Another thing I liked is how the touchy-feely, metrosexual, techno-hipster is the conservative spinmeister (Stewart) as opposed to the straight-laced, button-down hardass being the liberal. That defies our stereotypes. Of course, British Conservatives aren’t exactly like our conservatives, so there’s that.
The political divisions in “the thick of it” are deliberately blurred to the point that you could make a case for either party actually being Tory or Labour (which is part of the point of the show I suppose) It is never mentioned who is who (but wasn’t Julian a perfect Tory mandarin? And isn’t Stewart a touchy-feely lefty PR dickwad?)
The second show was on last night and it focussed on Nicola Murray, now in inept opposition.
Malcolm is rather down and apathetic until he spies an opportunity to sow discord and start pulling strings. Then, of course, he is back up to his spiteful best.
Classic lines from last night? His wonderfully skewed description of a very famous sci-fi movie and the label he applies to “blinky” Ben Swain…“Noncey Sinatra”
After last week’s scene-setting for the coalition we are definitely up and running.
But there are enough hints to make it clear. Phil and Emma’s party was in power in the 1980s and they’re now in coalition with the Inbetweeners. Mannion is an old-school aristo, and Glenn spent his life trying to keep the toffee-noses out of power.
At this point, I have almost no sympathy for Murray. She’s so inept and out of her depth, I, like Malcolm, just want her put out of her misery. She was fun to watch as a green junior minister on the sidelines, but as leader? She’s just pathetic.
That was a beautiful line.
Just to clarify. I don’t mean that she just seems to be in over her head, which has always been a source of humour throughout the series. At this point, she seems like an actual moron.
Oh I don’t disagree hugely with that, but plausible deniability is maintained and, as I say, Armando wants to hammer home the point that there is really fuck-all difference worth mentioning. (certainly compared to USA politics)
Yes, it’s the Groucho Marx quote writ large isn’t it? Anyone wanting to be part of the political establishment is the sort of person they shouldn’t admit. They are all deeply damaged and narcissistic human beings. I’m not quite sure how we end up caring *at all *about any of them, yet we do. Didn’t we cheer inwardly when Malcolm rose again at the end of series 3? We are as warped as they are.
I’m not sure that’s exactly what I mean. I mean that of all the characters, at this point, I would prefer anyone else other than Nicola to lead the party. Because at this point, she doesn’t just seem like a hapless human being like all the rest. She actually seems like she has a mental disability. While the other characters might always be amoral power-hungry cretins, I never felt like I do now about Nicola, that she’s a genuine idiot. I don’t know whether that’s intentional or whether Iannucci has gone a little overboard with all the practicing walking and stuff.
Well, because as evil as Malcolm is, we at least understand his goal and we understand that he is the most capable of achieving them for his party. And he does it with the most panache and style and humour. And when it comes down to it, the only people Malcolm has really harmed are self-serving politicos. If he succeeds in keeping his party in power, then, regardless of how many ministers he’s given the sack along the way, there’s at least a chance that the party will be able to implement some of its policies.
Fair enough, my comment about Marx was more my take on it, that pretty much every politician we meet ends up (or starts out) twisted by political power or the promise of it. Not very wholesome human beings. Nicola didn’t handle the pressure of DoSAC too well, I can see how being Leader of the Opposition might have tipped her over the edge.
This is true, and why he is such a superb character. Witness his (and Jamie’s) mild manners and unthinking and obviously real concern for innocent bystanders (the BBC ladies, cleaners, his secretary etc.) The only ones who really get it are the ones who deserve it. It just so happens that pretty much everyone in Malcolm’s immediate circle deserves it at one point or another.
Oh, and I miss Jamie. Come back Jamie ya wee Scottish radge ya!
No argument with that.
[spoiler]Malcolm: What’s that film that you love?
Ollie: Which one?
Malcolm: The one about the fuckin’ hairdresser, the space hairdresser and a cowboy. … The guy, he’s got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin. … He’s father’s a robot and he’s fuckin’ fucked his sister!.. LEGO! They’re all made of fuckin’ Lego![/spoiler]
I think I figured it out before Ollie did.
I was as clueless as Ollie until the “lego” bit!
Another question – What is the significance of Angela Heaney’s having moved from the Evening Standard to the Daily Mail? When Malcolm realized that Heaney would be interviewing Hugh for the Mail rather than for the Standard, he panicked.
And it seems that Heaney’s editor at the Mail is now an Inbetweener staffer, working with Glenn as an assistant to Fergus. Is this a plausible move?
I actually don’t get the “Lego” bit in the Star Wars description. Is that a reference to something in the actual movies, or just to the fact that Lego makes so many Star Wars-themed toys?
The latter is what I assumed.
There’s a very popular series of video games based on Star Wars LEGO.
(There’s also LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO Batman, LEGO Harry Potter, and LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean.)
Malcolm has previously been very savvy about pop culture. Maybe he just doesn’t think the voting public cares about scifi.
Malcolm may have been upset because may have had a cosy relationship with the Standard but not the Mail.
As for the editor’s move (I think he was the night editor, so second string really) The Mail is as right-wing as a UK paper gets so in the current real coalition he’d be much more likely to be Peter Mannion’s assistant. The lib-dems in real life would go bananas at such a move. But again, this is just another way that the program is nearly real, but not quite.
I took it to be the latter but quite why that reference made me realise it was Star-wars when none of the rest of the description didn’t, I really don’t know. There again, perhaps it does take genius writing to make that work.
I think the Lego toys and video games are the key. My nephew is crazy about Star Wars, but in his view, Star Wars and Lego operate as a unit. He’s never known a time when Star Wars and Lego were completely separate things. And when he asked me to play a Star Wars video game with him, I was excited until I realized that the images in the video game are not based on the movies but rather on the Lego figures. So, when you play Obiwan Kenobi, you don’t get a character that looks like Alec Guinness or Ewan MacGregor, you get a character that looks like the Lego figure of Kenobi. So if you are around kids or shopping for kids, or even just wandering around a toy store, you’re going to see Lego figures of the Star Wars characters much more often than you’re going to see images from the movies.
So Malcolm’s going to be in only half the episodes in this season? Crap.
I think I saw a tweet from Armando Iannucci saying that the first four episodes would follow this format - switching sides each episode - and then the last three would all have everybody in them.