What, no "House of Cards" thread??

[JackRiddler]

I wish I could watch this but I can't stream videos. I'll have to save it on Netflix's ridiculously long waiting list when it becomes available on dvd--probably when Season 5 is airing.

(A friend highly recommended the new season and said that Joel Kinnaman plays a big role; covered up/ignored behaviors of past president(s) are normalized and that audience response benefits Hillary. )

I'd say so. It doesn't show how the system actually works and reduces it to personal intrigues and so many theatrical shades of grey that in the end everything's justified because everyone has to play the game. While making it all seem very critical. Then there's my problem with contemporary-set fiction in general: there are now a couple of million savvy politically-minded people who know the Underwood administration better than the Obama administration! It's catharsis, and if and when Underwood is brought down (depending on how long finance and ratings for the show are sustained) it will be a cathartic replacement for the real-life revolution that didn't happen.

The Comment of the Thread is still the one who said House of Cards is to political science what the Kardashian shows are to anthropology.

[RocketMan]

Looks like The World Socialist Website has Nordic's back on this

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/03 ... d-m24.html

The series, particularly in its mediocre and complacent third season, had been championed as the fictional representation par excellence of the American political system, with its producers and leading actors paraded and celebrated on news programs and Sunday morning talk shows.

One would have expected, based on the trajectory of the previous season and its warm reception by the establishment, that the fourth season would have settled into a self-satisfied stride, content with its role as light entertainment for America’s political elite.

Intriguingly, this season has taken a different turn. To be blunt, House of Cards strongly suggests that the US government sponsors radical Islamist terrorism to keep a lid on domestic crises, spies on the American population for political gain and conspires to go to war, while claiming high ideals, for purely Machiavellian ends.

Just one more question. Is it absolutely essential that I wade through Season 3 to get the hang of this??

[Nordic]

Looks like The World Socialist Website has Nordic's back on this

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/03 ... d-m24.html

The series, particularly in its mediocre and complacent third season, had been championed as the fictional representation par excellence of the American political system, with its producers and leading actors paraded and celebrated on news programs and Sunday morning talk shows.

One would have expected, based on the trajectory of the previous season and its warm reception by the establishment, that the fourth season would have settled into a self-satisfied stride, content with its role as light entertainment for America’s political elite.

Intriguingly, this season has taken a different turn. To be blunt, House of Cards strongly suggests that the US government sponsors radical Islamist terrorism to keep a lid on domestic crises, spies on the American population for political gain and conspires to go to war, while claiming high ideals, for purely Machiavellian ends.

Just one more question. Is it absolutely essential that I wade through Season 3 to get the hang of this??

I would like to think that you can merely skip Season 3 and be the better because of it.

I could be wrong but you could just read a synopsis of the plot points of it on Wikipedia or something and move right into season 4.

[Cordelia]

In keeping with the presidential election season, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will host its world premiere
'House of Cards in Concert', performed by the National Symphony Orchestra (the theme being, I guess, a celebration of the ascendancy of a corrupt and murderous couple to the White House).


http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/event/NQHOC

Jeff Beal explains his clever composition:

[Cordelia]

Season 5 premieres on Netflix tomorrow:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW8Zyt8SF_U

(Wondering if the series will reach an ending similar to the BBC’s original.)

[elfismiles]

Have only just started the new season - haven't even finished the first episode of it, but just saw this...

New House of Cards Features Mock Human Sacrifice at Bohemian Grove–like Retreat
'Cremation of Care' ritual depicted in popular fictional political series
Adan Salazar | Infowars.com - June 1, 2017

https://www.infowars.com/new-house-of-c ... e-retreat/

[JackRiddler]

.

A positive online review highlights my problem, not with House of Cards as such, but with bourgeois protagonist-driven drama in general:

House of cards season 5 ep 3 drew me back in to this show. I was a huge fan during the first 2 seasons them lost interest.

Something wonderful about How the Underwood couple represent the dynamics of many professional couples straining to survive, even with their respective betrayals, it shows how they truly love each other.

Wonderful!

.

[mentalgongfu2]

Still can't bring myself to give this show a chance, nor Stranger Things.

Both are the type of show where acquaintances with a passing knowledge of my interests in the political and the weird tell me I would just love it. Experience has taught me that I will usually hate the recommended program and find it superficial at best and a downright perversion of intriguing topics at worst. Like when V for Vendetta came out, or when I was assured my interest in rock music would make me love Almost Famous, which I hated with a passion.

Perhaps i'll give it a skeptical whirl after Better Call Saul finishes its current season and the Twin Peaks revival is complete.

[Cordelia]

.

A positive online review highlights my problem, not with House of Cards as such, but with bourgeois protagonist-driven drama in general:

House of cards season 5 ep 3 drew me back in to this show. I was a huge fan during the first 2 seasons them lost interest.

Something wonderful about How the Underwood couple represent the dynamics of many professional couples straining to survive, even with their respective betrayals, it shows how they truly love each other.

Wonderful!

.

It is wonderful.

[Laodicean]

[MacCruiskeen]

I got dragged through about 2.4 episodes of it by a friend last year. ("Give it a chance! You'll get into it!") It is just fucking awful.

[Cordelia]

I think it should have been written as a miniseries like the BBC version, instead of dragging on year after year into overkill. (But of course artistic merit's not the point of a series like this.) Also, I found Ian Richardson's F.U. more interesting.

[Cordelia]

Re-watched Seasons 1 and 2 of HoC. Struck by how the plots, politicians, intrigues, schemes, campaign machinations, jackets clothes worn by the FLOTUS, et., etc., etc., look tame and quaintly old-fashioned by this new(ish) decade's decadence.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Do you lot know about the original British tv version?

The final plot twist was Urquart (UK version of FU) giving Diana the keys to Buckingham Palace as she was closer to an older British Royal Dynasty than the Windsors/Battenburgs or whatever they are called. My memory of the show is that was his plan all along. To reinstate a past bloodline to the UK throne?