A frightening, roller-coaster glimpse of an alternative reality … and then I fell asleep.
When Aaron Sorkin’s political, comedy, horror drama first appeared (simultaneously on all networks and all channels) in 2016, older viewers were expecting a reprise of his successful political drama, The West Wing. The Pilot’s weekly episodes cleverly matched real events with the absurd to produce a breathtaking roller-coaster ride through the Republican and Democratic Presidential primaries. Season one of Days of Our Lies closed with the nail-biting conclusion of the 2016 election and earned it an Electoral College’s Choice Award and runner up in People’s Choice Award. “Many people” believe the People’s Choice winner should also have been the Electoral College’s winner, but that debate is for another time.
Sorkin demonstrated the breadth of his creative genius by brazenly and seamlessly juxtaposing actors with puppetry with stop motion animation. He doesn’t ask you to take him seriously — he knows you will. It’s the Sorkin Effect.
I don’t want to get away from the review, but we have to give a nod to the use of Waldorf from the Muppets as the irascible but ultimately ridiculous, aging, socialist, Senator “Bernie Sanders“. Emma Thompson is extraordinarily good as “Hillary Rodham Clinton“. Some were disappointed by the obvious reboot of her earlier role as Susan Stanton, the wife of Democratic Presidential hopeful, Jack Stanton, in Primary Colors. The reality, however, was that Thompson took her two-dimensional Susan Stanton and gave the character flesh, blood and soul. The cardboard cut-out was transformed into a credible, thoughtful, effective Presidential candidate. Having Donald Trump play himself gives further insight into Sorkin’s dazzling imagination. Playing with that post-modern, facebook, WikiLeaks interface between reality and fiction, and instead of relying on another puppet, Sorkin finds a boor capable of playing a simultaneously narcissistic, ignorant, racist, misogynist, without pretense or guile (except for the lying, of course). Rounding out the ensemble cast, Sorkin persuaded the toy manufacturer Mattel to allow Donald Trump’s real daughter, Ivanka, to be played by a stop motion version of Barbie, while her husband, Jared is played by stop motion Ken. Don junior of course was played by splicing “never seen before footage” from Malcolm in the Middle showing Frankie Muniz rocking in a corner.
In Season One, no one expects Trump to triumph, and there in lies the absurdist appeal of Sorkin’s work, and the almost addictive love-hate relationship between the show and the viewer. Stand-up comics having been playing with audience abuse as a stylistic form for decades. Days of Our Lies is the first time it has ever been used for a television show. By the end of the season Trump has won and Hillary is waiting to be locked up.
Season Two — the first year in office — remained a fulfilling drama for many viewers, but the more discerning drifted away. They could see what was coming. Sorkin was no longer writing for the show and it had been cut adrift from reality. The Republican majority Senate and House toadied their way through blunder after blunder of the White House. The already exhausted writing team were re-using old footage to flesh out new episodes.
It was formulaic. Cut to Trump saying or doing something absurd, or criminal or criminally absurd. Cut to Waldorf saying how wrong it all is. Cut to stop motion Ken and Barbie looking beautiful and soothing the furrowed brow of Republicans — while doing something absurd, or criminal or criminally absurd. Cut to Frankie Muniz drooling in a corner. Cut to MSNBC or CNN asking “is this a smoking gun?” The Democrats beat their chests. The Republicans chant.
I am told by friends that the show was completely watchable and coherent if only you dropped a little acid first. Alas, I never did. But it was too late, I was hooked.
Season Three. I physically cannot do it any more. Donald Trump, the same boor from Season One is so patently “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” that the show has lost its dramatic tension.
Days of Our Lies was like a shooting star. It blazed across the sky and winked out. The small remains of it landed in a pig-sty somewhere in Iowa.