HBO has decided to pick up "Veep," a new series from Armando Iannuci ("The Thick of It" and 'In the Loop') & starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the Vice President of the United States.
From Entertainment Weekly:
Created by Armando Iannucci, Veep will begin production this fall in Baltimore for a 2012 debut. Louis-Dreyfus will play former Senator Selina Meyer, who becomes Vice President, only to discover the job is nothing like she expected. The cast also includes Sufe Bradshaw (Overnight) the Vice President’s assistant; Anna Chlumsky (In the Loop) as her chief of staff, and Tony Hale (Arrested Development) as her right-hand man.
Aaron Sorkin's "
The West Wing," and its spiritual ancestor '
The American President,' are both great political dramas. Both of them proceed from an idealistic,
Capraesque vision of American politics, where people with principles are victorious over those who spread half-truths & distortions. In Sorkin's imagined political world, all that is necessary for the best political policy to carry the day, no matter how controversial it might be, is the guts to say what you mean & mean what you say.
However, here in the real world, that's not always true. "Good" & right do not always win in the end. Lies & distortions can work all too well. And "how" something is said or done can be judged to be just as important, if not more important, than what is said.
Iannucci's "The Thick of It," and its feature film spinoff 'In the Loop,' have a very dark, cynical view of British politics and politics in general. Largely a scathing parody of New Labour's image conscious government between 1997 and 2010, "The Thick of It" has been described as the Anti-West Wing, and largely lives up (or would it be down?) to that description. Almost every character is either inept or corrupt. Most of the action is centered around the Prime Minister's Director of Communications, Malcolm Tucker (with Peter Capaldi's character being based in part on Tony Blair's Director of Communications/hatchet man Alastair Campbell, who according to Whitehall insiders could be even more brutal than Tucker), with the show portraying not the politicians, but the spin doctors and the media as the most powerful forces in British politics.
To that end, both "The Thick of It" and 'In the Loop' seem to say that public policy is not born out of good ideas, but out of trying to spin the bad ideas and personal fuck-ups of politicians.
In a previous interview, Iannucci discussed a possible Americanized version of "The Thick of It," and said he wanted it to be an American institution close to the power of government, but with insecurities about its position. He mentioned the State Department, but that description doesn't really fit the reality of the State Department, which is a pretty prestigious cabinet position with policy control. However, the office of the Vice President does fit more in-line with some of the absurdities of the (fictional) British Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. It'll be interesting if he sets "Veep" within the same universe as "The Thick of It."