House of Cards

Scott Hardie | February 6, 2013
Is anybody else watching this new series on Netflix? It's been in the news for the last few days, but with Netflix not participating in any kind of ratings, it's hard to tell how many people are watching. I'm laid up on the couch with a foot injury for a few days, and for me, what started as a dabble in the first episode quickly turned into a marathon of the 13-episode series; I'm halfway through now. So far, it's excellent, and very "sticky" -- I have a powerful urge to watch another episode after each one ends, something that I rarely feel with other shows. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a favorite movie of mine, so I will always enjoy watching Kevin Spacey play a charming slimeball with a Southern accent. After I struggled with the near-impenetrable series K Street, I feared trying to navigate another show set in the Washington back-room political labyrinth, but this one's not very hard to follow at all. If you have Netflix streaming, definitely check this show out.

Steve Dunn | February 6, 2013
Meaning to get around to this. Best thing about it... I don't have to wait for it to come to Netflix!

Erik Bates | February 6, 2013
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Chris Lemler | February 6, 2013
I never heard of it at all. This is the first I've heard of it

Scott Hardie | February 6, 2013
In a nutshell: Kevin Spacey plays a slimy Congressman whose party breaks a major promise to him, and he hatches an elaborate plan to get revenge on them, one corrupt element at a time. David Fincher helped to plan the series and directed a few episodes. After experimenting with the smaller Lilyhammer and some documentaries, this is Netflix's first major foray into creating their own original programming, and thus could represent a landmark in TV's new frontier if it's a success. It just came out on Friday, hence the timeliness.

Scott Hardie | July 4, 2014
Did anybody watch season 2? I just finished it. Wild ride, very enjoyable. Some friends of mine told me that they gave up on it after a few episodes because it's so unrealistic, but I guess I don't expect it to be. It takes place in Washington DC, but it may as well take place on Mars, because it's not a lifelike facsimile of human behavior. It's full of shocking soap-opera style twists of the plot, but it is photographed and edited like a serious artistic drama, so maybe people expect it to be better than it is. It's not art; it's just slick entertainment, but it's pretty wild and fun if you're on its wavelength. I still recommend it.

Samir Mehta | July 4, 2014
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Scott Hardie | July 6, 2014
Yes, agreed. Walter White and Tony Soprano were similarly anti-heroic, but their respective shows established motivations both extrinsic (providing for their families) and intrinsic (complex inner demons) for them. House of Cards shows little motivation for Frank Underwood other than a simple unquenchable thirst for power, and maybe a desire to provide for his wife, who is more than capable of taking care of herself.

[spoilers ahead]

Raymond Tusk turns out to be a better adversary for Frank than he gets credit for -- we know that Frank will triumph in the end, but Tusk definitely wounds him -- and I expect that the final season of the series will portray Frank's downfall. That's probably a dangerous thing to expect, as the show could easily refuse to provide such a satisfactory finish, but it seems to me likelier than not that Frank will eventually get undone. What I'm trying to say is, whether it's an external rival like Tusk, or an internal conflict like his own amorality catching up to him at last, I do expect that the show will eventually provide Frank with defeat, which would help to make up for the lack of such in the early going.

A friend of mine wondered aloud recently whether someone ever could navigate a path to the White House without being duly elected. Someone did: Gerald Ford was nominated for vice-president when the elected Spiro Agnew resigned in scandal, and then ascended to the presidency when the elected Richard Nixon resigned in a different scandal. Since Ford subsequently lost the next race to Jimmy Carter, he remains the only president never to have been elected to national office. But somehow I doubt that gentle, soft-spoken Jerry Ford took the duplicitous, Machiavellian route to power by inventing scandals for his rivals the way that Frank Underwood did.

One thing that I miss from the first season is the sense of humor. Kevin Spacey had some pretty great asides to the camera in the first season that cut the show's bleak mood with some well-timed touches of levity. The second season barely had any humor at all, just an occasional glance at the camera to indicate that Frank thinks someone's an idiot again. Was Cashew the guinea pig supposed to be a lighter element? I hope that the show regains some spring in its step in the third season.

Erik Bates | July 7, 2014
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Scott Hardie | July 12, 2014
I look forward to watching season two of Orange is the New Black next. I've heard nothing but good things.

I'd really like to see a season five of Arrested Development, especially if the narrative heads forward instead of spinning in circles like season four did. Given how persistently fans rumored of more seasons after the show was canceled by Fox and further production seemed impossible, I'm surprised that there seems to be almost no talk of more seasons now that it's on Netflix and further production is presumably much easier. What gives?

I don't know if I'd say that House of Cards is significantly better or significantly worse than the other two. I don't think it possesses the same ambitions and should be judged on a curve accordingly.

Has anyone checked out the other Netflix shows like Hemlock Grove or Lilyhammer? Kelly loved Derek but I haven't tried it yet. (edit: Maybe Derek is a BBC production exclusively available here on Netflix? I don't know, but it's not on this list of Netflix originals.)

Samir Mehta | July 13, 2014
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Scott Hardie | September 11, 2014
On further reflection, I can think of a different way for House of Cards to go in its third season instead of mapping out Frank Underwood's deserved downfall. (And I'm avoiding any knowledge of the British series for the reason that Erik mentioned.)

[spoilers ahead]

Frank's prime motivation in life is to amass more power at any cost, right? And he has already become president, arguably the most powerful man in the world, so there's no way for him to amass more power and his story will have to go in a different direction, right? Not so fast. I could imagine a third and fourth season about Frank Underwood undermining the Constitutional limits on the presidency one by one, coercing Congress into eliminating his term limits and granting him broad military authority and letting him manipulate the press, and eventually becoming a dictator like Vladimir Putin whose country is a democracy in name only. It would become an even less realistic show than it already is, but that storyline would be consistent with what the show has already done.

Scott Hardie | September 11, 2014
As for Orange is the New Black, Samir, you're right on. Season one was good television, season two is great television. There are so many wonderful moments and characters and stories packed in that you get the feeling they could randomly focus on any random person in the background and pull off another great episode just showing us that stranger's daily life. I'd like to see episodes focused on the guards and administrators because I think the actors and writers could do wonders with that material, but I'll understand if the focus stays on the inmates.

It's not entirely fair to compare it to House of Cards, since Orange wants to be art and House wants to be entertainment, but it blows House of Cards out of the water in quality. How different are the two shows? There are twin scenes halfway through the respective second seasons that illustrate the difference. In House of Cards, two attractive young white women are lying in bed sharing a heart-to-heart conversation, and spontaneously begin making out despite them both being devoted Christians, in a scene that should be icky but is played as erotic because the show assumes that lurid sex is what the audience wants, plausibility be damned. In Orange is the New Black, two attractive young Latina woman are sitting in a kitchen sharing a heart-to-heart conversation, and spontaneously try kissing each other despite being longtime best friends, and then they erupt in laughter and agree never to try that again because eww. That scene plays like a very funny criticism of House of Cards and every other movie and TV show that sees its women as objects, there to behave sexually for a male audience's pleasure, rather than independent beings with their own interests and attitudes. What a night and day difference between the shows.

Do you have a favorite character on Orange is the New Black? Mine is easily Vee. She's despised by a lot of viewers for obvious reasons, but as a storyteller myself, I admire her ability to add chaos to so many different storylines and relationships. The show sometimes seems to consist mostly of girls, and Vee represents a true woman, thinking like an adult. It also helps that I've had a celebrity crush on Lorraine Toussaint for years, ever since her recurring role on Law & Order as the best defense attorney in the early seasons, and the only actor who could go toe-to-toe with the brilliant Michael Moriarty. Orange is the New Black was lucky to land an actor of her caliber on the show, and they rightly took full advantage of her gifts.

Scott Hardie | July 16, 2016
House of Cards season 4 was a huge improvement over the dull, plodding second and third years. They made some desperate moves to shake up the storyline mid-season and it paid off. There were some truly audacious, hilarious scenes where I couldn't believe what the characters were pulling off. That's what I want more of from this series.

Orange is the New Black season 4 was very good as well, revisiting the same themes at different angles through different characters. I appreciated the strong acting and writing, even though I had some big moments spoiled for me. However, I'm getting very sick of MCC and I wonder if I'm the only one. For a show that can pluck any minor character from the background and devise a rich three-dimensional personality for her, MCC is jarringly one-note and unrealistic. They're like mustache-twirling villains from a Saturday morning cartoon, dropped in from another series entirely. This show started out indicting the correctional system, but it has lost its way by making all of the misery stem from this one fictional source, and lately there is way too much misery at that. I prefer conflict from within, not without.

Erik Bates | July 22, 2016
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Samir Mehta | July 22, 2016
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Scott Hardie | July 24, 2016
I agree that the actions of MCC are realistic and consistent with the show's criticism of the prison system; I just object to the tone. From Linda, to the CEO, to the PR team, to the new guards, none of these MCC characters seem to possess even the slightest shred of humanity when they talk. It's how they come across, like soulless villains who exist solely to make the protagonists miserable and create conflict, rather than seeming like well-rounded realistic people that the show otherwise excels at creating. The one moment of decency that I can point to is Piscatella chiding the other guards for watching and laughing while Lolly had a psychotic break in the garden rather than helping her; more scenes like that would help a lot to humanize them. Just because being in that particular business requires MCC staff to do monstrous things doesn't mean that they have to come across like grotesque caricatures every time they open their mouths.

I'm excited about last night's announcement that the new Mystery Science Theater 3000 is coming to Netflix. Ever since the Kickstarter got underway and Joel Hodgson said that its purpose was to prove to media companies that the MST3K brand was still popular and viable, I hoped that it would get picked up by Netflix, by far my favorite place to consume entertainment. I couldn't have asked for better news on that front, except perhaps a statement that the show will have a 12th season, and a 13th, and more.

I would like to see Netflix pick up more movies just to stay relevant to potential subscribers, rather than slowly morphing into a walled garden of only original content that is easy to dismiss, but I understand that licensing existing content has gotten ridiculously expensive. One of the reasons that Netflix funded Fuller House was that it was actually cheaper to produce an entirely new series with the same cast than it would have been to license the twenty-year-old original series, which is crazy, but obviously it paid off. Up is down in the new television business.

Samir Mehta | July 25, 2016
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Denise Sawicki | July 28, 2016
I totally agree about OITNB being a better show than House of Cards. I was a little hesitant to watch OITNB at first because the first things I heard about it (the title, and the character name "Crazy Eyes") both sounded a bit stupid, but it is great. And yes I liked the complexity with which they handled Donuts.

Scott Hardie | July 30, 2016
I agree with both of you about Coates. (Am I the only person who doesn't think of him as Donuts?) But I would argue, without specific spoilers, that the worst scene of season four is the one between Humps and Maritza. It's so ridiculously over the top in its grotesquery that, for me, the rest of episode couldn't recover. It was like aliens had beamed down into the Litchfield yard that only two characters had seen, and we were just supposed to go back to watching the other inmates going about their ordinary lives. I avoided Weeds because I heard that it had a problem with tonal consistency like this, and while Orange struggled with it in season one, the show seemed to shake off the problem for a while. Now it's back.

Denise Sawicki | July 30, 2016
That thing with Maritza was pretty stupid yes. And I don't feel she made the right choice haha.

Scott Hardie | August 19, 2016
Orange's Litchfield is a federal prison, right? I wonder how the DOJ no longer using private prisons in real life will affect the show. Maybe MCC will exit the series and we can get back to better material.

We put off Daredevil for a long time because Kelly doesn't like violent shows, and now I'm finally watching it without her. She was right to avoid it; the violence is graphic and brutal. But the show, at least so far in its first season, is working hard to produce movie-grade action scenes on a TV budget, and I admire its commitment to its noir aesthetic and dolorous worldview. The material with Karen Page and Foggy Nelson is so far removed from the rest of the action that it feels like Larry in Orange; an obsolete remnant of the show's source material that deserves to be cut.

We haven't started in on Stranger Things yet but I'm sure we will soon. Is anybody else watching? It sounds terrific.

Samir Mehta | August 19, 2016
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Denise Sawicki | August 23, 2016
I really liked Jessica Jones. Have not been able to get into Daredevil. I am not sure why. I watched like 5 or 6 episodes and wasn't really drawn in. Tried again recently and Darrell and I both groaned a bit when Karen Page and Foggy Nelson came on so maybe it has something to do with them. As for Stranger Things... I did watch that, it was good and fun, I just kind of don't get why so many people say it is so amazing. I feel like I am missing something.