Review by Andrew Bloom

Veep: Season 1

1x02 Frozen Yoghurt

6.2/10. Another one that was pretty light on laughs. There were some high points, mostly involving the gastric bug and Gary freaking out trying to defend Selina by jumping into the line of fire of a sneeze, only to contract the bug himself. And the few moments when Selina thinks she's going to be President, and tries to contain her glee while remaining appropriately solemn is some good solid character stuff.

But overall, this didn't really do it for me. Maybe it's just the premium cable setting, but in many ways the show feels like Party Down set adjacent to the Oval Office, and without Rob Thomas's clever writing to back it up. There's some amusing slow burn jokes here and there, but the character dynamics aren't as well-formed or amusing as the show seems to think, and the plots are ambitious without having that clockwork Arrested Development quality to tie it all together.

For instance, the attempted leak and rivalry between Dan and Mike didn't really work for me, and the whole filibuster vs. clean energy taskforce issue was stale out of the gate. I still intend to stick this thing out for a while, but the show comes off pretty half-cocked and thin in the humor department thus far.

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