SURELY IT'S NO coincidence that just as another presidential campaign is revving up, TV viewers are suddenly being inundated with Commanders-in-Chief both factual and fictional. These White House occupants can be found on highbrow and lowbrow networks alike, spanning the vast cultural gamut from TBS to PBS.
�����The so-called superstation offers First Daughter (TBS, Aug. 15, 8-10 p.m.), a weak TV movie that typecasts Monica Keena (a.k.a. Dawson's Creek's Abby) as the bitchy, boy-crazy offspring of President Jonathan Hayes (Gregory Harrison, a.k.a. Trapper John, M.D.'s Gonzo Gates). While on a camping trip in Colorado, the brat is kidnapped by a group of paramilitary terrorists, one of whom is dully played by WCW grappler Diamond Dallas Page, making his acting debut. A rugged river guide (Melrose Place's Doug Savant) and a disgraced Secret Service agent (Central Park West's Mariel Hemingway) team up to rescue the rotten lad.
�����The presidency is merely used as a plot device in this formulaic action flick Harrison's Hayes - any relation to presidential namesake Rutherford B. Hayes goes unmentioned - serves a passive supporting role. The romantic tension between the Big Creep, who's conveniently a widower and protector Hemingway is left unexplored. It doesn't help matters that Harrison is an even less convincing thespian than Bill ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman") Clinton.
�����The POTUS (that's the President of the United States, we're told) isn't the star of The West Wing, either, yet that doesn't threaten this NBC dramedy's status as one of the fall's most promising series. Martin Sheen's President Josiah Bartlet makes his dramatic entrance more than halfway through the pilot episode, after we've already been introduced to his staff, including Rob Lowe as an aide who dallies with a call girl (paging Dick Morris!) and Drop Dead Gorgeous' Allison Janney as a droll spokeswoman. With its pleasingly brisk pace and likable ensemble of workaholics, West Wing shares a lot with Sports Night - including creator Aaron Sorkin.
�����Anyone jonesing for the poop on real-life U.S. leaders need only turn to C-SPAN, which is in the middle of its American Presidents: Life Portraits (check local listings) series. Each week, the network visits a historical site relevant to one of our 41 prezes (on Aug. 20: Benjamin Harrison) and interviews biographers and curators. While the shows sometimes seem more exhausting than exhaustive (did we really need three hours on William Henry Harrison, who died a month after taking office?), hot-button issues of race and sex crop up with surprising frequency. The Jefferson program examines the question of whether relatives of slave Sally Hemings, with whom T.J. apparently fathered at least one child, will be buried in the family cemetery at Monticello. (PBS' upcoming Civil War-style docu-epic, The American President also profiles U.S. leaders from Washington to Clinton.)
�����Or if you want a sneak peek at our next potential POTUS, check out C-SPAN's Road to the White House (Sundays, 6:30-8 p.m.). Cameras candidly record candidates making speeches and shaking hands, and it becomes clear just how manufactured every aspect of a campaign is. Republican front-runner George W. Bush's recent visit to a New Hampshire lemonade stand, for example, was about as spontaneous as a military invasion, what with the swarming hordes of photographers and flunkies. It was almost enough to make you appreciate the understated style of Diamond Dallas Page.