The Antisocial Socialist

Approximately a million internet years ago, radiumhead asked for a post about House of Cards, which I said I'd write once I'd finished the second season of the American one. It turns out I have Thoughts! Many Thoughts.

So, for those of you who have somehow missed this weird bit of popular culture, there are two House of Cards TV shows. One is a BBC series from I think the 90s starring Ian Richardson, the other is Netflix's interesting experiment with the binge-watching model, starring Kevin Spacey. They're both based on novels by Michael Dobbs, which I haven't read (anyone? should I bother?) and follow the adventures of the amoral whip of the party in power (Tories in the BBC version, Democrats in the Netflix one, more on that in a bit) who gets passed over for promotion and, in revenge, destroys everyone until he's on top.

When the Netflix series came out, PopeJohn tried to get me to watch it, and I was kind of like, "ummm, don't really like American political dramas," thinking that it would be like The West Wing. This may surprise some of you but I find American politics duller than the politics of practically any other country. It's not like there's a lot of variation in the political discourse of, say, Canadian politics, but it's still a greater scope than is allowed in American politics. Then he told me that the first scene is Kevin Spacey killing a dog and I decided to give it a chance.

(Because I love manipulative amoral protagonists more than cake, okay? Don't judge me. My formative years were in the grimdark 90s and I can't help it.)

I thought the first Netflix series was quite good. PopeJohn then told me that in the BBC one, they kill Thatcher, so I watched it assuming that it would be better. It was. (I mean, are you surprised? I like the non-American versions of most things better than the American versions.)
( Spoilers for both series, Hunger Games, and 1984 )

P.S. bcholmes, it is now time for me to start watching Hannibal.