What a state: how Veep went from clever to crude
After Armando Iannucci’s exit, the Julia Louis-Dreyfus-starring comedy took a turn for the worse
In 2012, with Obama a shoo-in for a second term and the era of concentration camps on American soil safely behind us, the time was ripe for a sitcom about a vain, venal politician with an office in the West Wing. As Veep’s central character, Julia Louis-Dreyfus imbued vice-president Selina Meyer with a convincing mix of charm and barely concealed rage, and the show’s sharp dialogue and keen observations of Washington DC hypocrisy made it a must-watch.
It wrung much of its humour from the impotence of the VP position, as in the pilot episode, where Selina’s speech about clean energy is censored by the president so it that won’t alienate any of his benefactors, leaving her with just “Hello … ” and prepositions.