A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

too right guv'nor

Some of the lines felt quite British or straight out of TTOI like 'massive and total shit' and 'Tom Hanks might die'. This is not nec a bad thing but slightly jarring?

American innovation on stale British sitcom formula = something nice occasionally happens to the lead character, instead of being dangled in front of them and snatched away.

Obviously I'm against it.

http://www.webtvwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/my-hero-logo.jpg

^ six series

what i mean about classical british sitcom in re: the thick of it would be something like:

- enclosed environment
- all conflict is created by strict pecking order amongst characters
- each episode follows a rising action plot ending with someone making a tit of themselves

you guys realize this isn't an adaptation, right, it's a different show by the same creator

― Poor Turrican (some dude), Tuesday, 24 April 2012 03:14 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iirc ianucci was 'developing' an american version of 'the thick of it' for ages and then it wasn't being mentioned and then his name was attached to this? i mean ... c'mon. it's the same show. sort of.

no, as far as I know there actually was a pilot for the American version of The Thick Of It directed by Christopher Guest

In October, 2006, ABC announced that it was developing a U.S. version of “The Thick of It.” Mitchell Hurwitz, whose show “Arrested Development” had just been cancelled, was named executive producer and co-writer. In a recent e-mail, Hurwitz said that he saw similarities between “Arrested Development” and “The Thick of It,” which, in his reading, was about “people whose big outward and ‘important’ lives are run on a very small and impaired set of inner resources.” He went on, “That just really appeals to me comedically. . . . Big people with small hearts. Stupid people with high I.Q.s.”
Christopher Guest directed the pilot. Iannucci barely had a role. Peter Bennett-Jones, Iannucci’s agent in the U.K., told me, “It seemed to be in good hands, but they just didn’t listen to Armando.” The pilot, which never aired, starred Oliver Platt as an almost avuncular (and non-swearing) envoy from the office of his party’s Whip, and John Michael Higgins as a peppy congressman who has never heard of “The Daily Show.” Seen today, the pilot seems flat. And there is no hint of melancholy, as there was in the British version, no sense of ideals eroded over time. Iannucci said, “It’s not awful, it’s just dull—which, you know, is a good trick to pull off.” Hurwitz defended the pilot, but admitted that it had “lost the sense of mania of the original.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/26/120326fa_fact_parker?currentPage=all

oh, sure, if you want to rely on external evidence

look i just called old mandy on the old dog and bone and he said for bobby moore that he developed this show as a version of his other show but for the bloody septics and now he's confirmed it let's have no more talk about it, right? right

Solid premiere ratings. If people liked it as much as I do it should get a couple of seasons.

it'll do fine. you practically have to kill a few horses to get less than 2-3 full seasons on HBO these days.

i'm excited for 2-3 full seasons of this

How many eps is a typical HBO season?

SATC generally did 18 - sometimes as few as 12 or 8 (first season + when two of the actresses were pregnant respectively)

deadwood and curb were/are 10-13

dramas i think tend to be ~12

eastbound + d was 6-8

it seems to be inconsistent, even within a particular show's run

Stoked for this, it'll feel good to watch a US sitcom from the beginning at the same time as America.

I doubt there have been 18 episodes of The Thick of It in total!!

16 iirc?

enlightened had 10 and it's getting a 2nd season

i enjoyed this tho i kind of hope future episodes are less...stuffed

there are 8 episodes of this season of Veep

btw i might've mentioned this in a previous thread but a lot of the show was shot in Baltimore instead of D.C. and i was this close to getting to spend a day on the set a few months ago, am really bummed that didn't pan out. maybe next season.

The first episode is good if a little slow-burny (certainly compared to TTOI, but I should make a conscious effort to not compare the two too much). Excellently acted all round.

kind of reminded me of early parks & rec in that I didn't know what the stakes were, so there was just a bunch of quality comic actors all playing clueless. It's just the pilot, though.

reminds me more of Lisa Kudrow's HBO show The Comeback than anything else

dumb Brit speaking but i've never actually understood exactly what HBO means. is it pay per view? is it cable only? over here we have some satelite/ cable stations where you *have* to pay for the channel month by month (Sky Sports, etc) but some are free with a basic 'freeview' box and so you pay once for that, then never again to watch any given channel. is that how it works over there with HBO? i was never sure also why that means you get more swearing and nudity and suchlike in HBO shows than other non HBO shows. hey i could WIKI this shit but i want the fun version from you guys.

i don't know if it's the fun version, but HBO is cable that you pay an extra monthly fee to get

HBO's pay-cable (you have to pay specifically for it, as opposed to getting it with a basic cable package) status means it can show movies unedited and make tv series with no restrictions as to content as opposed to Broadcast (heavily regulated by the FCC) and basic cable (which is more self-regulated than anything, but is dependent on advertisers and cable companies paying subscriptions), because you don't specifically choose those channels.

also having no advertisers means it's not dependent on ratings, and as it's paid for monthly it has a lot more money than anyone else.

aha it all makes sense. thanks. i wish Mad Men was made by HBO.

have not seen this but am suspicious of the choice to make it vague what party anyone belongs to. or is it not vague, upon viewing?

oh it's vague. I get the motivation but it kind of devolved things to "Looks like those clowns in government did it again. What a bunch of clowns."

JL-D's character is trying to push for "green jobs" in this ep so i'd guess dem but they don't really explicitly state it, no (/notreallyaspoiler)

i imagine they felt it would distract you from what the show is about and i think they're probably right; maybe they'll spill the beans after a couple more shows though?

"Looks like those clowns in government did it again. What a bunch of clowns."

yeah this meme is thoroughly owned by the right wing in america; i'm wondering if iannucci realizes how his schtick plays into that?

'in the loop' drew much of its power from blairite hardasses inescapably seeing what it was they'd muscled into, right?

i've never been satisfied by political drama of any kind tho, really. no show like the real thing imo.

political comedy even less

if the sense of individual characters and their relative intelligence/engagement increases, i could see the lack of political content being irrelevant, esp since the veep is such an irrelevant position.

it hasn't been for our adult life!

i think you can get away with a show that implies it is within a fantasy administration, with more jokes and a reason to get invested in the characters' dilemmas.

okay okay, i'll get of my hobbyhorse until i see the show

It's never mattered less what party anyone belongs to.

'in the loop' drew much of its power from blairite hardasses inescapably seeing what it was they'd muscled into, right?

not sure what you mean

essentially comedic characters having to look at war, basically.

some VPs (Cheney) obv more important than others (Quayle)

First episode streaming free at hbo.com and probably YouTube btw.

first episode not very funny : (

i just watched and thought it was pretty good though i wonder how it'll work without any truly frightening characters. interesting that the veep herself is the audience proxy and not some chris addison type staffer