This is a bit of a curiosity, American made (of course) but with a British creator, Jesse Armstrong, and largely British writers and directors; it channels such Machiavellian British classics as The Death of Stalin, The Thick of It (for which Armstrong wrote) and maybe even I, Claudius. So it's a bit like Fleetwood Mac: American to outward appearances, but on a solidly British base.
Why then - given that it is far better than any British TV drama of recent memory - was it not made in Britain? Sadly the answer is obvious: it is too big, and not woke enough. The BBC in particular would not now consider a flagship drama based round a self-made billionaire and his court, which steers clear of obvious political posturing*, and in which all the important characters are white and most of them male. I wouldn't be surprised if Armstrong had touted a British version of this and then, falling flat, took it to the US in a state of high dudgeon - he wouldn't be the first.
I didn't warm to it at first. It does put together the worst of both cultures: British cynicism and American worship of money. Nobody ever acts unselfishly or for someone else's good, rarely are they even honest, and it is only their money that makes the characters more interesting than anyone you might pass in the street. Armstrong includes vitriolic diatribes against both Britain and America, thus biting both the hands that have fed him, and that's never a good look**. And, whilst a comedy like The Thick of It can perhaps work at a certain level although you dislike the characters, a drama cannot; there has to be some sympathy. But as the show goes on, actually you do sympathise with the characters to a some extent, much more so when they are up against it, and that is largely down to the quality of the acting. You see that they are people like anyone else, with the same hurts and issues. If they are rather shoddy people it is largely because of the very thing we might envy them, their Dad's money and position.
For most of it I thought we are meant to enjoy their pain and it is ultimately pointless voyeurism, a modern version of the ancient Roman punishment of tying someone up in a sack with a cockerel, and fox and a snake. But then right at the end there are two little acts of altruism, both from the same character - good they didn't need to do. And that character is therefore seen as the worthy winner of the show. So I guess it must have a heart after all, or they didn't want it to end on the same cynical note which had prevailed throughout. Whatever, it is the first show for some years that is not an insult to the intelligence. The reviews all say it's 'the best show on TV'; actually, at the moment, there's no contest. I do agree with Brian Cox though that a certain 'major twist' (although it's not a twist really, it's a long-expected event) comes too far from the end of the last series. It's his character that keeps it together and drives it forward; whenever he's not around for any reason, the show's grip distinctly slackens.
*The political message of the show is mixed. It is subtly critical of the Roys' influence, and the critique intensifies as it goes on, but it never feels like that is the point of the exercise. On the other hand, it buys into the myth of the self-made billionaire (in reality Rupert Murdoch, for example, didn't come from nothing: his Dad was an Australian newspaper magnate); and I think we're meant to take the eulogies towards the end at face value, that Logan is a forceful character who does what he has to do to get things done, and that that's a good thing. To that extent it is after all a true American drama, because in American drama the message is always basically that you gotta do what you gotta do; as opposed to British drama, the message of which is always that the world is full of injustice which we as a society need to put right. If there is something wrong, Brits believe that the government should do something - believe, that is, in collective responsibility; Americans, that govts never do anything useful and that people have to sort things out for themselves - legally if possible but, if not, whatever way they can. Two different world views, and there are things to be said for each of them; but there's no doubt which makes for better TV. Because Brits don't approve of people taking things into their own hands, their TV heroes are too passive and sensitive, the stories don't have enough drive and - although people keep trying - it's incredibly difficult to make good drama out of social workers, doleys, and phoning the council to unblock the drains.
**Bizarrely, though, they are nice about Dundee, Roy's fictional home town - having found a pretext to set an episode there, courtesy of a healthy slice of lottery funding.
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