Returning to TV for the first time since leaving Grey's Anatomy, Katherine Heigl is the star of this new political action drama. She plays Charlie Tucker, a CIA analyst who briefs the president every day on the "10 biggest threats facing the US".
She also likes to be a bit sassy and sarcastic with her co-workers, and because she's suffering some post-traumatic stress after her fiancee was killed when their diplomatic convoy was attacked in Kabul (she narrowly survived, he didn't), she's engaging in some heavy drinking, casual sex, and arguing with her therapist.
To make things even more tense, her fiancee's mother, Constance Payton (played by Alfre Woodard), who used to be a senator, also survived that same attack in Kabul, and has now become the President. And as you might expect, in between keeping the country safe from terrorist threats, and trying to mitigate tensions in other parts of the world, they're both pretty determined to find out what really happened that night in Kabul, and who the target was.
President Payton served in the first Gulf War, and grew up in a military family, so of course she has a few clues about what's really going on out there herself.
Heigl has her own backstory for Tucker.
"In my mind, she grew up in the South, she grew up in a wealthy family, she had a mother who expected her to be a Southern belle and get married and bear babies.
"Choosing a career and a life that diverges from those expectations gives her a certain self-confidence that I don't think she normally would have had if she'd done what her mother wanted her to do. In that, she's found a certain freedom.
"But will that freedom be useful to her? Or detrimental to her?"
Prepping for such a high level government character had its challenges for the actress, due to the clandestine nature of high level intelligence and security, but executive producers Rodney Faraon and Hank Crompton were able to lend their expertise.
"They are executive producers, but are also ex-CIA.
"Rodney was the briefer to two different Presidents, so he has told us a lot of stories about his experiences."
When: Monday, 9.30pm
Where: TV3
What: Briefing Mrs President
- TimeOut