I’ve seen the first two episodes now and am kinda underwhelmed, I have to say. Good cast, but it just hasn’t clicked for me. I’ll watch a few more just to see how it goes.
Two things I noticed:
In the first episode, on the wall behind the black receptionist’s desk is a wooden cutout of the state of Maryland. The end credits say the show is being filmed in Maryland. And Elaine Benes’s home state was…?
Also, they keep showing an establishing shot of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the Veep’s office is. This suggests that she doesn’t have an office in the West Wing anymore, as has been customary since, IIRC, the Carter Administration. Just one more way to underscore how irrelevant and powerless Meyer is.
I’m a bit underwhelmed as well. It’s a solid cast and the writing seems ok, but the comic timing between all the cast members just hasn’t meshed yet.
I’m having a tough time beliving that Julia Louis-Dreyfuss’s character could be so inept. Not idiotic, but clueless. From her “official” website:
I understand they want to beat us over the head with how powerless the Vice President really is. The thing is, you don’t get to be 22 years into office including a US Senator, without understanding how the game is played and how to play other people. She’s having meetings with previous colleagues as if she’s never been behind closed doors with them before.
Have her bumble around with the press? OK. She can’t string two words together in a sentence? fine. But she’s got to have some politlcal prowess to have made it this far.
I think it’s great so far, but it might be because I’m a big fan of The Thick Of It. They’ve done a great job capturing the feel of that show - but I don’t know if they are just plain making a good show.
I like how the younger staff is funny, I think that was a big part of Thick Of It (uh I am hopelessly in love with Chris Addison tho). I also love Tony Hale (Buster Bluth) and I think JLD is doing a great job not playing Elaine so I am into it pretty hard.
I just hope it doesn’t turn into “Curb Your Vice President”, because there are some hints it’s going in that direction, and that could get old fast. The payoff to the yoghurt store bit was *really *forced. The store had to stay open late waiting for the VP, so they ran out of every flavor except vanilla? And the vanilla has been sitting out unrefrigerated? That doesn’t even make sense.
But I do like the cast and the writing is generally pretty sharp. If they hit a stride they might just have something special here.
The thing I’m enjoying the most about the show is the open hostility between Dan and everyone else and between everyone and Joshua. I know people who are like this, but they don’t take such open relish in showing it.
I wish I’d written down all of the Internet nicknames for Meyer: Selina Meh, VPILF, Viagra Defeater, etc. etc. And the First Lady’s alleged slur, “Creepy Veepy,” of course.
I loved how when she first heard “Viagra Defeater,” she thought it was a good thing, then she grew increasingly offended when she realized it wasn’t.
Also liked the bit where Mike was talking to the back of an empty chair. But they’ve made his character so incompetent that it’s hard to understand why she’d keep him around.
The riffs on nicknames were particularly funny. I especially liked Selina’s exasperated response to “piss face”–not so much insulted as bemused by the lack of cleverness (in comparison to the others)–and the detailed analysis of “Viagra Preventer”.
IMO the series should stick with these more generic complaints of political power. Things seem to grind to a halt when they start getting into the details of the legislative process. I know the series is trying to keep Selena’s political affiliation ambiguous and I think that’s a pretty good decision, but that fiction will get harder to maintain the more you have her working on specific legislation. There are only so many initiatives that can plausibly be attacked/defended by either side of the aisle…
I know they’re trying to keep it ambiguous, but my son and I have pretty much decided that she’s a Democrat. How many top national Republicans care about green jobs these days?
Yeah, if you are trying to portray a moderate, she’s going to come off as a Democrat.
Contrast Yes, Minister, which was written by a two-person writing team, one of whom was Labour and the other Conservative. Hacker was supposed to be a quasi-Thatcherite critic of the old-boy system, but many of his policies were what we consider leftist. You could have true ambiguity in that situation.
I was a little sad when Selena had to vote against her own project, and it’s a tad unclear to me why she would have been pushing for it at all if she knew POTUS was adamantly opposed.
Has a Veep ever tie-broken in favour of legislation to have POTUS later veto it?