House of Cards (Netflix)

I am not sure if anyone has written here about the House of Cards; it did not come up in search. At any rate, here is yet another addictive TV series from the golden age of television. Kevin Spacey is an evil politician with a wicked wife trying to make it to the top, but sure enough the show manipulates the viewers to root for him. Apparently this is a remake of a UK series from 25 years ago with the same name, so they had to keep some basic templates in place (e.g., the Spacey character speaks directly to the viewers once in a while about his true feelings).

The evil main characters are surrounded by no less evil (but less sophisticated) colleagues with everyone crossing and double crossing everyone else - it is not so easy to follow the plot at times. Yet as usual in TV shows, budget constraints only allow X characters to be involved; this is OK when the topic is family life or small office, but one doubts that White House politics revolve around 4-5 people. Thus there is a certain lack of credibility as we are supposed to think that the same brand of office politics used in Mad Men can equally apply to the American government. As a shabak chief once said in a lecture, "You have to believe me, there is no conspiracy, just a lot of idiots running around" (though I made the last part up, I am sure that is what he meant). I guess, we will never know what is true by watching TV, because a show about incompetent government officials who simply screw up everything they touch is unlikely to draw high ratings.