A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

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

Labial buffing greatly to be preferred?

can't i have both?

Only if you get them in a back massage chair

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

― max, Tuesday, May 1, 2012 3:17 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is exactly the same as the thick of it, party affils rendered via types of deportment, wit, affect &c so u see a woman w/ a jewish name and u don't have to think 'republicans can be jewish, too'

second episode rather better, still think POTUS is even more hateful than VEEP but impressed to the degree to which iannucci and friends have cloaked themselves in another flag

i coulda sworn that ttoi used party affiliations! but i guess not

it did, very much so.

I don't think of it as naming them but that's not what I'm watching it for

the first series of that show (of which there have been two series, numbered one and three)

First series was three eps, second series was 3 eps. I promise you this is how they were made internally, and are sold separately to OS broadcasters by the Beeb.


(Ianucci was given money for one half-hour pilot and managed to turn in two episodes on the budget - they then said "blimey, if you can do a third on whatever change everyone at the table has in their pockets, we'll show them all," and he said "deal.")

Labial buffing greatly to be preferred?

i keep reading this as a cryptic crossword clue, and i don't even do cryptic crosswords

I'm kind of surprised that I like this as much as I do.
― L'ennui, cette maladie de tous les (Michael White)

loved jld's reaction when she gets a whiff of the white house

i liked ep 2 but it still feels somehow straitjacketed, not sufficiently unhinged; hoping for more appearances by washpo asshole

Best episode by far, on par with the great Thick of It episodes.

not really but still great as shown by

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/may/07/veep-episode-three-review-catherine?newsfeed=true

definitely much better!

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/us/politics/for-a-blunt-biden-an-uneasy-supporting-role.html?hp
this show is informing my understanding of biden in a weird way

i think my problem with veep is that there is no drama. if a problem arises, it gets sorted p quickly by the generic white guy or doesnt really matter? which i guess is the joke but it doesn't give me anything to care about.

"have you ever read faulkner before?"

Well the issues seem to be continuing on.

This last one was great.

i think my problem with veep is that there is no drama. if a problem arises, it gets sorted p quickly by the generic white guy or doesnt really matter? which i guess is the joke but it doesn't give me anything to care about.

― Thoughts? You must have loads. (a hoy hoy), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 16:35 (Yesterday) Permalink

yeah i thought a big sticking point between the thick of it & this might be that TTOI has such a good handle on the drudgery and texture of day to day british politics, & with this they were just going to use the correct issues as a backdrop. but now there are a couple of things competing it works a little better as a backstory.

thought this was better anyway, too, although some of it's still weirdly leaden, or just generically sit-com-ish. i liked someone saying someone had a face like a guy who'd been stabbed in the groin.

I have only just started watching this but I got some lols off the first episode and will def keep watching.

It's like a West Wing about dumb people, lol.

I think most of the government issues/storylines in TTOI were as throwaway as the ones here but Malcolm made them seem like they were of insane importance to execute properly. The gimpy White House guy turning up to go "ummm, the first lady is getting a dog, plz dont get one" just doesn't make you care. Instead I was just sitting there, kinda bored. Ok, so she doesn't get a dog. Or she can get one for her daughter and just not have a press conference about it. Woop.

I think most of the government issues/storylines in TTOI were as throwaway as the ones here but Malcolm made them seem like they were of insane importance to execute properly

but I think that the kind of throwaway they were was so well-observed - third sector pathfinder initiative, expert-buttressed slapdash policy assemblages, fetishistic plays for an idea of 'coalface' or earthy politics - & i think the veep stuff is more generic: filibuster reform, oil contracts. part of what's amazing and oppressive about the thick of it is the limiting, nihilistic view of policy as something that no-one really understands or is invested in, which is exclusively valuable as ideological bragging ground, & for which there's no correlation between handling and presumably-profound-consequence. it's what makes the office feel like a bubble floating away from everything, which maybe, in veep, the whole white house thing makes less necessary, but which i think veep would be poorer without having an analogue for.

otm

it's a show about nothing

The closing bit with greetings was excellent. Also, "you're the widow."

sterling, i would fuck the shit outta julia louis dreyfus i wold treat her like a princess
also thank you for asendin me that daily worker

forks i think schlump's post and a hoy hoy's make a very good case that this is NOT a show about nothing (despite its subjects being unmoored from the realities that are supposed to inform their work)

Chris Morris directed a couple of the later episodes - I'm interested to see if they have any kind of stamp on them. The show has such a distinctive look and flow that I can't imagine there's too much variation on the theme, but I like to see him doing stuff, no matter what it is.

oh yeah that's encouraging, i think. i thought a lot of four lions was kinda perfunctory but his tone is always interesting

tracer: seinfeld ref

right i got that

was 'the new adventures of old christine' any good

/ what else has julis louise dreyfus been doing for the past decade

"There were two incarnations of Watching Ellie, neither of which met with any success. Both focused on the character of cabaret singer Ellie Riggs (Louis-Dreyfus), with markedly different approaches.
The first was directed by Ken Kwapis, known for his innovative work in single-camera sitcoms such as The Larry Sanders Show, Malcolm in the Middle and The Bernie Mac Show. Each 22-minute episode was meant to portray a 22-minute slice of Ellie's life, in real time. In the earliest episodes, a clock was even shown in the corner of the screen. Thirteen episodes were filmed but only ten aired before the series was put on indefinite hiatus (the remaining first-season episodes have never aired). During its use, the clock had the unfortunate effect of reminding the audience that a half-hour situation comedy only contained twenty-two minutes of content."

nobody in this show knows how to use email

but I guess if the White House used email instead of Jonah the show would be less funny, email isn't funny

hey theres this extreme metal band playing over at labyrinths tonight just real fucked up noise they dont even have a name you wanna check it out

The show's come together nicely, I think.

has gotten better & better 4 real

jonah at the show!!!

"That's like using a croissant as a fucking dildo."

"You've just turned this office into a salad spinner of Fuck!"

full of ttoi rehashes at this point

enjoyed purcell the oil guy, nice to have some invective amid the repartee

gig was an itl rehash, not a ttoi, but who cares bcz it was lol

there were like half a dozen refashioned ttoi lines this week alone, inc one quoted itt