Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Julia

Has anyone else been watching Veep?

I have seen very little in the blogosphere regarding the show.  Even weeks before it comes on, people are going on and on and on about True Blood's return.

I'm so over vampires, I could care less that that crew is coming back, even with the addition of Christopher Meloni.

Anyways, for a 30 minute show, Veep has been pretty fricking good.  ...and I can't say I was hopeful it would be.  I think my fear is that it would be a painful degradation of the title character (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as she stumbled into situations like George Costanza or her Elaine Benes character. Or worse, that it would be like her hapless character, Christine on the New Adventures of Old Christine.  Mind you, I loved that show, but I always felt so bad for her.

Yes, there are weirdly uncomfortable situations - the ones you kind of come to expect that revolve around Louis-Dreyfus, but at least time they are seemingly more about her staff than her directly.

It is part Old Christine, part West Wing. ....with lots and lots of F-bombs.  And while there is a lot of cursing, none of it seem gratuitous.  If anything you have to believe the West Wing's lack of it was the fiction of the situation. As one battles and spins for power, no one is saying 'egads' and ''drat'.

And while Dreyfus does play the first female vice president, she's no Palin. She is a former senator who ran for president and settled for the #2 position. ...and a seemingly neutered one, but isn't that seemingly true of all VPs?

And it is an ensemble show - which Dreyfus works best with, as history shows, but she's great at what she does and who'd have ever really thought about that from her SNL days?

Yeah, the guy who played Buster, from Arrested Development is basically a similar character (without the hook-hand) and Matt Walsh goes out on no limbs as an ineffective press secretary. It is Anna Chlumsky who shines.  I've think I've only seen her in one thing - and she was like 9 at the time, and it was on cable and I wasn't paying that much attention.  But as the VP Chief of Staff, she is excellent.

I haven't really heard 'boo' about the show at all in the media, so I think it is flying under the radar too much - so it might not be long for this world. If you have HBO, and haven't seen it, use the on-demand feature, I think you'll like it (only one more episode of the season left).  If you don't have HBO - I don't know what to tell you - Netflix?



Song by:  the Beatles

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tried watching it but it just seemed too much like her previous characters and the character its self too much a characterization. But don't worry about a second season, HBO almost always does 2-3 seasons minimum.

rebecca said...

Didn't we watch part of an epi together?

Jonny said...

LOVE LOVE LOVE this show.

tornwordo said...

I'll check it out. I always like her. And if it's not on Netflix, just go to project-free tv. If you don't mind closing a couple of pop ups, it's a great way to see what you are hindered from seeing due to whatever circumstance.