Sunday, April 17, 2011

Veep (HBO) by Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci

What is it ? :
Veep is a comedy about a former senator who finds being vice president is nothing like she expected and everything everyone ever warned her about. It was written by Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci who worked on political British television show The Thick of It as well as the excellent In The Loop.


Good/Bad :
Veep is incredibly coarse and entertaining, a lot like The West Wing and Eastbound and Down baby's would be. In the pilot, Fantastic Mr Fox is described as a sly fuck and the VP's Press Spokesman is threatened to have his tits sliced off and fed to his dog.

Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the Vice President, slowly discovers that her newly acquired title hasn't brought her a lot of respect and spends the pilot getting around or avoiding her staff's mistakes. The dialogue is fast and scathing, the one liners are hilarious, politically incorrect, full of pop-culture references and quirky which made the script one of the best read of this season.

The pilot is character driven, focusing a lot more on damage control than on a larger political picture (it's not clear what party the White House is occupied by), Veep offers a shocking version of a very respected and protected fishbowl which will most likely irritate a lot of people. Every character of the show is aggressive, rude, selfish and obnoxious but this time, it is for the best as from the opening scene where the Vice President admires a cornstarch fork and tests drive a hybrid spoon-fork, Veep is without a doubt a show that you do not want to miss.
It is all the way fast, captivating, hilarious and intelligent, simply good and true comedy like HBO has failed to do... until now.

It's HBO, that means you won't have to stupidly stare at your screen for five seconds waiting for the fake laughter to stop after a punchline is delivered and trust me, there are a lot of them. Seriously, do not miss this.


Will it make it ?
It was picked to series today.


Will it work ?
Great casting, great script, great network... What could possibly go wrong ?


Should it make it ?
Beyond any doubt.

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