A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

i didn't think the entire episode of sarah palin, but i have to admit that i occasionally was reminded of palin

i don't think that's a problem or anything the show necessarily has to run from.

for sure. i didn't mind it.

was annoyed at the production designers for not matching the wapo typefaces on the fake style section. Pretty glaringly obvious on screen I'd think even if you aren't familiar with the paper.

JLD looks great. This has promise and i'll keep watching but i only laughed once at JLD referring to glasses as "wheelchairs for the eyes". the gary character is bound to get super annoying. i know he's supposed to be but still...

"oh look, it's the guy from my left foot"

this show rules. between this and Girls i was starting to feel like a criminal so i ordered hbo.

I enjoyed the first episode of this a lot

def wanna see this

was annoyed at the production designers for not matching the wapo typefaces on the fake style section. Pretty glaringly obvious

Generally, no one in the biz cares about this kind of detail. Even if they actually said "Post."

(maybe there's even some weird un/written rule not to duplicate it)

renewed

I'm kind of surprised that I like this as much as I do.

i. do they keep up the 'did the president call?' 'no' 'no' and the 'did you know i have my own flag' bits
ii. do they get funny and how many repetitions does it take for them to get funny

― thomp, Monday, April 23, 2012 10:16 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes
and no, not by the end of the first three episodes at least

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?

― goole, Tuesday, April 24, 2012 2:56 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this annoys the hell out of me

first 2 eps strike me as a lil boring? at least v conventional sitcom-y plots/pacing/beats idk i might'ev been hoping this'd be more ambitious

i liked the pilot a lot--i think mostly because i love the mike character? but yeah the second one seemed a little aimless. i'm not sure vice-presidents have no real power is enough to hang a show on.

oh, i quite enjoyed 'did the president call' in the second episode

i'm interested how they'll work the parties in the third season of 'the thick of it' because it's been quite clear all along which parties they belong to, and if they're doing a coalition govt. with peter mannion as an MP (which i read somewhere or other) they either need to churn their cast massively, or deal mainly with the opposition, or get quite stuck into doing ... actual alternate history

Is US politics more polarised and partisan than in the UK? Maybe AI thought that making the party explicit would stop the show being about politics and start being about the party.

theres some widely cited intvw where iannucci said he was glad to have delayed the 3rd season of TTOI because the election happened and he was excited about the prospect of a coalition govt

yeh, kinda rubbing my hands at what he'll do with the coalition, esp. since political communication is a big theme running through the series.

What do we make of JLD's costuming? Is it too much to quibble over the fact that I can't imagine a VP wearing a lbd in the middle of the day not to mention when it's supposedly that hot?

i noticed that. she seems to wear cocktail dresses a lot.

they're not really cocktail dresses. more like extremely well-tailored/form-fitting/high-end career-wear.

how i feel is mostly julia louis-dreyfus looks so great! but surely that wasn't what you were getting at.

she looks incredible, yes!

her wardrobe is not the main problem with the show

I am not denying that she looks fab, I just think the costuming is a little off somehow.

id like to engage in some presidential vice with her, if you catch my drift

theres some widely cited intvw where iannucci said he was glad to have delayed the 3rd season of TTOI because the election happened and he was excited about the prospect of a coalition govt

third series was 2008, coalition one will be 4th

oh whatever

I just think the costuming is a little off somehow.

― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White), Tuesday, May 1, 2012 10:36 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know what you mean, but i think it's a character note, like evidence of selina's...vanity is too strong, but self-regard? desire to look good?

or it's taking advantage of the fact that julia louis-dreyfus is in the cast

Autres temps, autres moeurs

I just think black during the day is a little jarring though somewhat less jarring than the closing sequence.

being as how her primary issue is the environment, and she has a love/hate relationship with big oil, presumably the democratic party is in office.

yeah i know it's officially not about a party and that is annoying, but since all of the political discussions seems more-or-less based in reality, even if everyone's behaving pettily, i just read it as being about democrats.

right soooo why not just be like DEMOCRATS

i don't know, but they're going to have to be a little more specific about the politics soon or it's going to get rough. how many eps can they do about incompetently organized photo ops?

This show is in thrall to the coffee lobby

the thing that seems off is the direction overall. as glaringly obvious as it was, the gastric bug ending still had comic potential that was somehow missed or fudged through bad timing, confused performances, weird camera movements etc.

actually the actors don't seem to be entirely sure what they're supposed to be doing, alot of the time, which is a combination of the fault of writing and direction, i guess.

It started out funny in the yoghurt place but the pacing of her getting sick and hustled into the limo was too fast to let the joke really settle in.

i think the cast are still feeling out how this works (though obviously we don't know what order these were shot in ...)

the gastric bug ending still had comic potential that was somehow missed or fudged through bad timing, confused performances, weird camera movements etc

i think this is kind of the point ... the british show's schtick is that shabby fuckups never make for great comic climaxes but are always just shabby fuckups. ianucci's scripts have a slightly off relationship to sitcom cliché; i'm not convinced this works as well as the thick of it does - but, then, the first series of that show (of which there have been two series, numbered one and three) has an awkward and off feel about the early episodes too. to some degree this evaporates in rewatching -- i feel like knowing the moment of pettiness the first series 'builds' to somehow retrospectively justifies the tenor of it.

(thick of it has yet to utter the names of any of the political parties -- but has been way more tied to certain specifics of labour govt. 1997-2007 than this is tied to the american political scene, unless i'm missing all the tells)

you're right about that being the point and it's a difficult thing to pull off. it's just not working yet. early days.

I just think black during the day is a little jarring though somewhat less jarring than the closing sequence.

it wasn't until here that I realized what "lbd" was and was trying to convince myself that no matter how much my mind suggested it, it probably didn't stand for "labial buffing device"

I love that your mind suggests such fancies as 'labial buffing device'.

yeah it's obviously about the democrats! not weird to me at all that they're not referring to the parties, though, cause it's not about that aspect of politics

which aspect is that exactly

the tribalistic speeches for public consumption

watching this in a double-header with Borgen is kind of head-chafing, FYI