Season 1; While this isn't without flaws, especially in the first few episodes, it develops into an intense, tremendously well acted and deeply chilling portrait of power and its various abuses.
Kelsey Grammar is a frightening Godfather-like mayor of Chicago, who reveals just enough humanity for us to hope for some redemption. Or are even those flashes just an act? Almost everyone in this show is working an angle, playing their cards, hoping to come out on top and not worried about who they step on to get there. Filled with some really surprising and often depressing turns, this is as dark a look at American politics as I've seen in a long time. And to me that makes this important viewing. Because sadly, as over the top as the show can seem, why do I think it's much, much closer to reality than we'd all like to believe?
As for the weak spots, there are a couple of performances in supporting roles that don't quite keep up, and especially in the first few episode a lot of gratuitous sex that feels shoehorned in. Believe me, I love a good sex scene. Just not when it feels like there's no reason for it to be there besides someone in power saying 'hey, no one's been naked for 15 minutes!' But that starts to fade as the season goes along, as do the plot holes. At the same time the emotional power grows, and by the last couple of episodes it's simply mesmerizing.
Season 2: Not quite up to the level of excellence of the first season, but it comes close. For the first 5 episodes it grows convincingly and compellingly ever darker, while staying in the bounds of reality it had established,
But them it pulls back from the precipice of true tragedy (which admittedly would have left it nowhere to go if there was a season 3), and becomes a little more melodramatic, a little more improbable, Still compelling and entertaining, but a bit more pulpy, a bit less Shakespearian.
But, none-the-less this was one of the better series in recent TV that sadly no one seemed to ever watch.
Kelsey Grammar is a frightening Godfather-like mayor of Chicago, who reveals just enough humanity for us to hope for some redemption. Or are even those flashes just an act? Almost everyone in this show is working an angle, playing their cards, hoping to come out on top and not worried about who they step on to get there. Filled with some really surprising and often depressing turns, this is as dark a look at American politics as I've seen in a long time. And to me that makes this important viewing. Because sadly, as over the top as the show can seem, why do I think it's much, much closer to reality than we'd all like to believe?
As for the weak spots, there are a couple of performances in supporting roles that don't quite keep up, and especially in the first few episode a lot of gratuitous sex that feels shoehorned in. Believe me, I love a good sex scene. Just not when it feels like there's no reason for it to be there besides someone in power saying 'hey, no one's been naked for 15 minutes!' But that starts to fade as the season goes along, as do the plot holes. At the same time the emotional power grows, and by the last couple of episodes it's simply mesmerizing.
Season 2: Not quite up to the level of excellence of the first season, but it comes close. For the first 5 episodes it grows convincingly and compellingly ever darker, while staying in the bounds of reality it had established,
But them it pulls back from the precipice of true tragedy (which admittedly would have left it nowhere to go if there was a season 3), and becomes a little more melodramatic, a little more improbable, Still compelling and entertaining, but a bit more pulpy, a bit less Shakespearian.
But, none-the-less this was one of the better series in recent TV that sadly no one seemed to ever watch.