DGS49
Diamond Member
After many years of hearing about it but not bothering to partake, I have finally started bingeing "House of Cards" on Netflix.
Watching programs in this way is different from the customary pattern, where you have to wait a week for each new episode, and it allows the viewer to explore things more intensely, see what the writers are up to, and analyze the characters and the plot more clearly. I have said previously in this space that most series deteriorate after two or three seasons. It seems that the original scenario provides a lot of good ideas at first, then it dries up, leaving the writers to contrive more and more absurd plot lines...it usually doesn't work. And there is the writer-turnover phenomenon where other producers pirate the writers of popular series, hoping that they can do the same for a different series later on.
House of cards is interesting for its close-up look at politics in Washington (assuming they have done their homework and know what they are talking about), but the bottom line is that the Kevin Spacey character ("Frank Underwood") is nothing more than a power-hungry sociopath, who has hired a couple other sociopaths to work for him.
Yawn.
Rather than having a "hero" protagonist who encounters bad guys every week and has to contend with them - the customary series form - here we have the sociopath protagonist who destroys the lives of good guys who get in his way. That is basically the entire story line.
And this is entertaining........how? Why?
I don't get it.
Watching programs in this way is different from the customary pattern, where you have to wait a week for each new episode, and it allows the viewer to explore things more intensely, see what the writers are up to, and analyze the characters and the plot more clearly. I have said previously in this space that most series deteriorate after two or three seasons. It seems that the original scenario provides a lot of good ideas at first, then it dries up, leaving the writers to contrive more and more absurd plot lines...it usually doesn't work. And there is the writer-turnover phenomenon where other producers pirate the writers of popular series, hoping that they can do the same for a different series later on.
House of cards is interesting for its close-up look at politics in Washington (assuming they have done their homework and know what they are talking about), but the bottom line is that the Kevin Spacey character ("Frank Underwood") is nothing more than a power-hungry sociopath, who has hired a couple other sociopaths to work for him.
Yawn.
Rather than having a "hero" protagonist who encounters bad guys every week and has to contend with them - the customary series form - here we have the sociopath protagonist who destroys the lives of good guys who get in his way. That is basically the entire story line.
And this is entertaining........how? Why?
I don't get it.