USA's Political Animals - Starring Sigourney Weaver

[TMC1982]

http://watching-tv.ew.com/2012/08/19/political-animals-finale-review/

The USA political miniseries couldn't match the more-compelling real-life presidential race. PLUS: Why "Political Animals" was the John McCain of TV series.

 

[sethypants]

^Do not care about what online hookeys have to say

 

[Hunter Rider]

The finale was good, I hope we get a second season to follow Elaine's attempt to become President and just so I can have more Carla Gugino on my screen, plus who doesn't want more Budism?

 

[Dr Lee]

very surprised by how they finished this.... almost felt like they couldn't decide, so they chose kill Prez Petrelli....

 

[charl_huntress]

http://watching-tv.ew.com/2012/08/19/political-animals-finale-review/

The USA political miniseries couldn't match the more-compelling real-life presidential race. PLUS: Why "Political Animals" was the John McCain of TV series.

I didn't get a chance to read the 2nd article, but I thought the first review was pretty spot on. What bothered me most about the ending is it seemed cheap and easy. I also agree the show got a little worse as it neared the end. I found the first four episodes to be the best then it just went downhill with the last two into serious predictablity.

 

[Sawyer]

http://www.deadline.com/2012/11/political-animals-wont-continue-on-usa/

‘Political Animals’ Won’t Continue On USA
By NELLIE ANDREEVA

It was introduced as a limited series and will stay that way. Greg Berlanti’s Political Animals won’t become a regular series for USA Network as originally envisioned. The mini was a modest performer, premiering to 3.8 million total viewers and averaging 3.2 million total viewers in Live+7 over its summer run. The ratings were not bad given that Political Animals aired with little support on Sunday — a night USA had not programmed for a while — but ultimately they weren’t strong enough to justify the show’s high cost. The political/family drama from Berlanti and Laurence Mark boasted a top-notch cast led by Sigourney Weaver, Carla Gugino, James Wolk and Ellen Burstyn.

“We are proud of Political Animals, our miniseries that attracted critical acclaim and impacted the cultural conversation this summer,” USA said in a statement. “It was a pleasure to work with Greg Berlanti and Laurence Mark and a powerful cast led by Sigourney Weaver. We look forward to collaborating again with these immensely talented creatives.” Meanwhile, Berlanti is busy with breakout CW hit Arrow, midseason CBS drama Golden Boy and several projects he has in development for next season.

Political Animals was an experiment for USA, which went aggressively after the project in a bid to expand into more serious and acclaimed programming. In the end, the show was decided by ratings. Political Animals joins regular series Common Law and Fairly Legal, which were recently cancelled.

USA? More like U So Lame!... okay, that wasn't my best.

 

[Lencho01]

Well, they did call it a miniseries. So, they must've known from the start there was a good chance it wouldn't continue.

 

[Matt]

Calling it a mini-series was a way of hedging the network's bets. Due heavily to the cast, this was the most expensive series that USA has ever produced. They were expecting Burn Notice or Royal Pains numbers (about 5 million per episode). Instead they averaged 2 million per episode (and the average is skewed due to the premiere and the finale doing premiere/finale numbers....if you take those two out of the equation, the four other episodes averaged less than 2 million viewers per week...about 1.85). These numbers just didn't justify a full pick up, not with a cast as expensive as the cast of Political Animals.

USA always knew this was a risk, but I STRONGLY doubt that they always intended for it to be a mini-series. Greg Berlanti wouldn't have ended on a cliffhanger if he weren't expecting a full series pickup. The mini-series label was just a way for USA to avoid having egg on their face if it underperformed (which it did).

I'm kinda disappointed that this show won't return. It was so bad. But also so good. It really was Dallas/Dynasty with politics.

 

[Sawyer]

I blame the USA viewers. They probably looked at it, saw that it wasn't going to be a procedural with smarmy humor and said "Not interested".

 

[Hunter Rider]

Or they just didn't like it because it was very uneven and full of dislikable characters bar Saint Sigourney.......

 

[Sawyer]

Well, USA viewers should be used to that sort of thing.

 

[Hunter Rider]

 

[Matt]

Or they just didn't like it because it was very uneven and full of dislikable characters bar Saint Sigourney.......

Agreed. The show literally played out like a shameless love letter to Hillary Clinton from Greg Berlanti. It often came at the expense of the show's narrative and other characters. Every other character existed to victimize poor Hillary (I still don't remember her name on the show but it is moot as she was for all intents and purposes Hillary Clinton ). Don't even get me started on some of the dialogue....the entire first wife speech, ugh. It seriously felt like Berlanti was trying to travel back to 1997 and play apologist for Hillary Clinton's decision to stay in her marriage (which was clearly a political one). The way that the submarine scene played out almost felt like Berlanti trying to give Hillary credit for the Bin Laden killing. The writing was just so bad. Bud was crazy entertaining but he was almost so over the top at times that when he was finally reigned in for narrative purposes it felt so abrupt/artificial.

Plus the show was terrified to take any risks. I mean, you had Bud using outdated words like "Dago," and "grease monkey," to describe an Italian president. Is there really that much bigotry towards Italians in the South? It really felt like the show wanted a black president to mirror Obama, but were too scared to touch racial issues that would come along with Bud, so instead they just made him a White guy and tried to create artificial drama through 1950s slang. That is just one example....It really wasn't a great show. But I'm going to miss it.

 

[charl_huntress]

I really liked the show and was sad to see it go. I figured it would...especially Hil will be running in 2016....lol