They push the rock-steady compositions and antiseptic palette established by executive producer David Fincher to expressive extremes. It helps that this American redux is also one of the best-looking shows on television, with a directorial staff including film-makers such as James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross) and Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa). How exciting to watch terrible people do terrible things! That worked in the original UK series created by Andrew Davies (totalling 12 episodes over three seasons), as it does in this much more story-packed remake (now at 39 episodes and counting) overseen by The Ides of March screenwriter Beau Willimon. It’s easy to believe politicians are always in it for themselves, and it certainly makes for habit-forming fiction. House of Cards’ cynical presumption is that almost everyone in Washington DC is a carnivore out for blood. It makes you wish fantasy were the series’ raison d’être as opposed to an occasional audience-goosing flourish. When a sneering Underwood spits on a statue of Christ a few episodes later – and the son of God actually quasi-retaliates – the abandonment of any and all pretense to realism is similarly liberating. That should tell both constant and prospective viewers everything they need to know about the level on which this highly uneven yet absurdly addictive show works best. Not that Netflix’s flagship progamme has ever been much concerned with humanity: no sooner has Underwood spouted his self-serving truism, in another of the character’s frequent fourth-wall-breaking asides, than he unzips his fly and urinates on his father’s grave. “You have to be a little human when you’re the president,” says commander-in-chief Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) in the opening scene of House of Cards’ third season.
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