Political Animals is a USA Networks original series about a woman who is the U. S. Secretary of State after having been the First Lady for 2 terms, then the Governor of Illinois. She thereafter ran for President of the United States. This story picks up at the point where she has been defeated for the Presidency, divorces her very popular, ex-President husband and is now considering running for President again. Yes, sounds slightly familiar…

Story: Despite the parallels to another former First Lady, I love this story. The writing is so clever and so real. And the political and diplomatic situations are detailed, but not so intellectual that us average people can’t understand.

The relationships between the characters really draws you in. All of the characters are likable – even the villains. The writers have found a way to develop EVERY character enough so as to get the audience connected. It’s the blend of real people’s lives that creates these fictional characters… Brilliant…

Characters: Sigourney Weaver plays the Secretary of State/potential Presidential candidate and Ciaran Hinds plays her ex-husband/former President. They’re exactly what you would expect the Hollywood versions of the Clinton’s to be… Spot on…

And you can’t have a first family without a first delinquent. There’s the perfect brother and the gay druggie brother. And a spitfire-booze hound grandmother as well. Everyone and everything is represented.

The supporting characters are well developed too. Carla Gugino as the judgmental journalist that follows the Secretary of State grows into an important role. The antics that take place in the newsroom are also pretty accurate… I should know…

Throw in a few scandalous cameos and we have an inside-the-beltway television drama… And a good one…

Visual: I’m always extra critical of productions based in WDC because of how much time I spent covering WDC. I’m giving the nod to the production team; It looks like WDC down to the parks and the park benches. The streets look right… the buildings look right… the wardrobe is right. They even get the references to WDC details right. Excellent job…

Rating: Political Animals gets and A from me. But for the ending, it would have gotten an A+, but, I don’t like the way season one ends. And sadly, it was only given a single season and is now out of production. We’ll never find out what happens next… Unless Hillary Clinton runs for President… 🙂
Political shows are now trending, so, there’s a lot of competition. But, I’ve watched many of them – have even done a review of VEEP as well. While I like VEEP, I would opt for more Political Animals than VEEP, drama and comedy aside.

Hopefully, someone at USA Network will think twice about getting it back in production. But, whoever said television was about quality? 🙂

See Political Animals on DVD or streaming, but, see it. I’m now moving on to the next version of Washington politics for television. Wish me luck…