Designated Survivor season 4: If it happens, where should it pick up?

Before we go too far into this Designated Survivor season 4 story, let’s go ahead and get the customary reminder out of the way — there is no official renewal as of yet for the show at Netflix. We want there to be one, and we’re certainly doing our part to encourage that very thing — hence, the discussion that we’re bringing you right now.

Let’s say that there is a pickup and that season 4 premieres roughly at the same time in 2020 — where should the story pick up? Should there be a time jump of around a year or so? It’d make sense in some ways to do that so that the show roughly moves at the same pace that it does in life, but we’d suggest something a little bit to the contrary. We’d pick things up at inauguration.

From our vantage point, there are few points in the history of the show more interesting than this. Think about Tom Kirkman’s path to the election and then, after that, some of the dark clouds hanging over him. Former President Moss vowed at the end of season 3 that he would not be silent and we imagine that this could be when he decides to make some sort of big salvo in order to completely wreck the President’s credibility. It is also that point where we could easily imagine someone deciding to wreck Tom’s big day and try to show up the new President.

Basically, what we’re saying here is that this could be the perfect lead-up to a lot of really chaotic stuff that happens in the weeks that follow. If what Kirkman actually knew came out, imagine some of the investigations that we’d see and hear about. Just picture for a moment the possibility of Tom’s Presidency being thrown into question. There are so many different things worth wondering about with this.

This is also enough time in order to see if there are any other notable changes when it comes to the Kirkman administration — we do think that the future of Emily Rhodes is in question after she felt betrayed by some of his decisions. Meanwhile (and we’ve said this before), we wonder how Kal Penn will be able to balance playing Seth here with also being on Sunnyside, his new NBC comedy. A lot of it could just depend on when season 3 does end up filming. Even if Netflix gives it a green light, it may not shoot for some time still — and that could end up impacting how big of a time jump they end up doing behind the scenes.

What do you want to see when it comes to Designated Survivor season 4? Be sure to share right now in the comments, and remember to stay tuned for some other information.