by Netflix.

[[caption-width-right:300:"I Thomas Adam Kirkman do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God."]]

[[caption-width-right:300:''"I Thomas Adam Kirkman do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God."'']]

[[caption-width-right:300:''"I Thomas Adam Kirkman do solemnly swear that I will faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."'']]

On May 17, 2018, [=eOne=] announced that they [[RayOfHopeEnding were in discussions]] with other networks to have it air on another TV channel or over a streaming service. {{Creator/Netflix}} picked up the show, with the show becoming a true "Netflix Original" in June 2019 (series one and two were also on Netflix, but were only considered Netflix Originals outside of North America). The entirety of the show's third and final season was released onto {{Creator/Netflix}} worldwide on June 7th, 2019. While the show was complete, it was mentioned before that the cast and crew are open to do the show again in the future, but they're entirely busy with new TV/Film projects.

** The police in Dearborn, Michigan beat a handcuffed Danny Fayed so badly that he later dies of internal bleeding. He was 17, making him the same age as Kirkman's son, Leo.

* FakeNationality: Keifer Sutherland is Canadian but playing an American. Interestingly, if he actually was a Cabinet Member IRL, he would not be in the Presidential Line of Succession, even if he became a citizen.

* WeAllLiveInAmerica: Charlotte Thorn is a British MP but most of her characterization, both in personality and job, would make more sense for an American Congresswoman. A mere backbench MP who is not a Cabinet Minister or Shadow Minister would probably not be a major international figure, and her depiction as a crusading maverick would make it fairly unlikely she'd be considered a potential future Prime Minister as the show states. She is even introduced [[spoiler:and killed]] talking about American gun violence.

* PostNineElevenTerrorismMovie: The series is very much ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'' if were Bauer a liberal and not a conservative. Tom tries to seek a political solution to another 9/11 attack instead of a military one, high tensions with America and the Muslim world, with the country teetering on the edge between uniting as one and tearing themselves apart over the presidency and trying to protect their people from the suspected terrorists.

''Designated Survivor'' is a 2016 [[PostNineElevenTerrorismMovie terrorism]][=/=][[{{ConspiracyThriller}} conspiracy]] drama airing on Creator/{{ABC}}.

-->-- Definition according to Wiki/{{Wikipedia}}

** In "The Enemy", a computer screen showing the telephone records of [=MacLeish=] display the date "January 2016".

** In "The Enemy", a computer screen showing the telephone records of Peter MacLeish display the date "January 2016".

* HonorBeforeReason: Quite often, Kirkman will refuse to sink to moves that could help him because he considers them too underhanded for both himself and the office.
** In season 2, members of the Cabinet are trying to pull off a move to remove Kirkman from office. It requires a hearing before the Cabinet and Lyor pushes Kirkman to [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness fire at least two of them]] and replace them with supporters, but Kirkman refuses as he knows how bad it looks.

** Between the state government of Michigan and the federal government in "The First Day". After the bombing of the capitol, the Governor of Michigan decides that since the federal government is basically wiped out, he is the highest level of authority in the state. He then refuses to communicate with President Kirkman and orders the state police to commit civil rights violations against the Muslim residents of Dearborn. He only backs down when Kirkman lies and tells him that three of the Muslim men arrested were undercover DHS agents, and if he refuses to release them he will be arrested for obstructing a federal investigation.

* PostNineElevenTerrorismMovie: The series is very much ''[[Series/TwentyFour 24]]'' were Bauer a liberal and not a conservative. Tom tries to seek a political solution to another 9/11 attack instead of a military one, high tensions with America and the Muslim world, with the country teetering on the edge between uniting as one and tearing themselves apart over the presidency and trying to protect their people from the suspected terrorists.

** His very short lived predecessor is also an example of this. Carter Dunn was the third deputy to the previous Press Secretary, so by default ascends to the position after the secretary and other deputies are killed in the Capitol Bombing. His inexperience shows, as he is unable to tame the press corps and walks out of the Press Briefing Room after less than a week on the job.

** While it has yet to be mentioned in the show itself probably the most extreme example is Penny Kirkman, Tom's preteen daughter who technically becomes the youngest First Lady in American history when Alex, her mother and Tom's wife, is [[spoiler:killed in a car accident]] in the middle of Season 2 leaving her as the President's closet living female relative.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: In season 3, Seth ''goes off'' on the entire press corp when they insist on pressing a fake news story about [[spoiler: Kirkman having Alex killed]] as he rants on how they put tabloid journalism ahead of actual reporting.

** The day before the attack, Kirkman is told he's being "promoted" to an ambassadorship with the International Civil Aviation Organisation by the Richmond Administration. Although the Chief of Staff plays it up as a promotion, Tom immediately realizes it is simply a polite way to get him to resign from the cabinet so he can be replaced for Richmond's second term.

** In another second-season example, [[spoiler:billionaire businessman Dax Minter is scheming to get Kirkman kicked out of office in favour of a successor who will loosen restrictions on corporations]].

* WeAllLiveInAmerica: Charlotte Thorn is a British MP but most of her characterisation, both in personality and job, would make more sense for an American Congresswoman. A mere backbench MP who is not a Cabinet Minister or Shadow Minister would probably not be a major international figure, and her depiction as a crusading maverick would make it fairly unlikely she'd be considered a potential future Prime Minister as the show states. She is even introduced [[spoiler:and killed]] talking about American gun violence.