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6 Reasons To Watch House Of Cards

After being speculated about for what felt like years, Netflix finally released its first original series House of Cards last week. It’s garnering tons of attention for a number of reasons. Perhaps the standout reason for its publicity is that it marks Netflix’s first foray into the realm of original programming, a big deal for a site that formerly dealt exclusively in streaming other movies and TV shows. In a way, it follows the same model as HBO, which began as a channel designed to play movies, as indicated by the name Home Box Office. It was later that it became the beacon of high quality original programming that other channels have only recently begun to emulate. Netflix now looks to follow a similar path, and many are looking to House of Cards as well as the return of Arrested Development as indicators of the level of quality television that Netflix will contribute to the current golden era of TV shows.

[h2]6: It’s a little like The Newsroom
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but so much better[/h2]

It’s not just the dialogue that reminds us of Aaron Sorkin but also some of the content. Many are comparing this show to HBO’s The Newsroom, probably because of the focus on DC newsrooms covering the exploits of Congressman Underwood and his colleagues in Washington. In my opinion though, which is supported by the majority of people who’ve watched it I think, is that House of Cards is way, way better than The Newsroom. I think they’re comparable in that they’re based somewhat on fantasy elements of how politics and journalism operate, but I would contend that House of Cards exaggerates truth and The Newsroom exaggerates falsehoods. The former takes fictitious events and dramatizes them to demonstrate a kind of immoral conniving pulse that drives politics, while the latter takes actual events and surmises that if only there was a great man to take a stand against the fools that determine the outcomes of such matters we’d be so much more virtuous as a society. There isn’t a trace of self-righteousness in House of Cards, from what I can detect, whereas The Newsroom thrives on it.

This exaggerated realism is understandably irritating to some viewers. Suspension of disbelief in farfetched plots and characters can only go so far. Having Kevin Spacey speaking to us is going to be intolerable to a lot of people who just find it aesthetically and narratively unpalatable. I have no qualms with that. I only wish that people will give it a chance to express some of the ideas and drama that it uses this exaggerated language to express. There may not be many, if any, politicians quite like Frank Underwood, but there is an element of Frank Underwood to all of politics. He’s more of a symbol than a character. I think if we watch the show this way, we get more out of it. It’s well worth the investment of binge-watching or reasonably paced watching people have been putting into it. It’ll be interesting to see how many other shows follow suit.

Have you watched House of Cards? What are your thoughts on the show? Share them in the comments section below.

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