Sounds to me as if you've never figured out that you can watch a TV series in
the company of other people, in my case half a dozen friends who also liked the
first season who took advantage of me being the first person in town to get the
entire series. We went through fairly extraordinary amounts of pizza and beer,
and last I checked that constituted 'social interaction,' at least as it's
practiced here in the Netherlands. :-)
Besides, watching characters on TV whom you suspect to be psychopaths beats the
pants off of hanging around FFL and watching people *prove* that they're
psychopaths. :-)
________________________________
From: "doctordumb...@rocketmail.com" <doctordumb...@rocketmail.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2014 3:01 PM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] RE: Internet TV review: House Of Cards
It sounds, to me, as if you think sitting around all day, watching TV, is
somehow superior to social interaction. Too bad - it isn't.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote:
This weekend, while others on FFL argued about unprovable theoretical shit like
the existence of God or tried to insult and demonize those who speak about
actual spiritual experience when they can't because they've never had any :-),
I, like millions of Americans and now others around the world, chose to focus
on evil politicians guilty of murder and worse, government corruption so
pervasive as to be taken for granted, and news media only interested in seeking
viewers, not truth.
And that was just the Nightly News. Oh, and I also watched the second season of
"House Of Cards." :-)
Unlike most of these Netflixers (who were able to download their flagship
original series all at once rather than have to wait a week between episodes
and thus were binge-watching like crazy), I have actually seen the original UK
series on which it is based, and thus can appreciate the differences. In this
case, IMO the original was better, but the US version has its charms, too, and
is far more accessible to an American audience.
Part of the reason, of course, is Kevin Spacey. He obviously delighted in being
able to play one of the most charmingly evil characters in film/TV history, and
does so with mucho flair. He's best in those moments in which (using a trick
stolen from the original series) he "breaks character" in the middle of a
scene, turns directly to the camera, and speaks to us in the audience, telling
us what he's *really* thinking, as opposed to what he's saying. It's a cool
trick, and is not overused in the series, so it provides a kind of "subtitles"
when watching the machinations of one of the most evil politicians since
Machiavelli.
Robin Wright is also great as his wife, equally evil and self-serving in her
own right. Kate Mara as a reporter who knows how evil Spacey's character is and
is trying to prove it is good in a shorter role than she played in the last
season. Gerald McRaney is tremendous as a 1% billionaire pulling all the
strings from the background, and Michael Kelly is great as the Spacey
character's loyal henchman and head "fixer." In terms of "new faces," however,
my favorite is the extraordinary Molly Parker ("Deadwood"), who I would watch
in a soap commercial, much less in one of the major roles of a major TV series.
Color me happy with the casting decisions. Other players are good, and the use
of real-life commentators like Rachel Maddow and Morley Safer to present the
"news" playing on TVs in the background or to conduct interviews adds to the
impression of "realness."
And, in another sense, the "realness" the creators of this series achieve is
effective, because it's probably as close and as accurate a portrait of what
"politics as usual" really IS as anyone is likely to ever see onscreen. While
there are some critics (and I am one of them) who feel that Netflix's *other*
major series ("Orange Is The New Black") is better in many ways, still I
commend them for this one. It's easily as good as anything from HBO or
Showtime, and infinitely better than almost anything on broadcast TV. Expect
another round of nominations and wins for the second season, and expect to do a
bit of binge-watching yourself if you succumb and download this 13-episode
season.
My advice, however, is that if you didn't watch the first season, double your
binge-watching time and start with it. I found myself having to go back and
re-watch parts of it, just to remind myself who and what I was dealing with,
and the evilnessitude they had specialized in previously. And a good thing I
did, too, because I caught something I might not have otherwise. You know how
some TV shows create an artificial "gap" between seasons, as if some
unspecified amount of time has passed? Well, as far as I can tell the "gap"
between season 1 of "House Of Cards" and season 2 is about five minutes of
elapsed real time. So being "up to speed" on what happened last season will
help you appreciate what's happening in this one even more.
Good television. Not great television...that term is reserved for series like
"Deadwood" and "Breaking Bad." But damned good, and very watchable. It's like
watching Lord and Lady Macbeth in the White House.
