A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

you'll be fine h4a, check it out

i dig veep. its not Hilarious but i get some chuckles out of it and i like the actors and im just into the general vibe

liked the first season, but it definitely feels like this season stepped up a bit, really great right now.

i was on the set for a couple hours a few months ago, worked on a psa w/ J L-D, was really cool to see random cast members walking around and see the sets -- it really looks like they're in cramped old government buildings on the show but it's all these huge sets in a giant warehouse in columbia, maryland.

jld elevates this into something far superior to ttoi imo

interesting that chris morris and chris addison directed the first 2 eps but barely seemed different to the rest, in tone, etc. (thankfully as addison has shown himself to be grimly unfunny outside of ttoi)

i don't think he's terrible in mock the week. but yeah ianucci's group seem pretty good at sticking to a consistant house style

not seen him in that but his twitter account is a hive of smug 6th form bants

so like his ttoi character?

jld elevates this into something far superior to ttoi imo

― NI, Thursday, May 2, 2013 3:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nuh uh. langham & capaldi operate in such singular territory, i think jld's really good but i don't think she's doing something so novel or engrossing as to beat out ttoi. i think i said stuff upthread about the specifity of that show trumping veep's broad-brush stuff, but yeah this season is so much better, ep 2 in partic.

so like his ttoi character?

yeah imagine that guy but one who isn't saying words written for him by the best comedy brains britain has to offer. and without a malcolm to brutalise him for his obnoxiousness. not quite as good huh

and yeah i get that ttoi is v novel and singular and all that but i simply don't find it as watchable, amusing or as engaging as veep. v rare i'd say that about any uk>us comedy but like i said, largely because jld plays that role so well, and her character is so well-written - maybe more cartoonlike than any of the brits but hey.

btw that's not to diss, ttoi's great but i found myself agreeing with a lot of the stuff in this article: http://richardhcooper.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/how-to-write-thick-of-it.html
(esp re final series)

I think that article is pretty offtm. Most of all because the dialogue is improvised with the actors, so it's really not describing how to write it... Also, the examples he creates are really not that fun. It mainly made me think that ttoi had to do something right, since it's dialogue is so much better than when other people try it.

ttoi is not improvised. it's like the most tightly scripted, printed-script-revering thing on tv. they just improvise the lines that don't matter to give it a looser feel.

right

they even published the scripts from the early episodes

come on though, the swears became as hackneyed as 'rock on tommy' by the end

i swear i will rip your tongue off and shove up your arse so far it comes out of both ears so you can hear me calling you a bellend in stereo you mum-sucking sewer-drinking numpty blah blah blah

it sounds like you just didn't really like ttoi?

"i just had to sign a 2 year lease on a nissan cube"

"it actually comes out as the number two."

<3 dave foley

i'm giving up on this :-(

really! i think it's improved greatly this season!

why did the midnight caller ask for mike again? he wanted him so much that he basically bribed VPOTUS. why??

ohhh to get rid of jolly green jizzface perhaps

sometimes you just have to write it down and then you know

it's got more ambitious this season i suppose. it's still not gotten funny imo.

i love it

xxposts -- common interest in boating i thought made him think of mike as someone appealing to work with.

Anyone else notice how ramped-up Jonah's douchiness was in the last one? Thought it was great.

theres the uh bluff puff which we're gonna start off with youre her friend you went to high school together you guys like each other then we switch right over to rough puff

i thought this was one of the better eps.

little more than a month away from returning, very excited

with some other good stuff starting as well it is that time of year when the tv emits a sweeter light than those first rays of spring sunshine.

silicon valley episode was amazing

It's been a great season so far.

yeah keeps getting better. I worry that they might be overusing Jonah though. He was a lot funnier as the obnoxious DC insider prick than the walking punching bag he is now.

"I have to go to the bathroom - do they have a bathroom here or do they put their turds up in the cloud?"

The last 2 ep's have been so savagely funny!

Jonah is the Chang of this show and he is following a Chang-like trajectory

i dont even know what that means but it cant be good

He starts off as the external antagonist vested with undeserved authority/power over the core group, uniting them in their shared antipathy for him, but the show strips him of that authority and decides to reduce him to an erratic outlandish caricature who still sort of flits around the edges of the show but with less purpose and in a less interesting way.

I was happy when it looked like his site was going to be bought out because I thought they were re-establishing him as a thorn in the team's side in a new context, but it turned out to be just another set-up for him to fall on his face. But who knows maybe next episode he'll join up with the oil lobby and become Sidney Purcell's protege.

who was Chang?

a character in TV sitcom Community

still is, at time of press

oh man, that seems about right. They need to get Jonah back into the white house. Or on Gov Chung's campaign team.

anyway, this show doesn't get enough credit for how much plot it manages to pack into half an hour. This episode alone had anti-fracking mom, Selina and Craig (Craaaaaaiiiig...) at Clovis, the Amy/Melissa/Kent thing, the Gov Chung torture story (Dan doesn't even realise that Ben did the same thing to him as he did to Jonah), the subplot where everyone thinks Gary is gay, SMARCH, Meet/Meat/Meating Meyer and they still have time for throwaway gags like the Ron Jeremy/Jeremy Irons confusion.

I'd say season 3 has been as good as peak ITTOI.

Dan doesn't even realise that Ben did the same thing to him as he did to Jonah

this was beautiful, especially as Ben didn't even try to hide it

xps

OTM about Veep's dense plotting/writing, makes it extremely re-watchable and often better on repeat viewings. Also some great lines aren't even in the episodes but in deleted scenes, e.g. Mike response to Leon West question about when Selena knew a hitchhiker was a spy.

"post-tax"