If all of your coworkers looked particularly exhausted on Friday, they were probably binge-watching the new season of House of Cards. The Netflix political drama dropped it’s 13 episode third season at midnight on Friday morning, causing fans everywhere to insist on just one more episode before bed. Ok, maybe two more.
It took me three tries to get through the first two seasons. My first attempt, I didn’t make it past the pilot. My second attempt, I got to episode 4. Finally, I decided to buck-up and get through the 26 episode series that had so thoroughly captivated my friends.
My first reaction to the show was that it was a poor-man’s West Wing. Any time I would say that, I would get in trouble, because the shows are “so different.” Well, for the well-trained West Wing eye, you can tell that there are several instances throughout HoC that attempt to mimic, reference, or downright rip from the great Sorkin masterpiece. Long monologues in a church, a sequence with an egg standing on end, and a government stoppage are just a few instances where Frank Underwood attempts to stand next to Josiah Bartlett, and comes up looking small.
Now, I will admit: it has only been a long weekend, and I’m already halfway through the third season. I get it: the concept of watching a show marathon-style is incredibly engaging, and Netflix has itself a very interesting business model built around a weekend launch. The characters are interesting, the plot is definitely intricate, and any show like this is a boon for a political junkie. Yet the show, as a whole, demonstrates that just because there is huge hype does not mean that the show is particularly well done.
The third season comes with challenges that one would not expect of a show of House of Card’s caliber. The first episode focused far too much on a secondary character, rather than on Frank and Claire. The strength and determination that was so characteristic of Frank early on in the show seems to be replaced by a sense of his constantly feeling overwhelmed. His usual attitude of political savvy has been replaced by a man who is constantly reacting, rather than plotting. While I was never in love with the Frank of the first two seasons, I much prefer him to the Frank of the third, who appears to be a drastic departure from what so many cherished about the show to begin with.
I will, of course, admit that I have not finished the season. For those who have, you may be chuckling to yourself, knowing that I will soon eat my words. If, somewhere in all of this, there is a giant “GOTCHA” twist that I didn’t see coming, I will have to return to the blogging world to give my mea culpa for jumping the gun on writing a review. But, at this point, the show’s writers appear to have taken too long a hiatus.
This is one of the biggest risks of taking a full year between releases. Because of the nature of Netflix’s full-season drop model, there is a lot of time between when a binge viewer sees the characters from the end of one season to the start of the next. The challenge that comes with this is the continuity of character development and driving certain story lines. In that regard, the show has done it’s viewers a great disservice, as the characters have seemingly changed in the “six months” of TV time between the last episode of season 2 and the first of season 3.
House of Cards has always been in the business of creating drama, rather than telling a compelling story. In the coming episodes, there is plenty of drama left to unfold. Let’s hope the story can keep up. So far, it hasn’t.
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