Used to love this show. Then we had amazon prime for a few months and I basically hate-watched it, was really weird. Wish I could write good cos there’s so many things I’d want to say about it.
Think the thing I hate about it most, after it’s awful politics that have dated terribly, is the way they treat the camera and the audience. I hadn’t noticed before but they actually do loads of talking heads scenes where the character is supposed to be reacting to something that’s happening in the middle of another scene. Like, it’s as if the camera crew just asked everyone to pause for a minute, stay still, cos they need to get a reaction from x… Okay now carry on as you were. For a show that’s so desperate for a sort of grounded authenticity it kinda betrays how cloying and nonsensical and false everything about it is. Using pomo techniques to gear the show towards manufacturing audience emotion, rather than creating valuable stories and characters that generate moments more organically, is just as cynical as the X Factor or whatever.
