The Presidency of Selina Meyer, the heroine of “Veep,” played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, hangs in the balance. The same can be said for the success of HBO’s acclaimed acerbic political satire comedy series.
“We won the vote!” Julia Louis-Dreyfus giddily exclaimed after “Veep” took home four Emmy Award last September. Then “Veep” was basking in glory, having ended “Modern Family”‘s six-year winning streak for Outstanding Comedy Series, not to mention Louis-Dreyfus winning her third consecutive Emmy Award for playing hapless Vice President Meyer.
#emmys YEAH!!!! pic.twitter.com/wTTic8nBKK
— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) September 21, 2015
What a difference seven months makes. Season 5 of “Veep” begins airing on HBO on Sunday following “Game of Thrones” and “Silicon Valley,” but on the evidence of the first four episodes of “Veep” that Heat Street has seen, the show ‘s political sharpness has been blunted with the emphasis now more on awkward anodyne sitcom.
The Emmy haul confirmed “Veep”‘s ascendancy as a cutting-edge political comedy series whose appeal extended beyond the beltway with the edgiest-one-liners on TV. Memorable “Veep-isms” to have entered the lexicon include “Jonah” to describe sub-optimal political advisers (referencing the show’s Jonah Ryan played by Timothy Simons) and the phrase “pencil-**cked,” which the show coined to describe censored speeches.
“Veep”‘s relevance to the zeitgeist was reinforced last month when Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull used the phrase “continuity and change,” a near-exact repeat of the “Continuity with Change” slogan that Selina Meyer deployed during her election campaign in Season 4.
Louis-Dreyfus has blazed the promotional trail for Season 5, hosting SNL and reinforcing her Democratic party leanings. But it’s time to wonder whether “Veep” is losing its status as must-see TV. The show’s creator Armando Iannucci, a London-based Scotsman, departed the show after the fourth season, to spend more time with his family.
Iannucci’s move coincided with HBO’s decision to re-locate the filming of “Veep” to Los Angeles from Maryland after receiving $6.5 million in tax credit incentives from the Californian Film Commission.
Tellingly none of the three “Veep” writers who won an Emmy for their writing on the “Election Night” episode are still involved with the show. Other “Veep” writers, including David Quantick, Ian Martin and Roger Drew, have also left.
Iannucci had a background in cutting-edge political comedy. Prior to “Veep” he co-wrote and directed “In the Loop,” which was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar and was also responsible for “The Thick of It,” the cult British political TV comedy series that aired on BBC America and starred Peter Capaldi who later became Doctor Who.
David Mandel, Iannucci’s successor as showrunner and executive producer, worked with Louis-Dreyfus on “Seinfeld” for three years and also produced “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” But the producer of the 2004 comedy “Eurotrip” is a newbie to political comedy.
In season 5 of “Veep” (Spoiler Alert) Meyer enters into a relationship with a wealthy banker played by Mad Men’s Jon Slattery, and there is a protracted vote recount happening in Nevada. One episode features a labored plotline of Meyer attending her mother’s funeral and her sadness actually relating to an electoral setback.
In a nod to the career of Alexandra Pelosi, the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi—who reputedly partly formed the inspiration for Veep’s protagonist—Meyer’s daughter Catherine is wandering around the White House with a video camera making a documentary.
Contrasting its previous hard-edged hilarity, “Veep”‘s idea of an acidic quip now is to have Meyer, in reference to the Middle East, quipping: “Life gives you Yemen, you’ve got to make Yemen-ade.”
Her insults have grown stale too (“I’m going to be President so I can go take a s**t in the Rose Garden if I want to!”…”You’re as welcome as a swastika-shaped shot in the synagogue.”)
A former scriptwriter on the show, who requested anonymity, said: “When David Mandel took charge, there was a shakeup and many existing UK writers left as he wanted to take “Veep” in a more personal and less political direction.
“The move to LA was great for many of the cast and crew, particularly Julia Louis-Dreyfus, because it meant they could spend more time with their own families, but the West Coast shift has also proved detrimental to the show.”
The source added there hasn’t been a complete purge from previous seasons—some writers such as Georgia Pritchett, Sean Gray and Will Smith and director Chris Addison have stayed with “Veep.” But understandably he [Mandel] wanted to bring in his new writers.”
The source added: “Armando is still a consultant on “Veep,” but he doesn’t have much to do with it anymore.”
Veep has also to cope with declining ratings. While the second season averaged 1.14 million viewers, season four averaged 950,000 viewers.
Don’t be surprised if ratings continue to decline. The tagline for Series 5 of”Veep” is “Maybe!” a reference to the uncertainty surrounding Meyer’s election victory.
On the evidence so far of season 5 of “Veep,” it’s more a case of “Maybe not!”
