Hacker Cinema
Veep
2012 · TV series · 7 seasons
Created by Armando Iannucci
A look into American politics, revolving around former Senator Selina Meyer who finds being Vice President of the United States is nothing like she expected and everything everyone ever warned her about.
16 positive3 negative14 neutralfrom 33 commenters
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34 comments on Hacker News
> Then after 9/11 it kinda seemed like suddenly the TV shows were all about cops and soldiers.
There were some rare exceptions like Veep
The TV show Veep is great. She behaves like this sort of arsehole, with utterly crass behaviour, and coming from a female makes it more striking.
Amazing show.
Haha holy smokes, got to the end of the article and it reminds me of this: mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Hf_BKEfnY
(The Thick of It, by Armando Ianucci - also the creator of Veep with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - is a political satire TV series about bumbling government employees).
this kind of take is usually the preserve of nostalgic old men who've just discovered YouTube comments, so I'm surprised to see it rephrased so many times here. if you aren't finding high quality modern British-made TV shows it's because you're not looking or you're unwilling to try new things. Wolf Hall, Line of Duty, Slow Horses, Rivals, Fleabag, Adolescence, Inside no 9, Veep, etc etc etc etc. I could name 10 more. TV is more stratified and yes there are a lot of worthless filler game shows and talk shows, but just as it was in the 70s and 80s, there are plenty of stand-out shows that will last the test of time
Veep is a documentary.
> Biden held significant sway in the country as VP
Hahaha. Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I agree, but VP? There's a reason why there's a Veep TV show.
Try this: look up the most highly rated episodes on IMDB and watch only those. Missing the crummy episodes usually does not interfere with understanding the story arc. Often, I set a minimum IMDB score that I will watch, like 8.5 or 9.0 to capture only the best. This works well with series that:
- take a year or two to find their footing or
- have a large cast (some mediocre) that get their own story lines of no consequence occasionally or
- introduce cast members that don't make it or
- implode towards the final season.
I have done this for many series that are somewhat uneven:
- The Americans
- How I Met Your Mother
- Fringe
- Orphan Black
- Halt and Catch Fire
- House of Cards (watching the ratings allows you to miss all of season 6)
- Arrested Development
- Bojack Horseman
- Veep
- 30 Rock
- Jane the Virgin
- Black Mirror
- The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
- Suits
- Six Feet Under
- La Femme Nikita
- The Blacklist
- Peaky Blinders
- The Romanoffs
- Ozark
- Westworld (sometimes dropping episodes does not matter)
- Succession
- Borgen
And all of these series have lots of strong episodes.
Series I would not do this with:
- The Bear
- Breaking Bad
- Money Heist
- The Serpent
- Fleabag
- Chernobyl
- The White Lotus
I do the exact same amount of work now that I did in an office, except now I can just watch a video on YouTube or an old episode of Veep or something if I want to take a break, rather than looking at my phone for a few minutes wondering if someone is going to tap me on the shoulder.
I literally saw a coworker sleeping in his cubicle, and had I not woken him up he probably would have gotten fired that day when our boss walked in maybe 90 seconds later. Offices are not the meccas of productivity the RTO crowd would like us to believe.
It's literally because people who have paid for business class want to board first.
Think it through. You've just been charged an extra $500 to sit in a chair for four hours, and you're waiting in line behind a mother with five screaming children? You've got very important business things to attend to! Or whatever!
IDK if you ever watched _Veep_ but there's this marvellous episode where a megadonor is complaining that he didn't get more chicken than the $100-plate crowd at a fundraiser. He was literally counting (let's generously say) $5 chicken breasts.
Never mind that he was a hominid of roughly the same proportion as everyone else in the room; did not metabolize food any faster or differently; and certainly couldn't care less about $5.
So: like that, but for air travel.
"It would appear that the American report leaves some important questions unanswered, some of the evidence is inconclusive, some findings have been questioned, and the figures are open to interpretation and different results might come from a widened, more detailed study over a longer time scale." [1]—words that killed any possibility of science under the umbrella of the political since 1981.
I don't understand why the author needs to qualify: "Yes, Minister is one of the most seminal British political satires", it simply is the most seminal political satires [2], together with the follow-up, Yes, Prime Minister [3].
[1] Around minute 25 of the episode 4, season 2.
[2] Of course, some might say de gustibus, however, even Veep could not succeed in combining wit, humor, and relevancy in such a manner. Not to even mention the unique use of the English language: any of the Humphrey-ian soliloquyial verbiages is up there with any speech from Hamlet and above. The fact that there are so few episodes certainly helps in keeping the essence dense.
[3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086831/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
> the quality of films/TV produced in the west has been in steady decline for quite some time
I could agree the average quality has dropped. But surely you agree that the sheer volume of high-quality content has ballooned. How many high-quality TV shows can you name from the 90s?
Compare that to the last 10 years of shows like: Succession, Ted Lasso, The Queen's Gambit, The Handmaids Tale, Better Call Saul, Ozark, House of Cards, Stranger Things, Silicon Valley, The Crown, Fargo, Mr. Robot, True Detective, Veep, and even (controversially) Game of Thrones.
It's sad when reality exceeds satire. "Veep" seems like a mild documentary now.
This seems very much like the episode of Veep'Boxes of lies' where they try to hide their nefarious deeds alongside the real day to day inter-workings of the vice presidents office but inundating the public with data.
> What recent (non-animated) funny movie or show have you seen that is not "feel good" or filled with sexual jokes?
I don't really watch comedy films but I watch a reasonable amount of comedy shows:
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, 30 Rock, Atlanta, Avenue 5, Fleabag, The Good Place, Silicon Valley, Resident Alien, Barry, Home (UK), Mythic Quest, AP Bio, Tacoma FD, Ted Lasso, Russian Doll, Veep, You're the Worst, Better Things·
I'm not sure what your qualifier for "recent" is so feel free to ignore some of those.
Sure a lot of these aren't farces like Airplane or Scary Movie but it's not all feel good or dick jokes. There is plenty of comedy out there for all types of tastes.
Reminds me of the episode from Veep where Jonah tries to pass a bill that abolishes DST. The bill is written by an outside team of analysts funded by a private prison magnate, Sherman Tans. He packs the bill with extras intended to expand the prison population. Jonah accepts the bill because he's an idiot and doesn't like to read. He only got elected because he went negative against the president, a member of his own party. In the end, the bill fails because Jonah flies to close to the sun.
I never watched Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm however I grabbed season 1 of Curb two weeks ago as I am in lockdown and wanted something different/new (to me) to watch and fell in love with it.
I am now on season 8(!) and there hasn't been a single episode I have not thoroughly enjoyed.
It is a superb show with some excellently executed jokes. Probably some of the best I have seen on TV. Some of the jokes are so superbly setup as well that you don't realise until the punchline drops that the build up has been several episodes.
I also watched Mythic Quest earlier in the year which was a lot of fun. We mostly watched it because my wife is a video game producer so we had a good time laughing at how real some of the craziness can be in the video game production world.
Avenue 5 took a while to find its pace but by the end of the season it was quite fun. Different but well done. I am looking forward to season 2.
I plan to sit down and watch Always Sunny, Veep and Seinfeld now :)
If you haven't heard of them, The Thick of It is basically a modern version of this show. By Armando Ianucci, the man who went on to make Veep (with Julia Louis Dreyfuss). Both series have been praised by insiders who say "The show is just like what happens in reality!".
He's also made the movies "In The Loop", set in the run up to the Iraq War, and "The Death of Stalin".
Never saw that Veep episode. It's based on a book with the same title by a whistleblower, and my understanding is they dramatize the specifics but the fundamentals gist is true if a little more complicated. For example, in the movie the main character thinks for a while and then decides to use the military rules against his opponents so he asks his secretary to get him the rulebook and figures out a rule with a loophole. I think in reality he used a generally similar loophole to get the word out in combination with a lot of other strategies, but he didn't figure it out from staring at "the rulebook" for a few hours one night.
I haven't lived/worked in SV, but have hated my limited experiences dealing with the culture there.
I have been told (and seen many times on HN) that the show is closer to a documentary than a satire. That's anecdata, obviously.
It reminds me of the (satirical) show Veep, which had to rewrite an entire season because it was too similar to what the actual US White House had done.
> You could also imagine why it might be hard for Netflix, Spotify and Prime movies to compete in India
Till a certain extent. Netflix, Prime Videos, Hotstar etc have much more variety and higher quality and some are VERY AFFORDABLE. Prime videos and Hotstar (HBO, Game of thrones, Veep, Silicon Valley like shows) can be had for $14 USD per year EACH. So upwardly mobile Indians can subscribe to multiple OTT streaming services (I do Netflix, Hostart, Primve Video + Apple Music). For the price of one Spotify sub in US, you can subscribe to 5-7 music streaming services in India.
For the rest, Indian creators on YouTube have pretty much surpassed every big name streaming company. TVF, Timeliners etc have created content which resonates with 18-35 year olds on an emotional level. Netflix et al. will never have that emotional connect so easily.
Off the top of my head: Succession, VEEP, Barry, Big Little Lies, Sharp Objects, True Detective (seasons 1 & 3), Chernobyl.
Big Little Lies was probably the worst of that bunch, and is still lightyears ahead of any recent Netflix drama.
On Prime, The Man in the High Castle is a guilty pleasure despite its flaws. The bizarre spy drama Patriot is absolutely excellent.
I like that with Prime, I can subscribe to HBO within the app, and also buy seasons of some cable shows, like FX’s Legion, Fargo, What We Do in the Shadows.
I prefer that experience much more than Netflix. With Netflix, the original content has to be so good that it offsets the lack of being able to purchase non-Netflix content, and frankly Netflix originals have just not been good enough to cut it for a while.
I think not being able to purchase it should resolve moral/ethical issues.
But a lot of pirates like to complain they cannot purchase it according to their specific demands.
People used to complain that they had to buy cable to watch game of thrones. They wanted a solo steaming service. Go look at old reddit posts, pirates would proclaim that they would subscribe to that instead of pirate.
HBO made exactly that. And now the complaint is that it costs too much. Or they don’t want to pay for Barry or Veep episodes they don’t want. But they’ll stop pirating if they could just buy GoT!
I think the vast majority of piracy is just because they can get it for free.
Additionally, if the content is just not available in your country yet, then at best, you would be morally/ethically justified in pirating now and then paying later when it’s allowed.
> GoT is a tentpole show with a rabid audience but it's not especially good (it's no The Wire). Deadwood and the Sopranos are from a different era of TV. Veep is great, but True Detective, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Enlightened, and The Newsroom would all be in the middle of the pack at Netflix.
As The Dude once said "Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man"
Objectively speaking, there isn't a single Netflix-original TV show rated over 9 on IMDB: https://www.justwatch.com/us/provider/netflix/tv-shows?rating_imdb=9
Compared to 7 titles on HBO: https://www.justwatch.com/us/provider/hbo-now/tv-shows?rating_imdb=9
But I think your point is that when we're talking about "The Wire" level production, others have caught up (AMC, FX, etc) and Netflix can simply license those titles. But, there's notable downsides to that (you have to wait, there's a significant cost to purchase, etc). Also, AMC, FX, etc have yet to establish a long-term credibility for consistently creating high quality content...until they do, HBO as the "premium offering" in light of others is still there.
At the end of the day we're talking about whether HBO's content can sustain the justification of paying $15/month. You just need rabid audiences for that to happen, not "one dude on the internet thinks The Wire is greatest thing ever created".
Obama singled out the Kochs in 2015. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/08/26/war-words-obama-v-koch-brothers/32423959/
Pelosi and Reid attended a conspiracy movie about the Kochs in 2014 https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/harry-reid-nancy-pelosi-koch-movie-106735
Funny how we forget. I don't deny Trump is the loudest, he is Trump after all. But I could pull up Maddow, Moyers, etc episodes about the Kochs that are similar to how Tucker, Hannity etc have treated Soros. Trump has also attacked the Kochs (as has Tucker, Brietbart, etc,) fwiw. The Kochs are for DACA, for example.
The simple fact is, none of these men (the Kochs or Soros) are "evil," they believe in what they believe and they put their money towards it. Simple as that. And because of that they are boogeymen to each side; since somehow each side thinks they (Soros & the Kochs) have some huge influenced...and having worked in DC circles myself and having various friends that have worked on the Hill...that's just totally false. They all WISH they had that power, and honestly if they did the world would probably be a lot simpler.
Real politics is a lot more like Veep than it is House of Cards. That's not as thrilling as people want, but it's the truth.
While I love RottenTomatoes for Movies, I find it abysmal for TV Shows. Here are some shows with a >90% score:
- Almost all seasons of Supernatural
- Seasons 3 & 4 of Veep
- Seasons 4, 5 & 7 of New Girl
- Season 2 of The Flash
- Season 2-4 of Arrow
Now I'm not saying that those shows are all shit (tho they are certainly not in my ballpark), but I doubt anyone thinks of them as 100% shows, in the same sense that Moonlight is a 98% movie.
The problem comes with few reviews (which is also a thing with more niche-y movies), which is probably amplified in later seasons, where reviewers who don't like it stopped watching.
I'm a bit surprised by that comment. I actually find Prime to have pretty good content and typically better movies than Netflix (who's movie library has been shrinking pretty drastically over the years).
If you haven't already watched it, I'd highly recommend Season 1 and 2 of "The Expanse" on Prime. There are a lot of pretty great shows on there as long as you don't rely on DC/Marvel shows for all your entertainment. Other shows that are reasonably acclaimed are:
- The Man in the High Castle
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- The Nightmanager
- Mr. Robot
- Boardwalk Empire
- Downton Abbey
- Sneaky Pete
- Orphan Black
- Dr. Who
- Veep
- The Good Wife
- Transparent
- Hannibal
- Deadwood
- Curb your Enthusiasm
- The Wire
- Six Feet Under
- The Sopranos
This could also be named "Gary", like Gary Walsh (character) from the TV series Veep. Though it also has to carry tampons and tissues ;)
Not that Monica's not a good name, obvious throwback to a certain character on TV from the late 90's. (or maybe I'm watching too much TV and experiencing hammer-nail syndrome...)
Right, and congress must vote from the available candidates, and couldn't pick anyone? Obviously none of this will happen, but it's fun to think about I think.
If you've seen the tv show Veep, they play around with a similar scenario, but one where the electoral college is tied. In the show, congress also ends up in a tie, and so elects the vice president into office instead. As far as I understand the rules though, the vice president would only be elevated to president in case congress can't resolve the matter before inauguration day, and will only hold the office until congress resolves the tie and picks a president.
I probably have most of this wrong, but I think it's very interesting to hypothesize about the possibilities, no matter how remote. I obviously don't think any of this would happen, but it's fun to think about.
I actually agree with much of the articles reasoning, other than the title, and everything about Ghostbusters:
> More specifically, a vocal portion of men on the internet — shall we say — go out of their way to make their voices heard when it comes to judging entertainment aimed at women, and that appears to be happening with the new “Ghostbusters.”
The thing with the new Ghostbusters has nothing to do with them being women. I'd see Bridesmaids 2 or any other comedy with Kristen Wiig (probably have), and I like Paul Feig fine.
The problem with the new Ghostbusters is that it's not Ghostbusters, not that it's necessarily a bad comedy.
The old Ghostbusters is shot and built up as a dark disaster movie, that just happens to be really funny. The new one is a Paul Feig movie (again, not knocking). It doesn't fit.
I noticed the same thing in the last season of Veep when Ianucci left. Instead of it shot more like an Office-type documentary (without the interviews, like its predecessor The Thick of It), if you look at the Christmas episode (of Veep) as the clearest example, it's shot like any other honestly mediocre sitcom, with saturated colors and honestly phoned in jokes.
Sorry about the tirade, but as a guy who does like good female media (Broad City and Lady Dynamite are my latest favorites), seeing this argument be made with terrible examples is unfortunate.
I hope that it is not the most honest, but I do agree that it is the best.
If you like The Thick Of It, you may also like the film 'In The Loop' and 'Veep' (both also 'created' by Armando Iannucci) as well as the Australian 'The Hollowmen'. 'Utopia', the sort-of follow on to The Hollowmen (which is excellent), is quite good too. There is also the 'Armando Iannucci show', which is very good, but also very different.
There is also supposed to be the Afghan version of the 'Thick Of It' too, although I have not found a source for that with translation.
I think you've got it the wrong way round, actually. British shows typically run for a 6 episode series and then might go several years before a new series is produced. The Thick Of It has had 24 episodes since its inception in 2005, whereas its US adaption has already had 28 since 2012. Armando Ianucci (the writer) has straight up stated that he won't write any more The Thick Of It until he feels he has material worthy of new episodes.
I think it's the US networks putting pressure on writers to produce produce produce which ends up being the difference between the perfection of The Thick Of It and the greatness of Veep (in my opinion).
I watched the first 4 episodes of HoC this weekend and am quite disappointed.
Production is very good, acting is quite good (although Spacey simply plays "high status" all the time with a rigid upper lip and not much nuance).
For me there are two problems
- The two main characters are cynical people who are obsessed with power and just plain mean... and they win every time. I don't care for them; at this point I would like to watch them fail and be humiliated, but I don't think it will happen, so I lost the main incentive to watch the next episode.
- The whole thing is predictable. At the beginning of each episode a minor setback appears for the Underwoods, and they defeat it with a smirk (Robin Wright's smirk really gets on my nerves now, although she's probably one of the most beautiful women in the world).
- - -
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(U.S._TV_series) a critic is quoted saying "This hardwired venality is what makes this show so watchable. Here are the realities of political life as most of us suspect them to be."
I'm not sure. I think HoC takes itself and its subject much too seriously. I think reality is much more absurd and difficult to control, as described in Armando Iannucci's writing, which I can never get enough of (The Thick of It, In the Loop, Veep, etc.)
- - -
EDIT -- The rant above is a little off-topic; the on-topic point is that this is a very good move for Netflix and that (as others have noted) they really don't have a choice.
If they don't produce their own exclusive content they are at the mercy of other content producers who will try to price them out of the market (and would succeed in doing so).
HBO turned-down Mad Men. In the recent past Thrones, Veep and Girls have all debuted to critical acclaim and ratings success.
Anecdotally, from what I've read, show runners love HBO.
Anybody who thinks HBO is at risk either isn't paying attention to it, or just has tastes outside the mainstream. They have among best original content -- scripted shows, comedy specials, 'reality' shows, documentaries, and movies -- on television today. And have. For the last 15 years.
Here's why HBO requires you to subscribe to their channel to watch Game of Thrones.
If you watch Game of Thrones, maybe you'll also watch Veep or Girls or Eastbound & Down or Life's Too Short. You might notice that HBO staggers their series so they overlap for roughly half their run. The Sopranos and The Wire never ran in lockstep, The Wire would start roughly halfway through The Sopranos run. They're trying to get you to continuously subscribe, rather than just subscribe for the 13 weeks Game of Thrones is on.
I know, you're too smart to fall for that, you're just gonna PVR Game of Thrones and stop recording exactly when the episode ends. You're never going to see anything except Game of Thrones no matter what HBO does. You, however, are still atypical. Maybe the day will come where HBO's trick doesn't work and their subscribers routinely cancel and resubscribe so it's most advantageous for them, but for now it works well enough that offering Game of Thrones a la carte is a money losing proposition for them. The sales they'll get from MG Siegler and yourself will not offset the subscribers they'll lose who would rather just pay for HBO continuously than go without Game of Thrones.
HBO (and other content producers) may be stubborn and short sighted, but they are not stupid. They've run the numbers. If you want to change their minds, you have to change the numbers and, regrettably, that means you have to boycott them completely. Pirating their content just signals it's valuable and HBO is right to keep availability costly (whether through direct pricing or obnoxious distribution terms).