Commander In Chief Television Program

President Mackenzie Allen is on the defensive after a compromising picture appears of her husband with an intern when the first new episode of "Commander in Chief" since late January airs at 10 p.m. Thursday on ABC. Just as the first female presidency may be on the ropes, so is the show itself. With Geena Davis in the lead role, "Commander in Chief" was the first breakout hit of the fall season, attracting more than 16 million viewers in its first weeks on the air.

\o7 "Commander in Chief," ABC, May 31 \f7 The premise PRESIDENT Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis) wakes up feeling feverish. She vomits, but still manages to summon the energy to board Air Force One. When she develops abdominal pain, the White House internist diagnoses acute appendicitis and possible rupture -- after simply eliciting severe right lower quadrant abdominal tenderness by palpating her flank.

ROD LURIE says he's tired. Tired of making dramas that are praised by critics while audiences stay away in droves. That's a bit of an exaggeration, of course. The film-critic-turned-writer-and-director arrived on the scene in 2000 with "The Contender," a political thriller about a U.S. senator whose past is used against her as she tries to assume the vice presidency.

Stumping for the nation's first female president, Susan Estrich is forming a different kind of party. Estrich -- USC law professor, author and longtime Democratic insider -- has invited about 50 area VIPs to a "house party" at her Hancock Park home, promoting ABC's Tuesday premiere of "Commander in Chief." The series stars Geena Davis as President Mackenzie Allen, who struggles to balance hectic workdays in the Oval Office with the harried demands of motherhood.

As an intern for Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte), Alejandro Rivas often gave tours of the U.S. Capitol. When he came to "The Portrait Monument," a seven-ton sculpture in the Rotunda honoring three pioneers of women's suffrage, he would tell visitors that Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were "pivotal in gaining women equal access to democracy, but their work is not complete until we have a woman president."

Plenty of viewers hailed the premiere of "Commander in Chief" Tuesday night. But those viewers may be a little older than ABC executives would like. "Commander," starring Geena Davis as the nation's first female president, connected with 16.4 million viewers, according to figures available Wednesday from Nielsen Media Research. That was good enough for first place in the 9 p.m. time slot, easily surpassing the runner-up, Fox's medical drama "House" (13.4 million).

Backstage intrigue and power struggles are rocking the Oval Office -- and that's after just two airings of ABC's "Commander in Chief." Walt Disney Co.'s Touchstone Television, which produces "Commander in Chief" for ABC, another Disney unit, Friday replaced Rod Lurie -- the writer-producer who created the series about the nation's first female president -- with producer Steven Bochco of "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue" fame.