Although I’ve watched (and enjoyed) In the Loop, the 2009 film by Armando Iannucci, I haven’t actually seen any episode of The Thick of It prior to this. It’s taken three years after watching this film to finally start playing catch up on Netflix UK.
It’s one of the funniest and outrageous political satires I have ever seen. It wipes the floor with Spitting Image and it’s ilk. It is truly a laugh-out-loud series that I can’t stop watching. Malcolm Tucker in particular must be the finest evil character created since Darth Vader. I can imagine that what we’re seeing in this show is as accurate a portrait of political life behind the scenes as you’re ever going to get.
Currently just about to head over to series three, followed by series four that I’ve kept on BBC iPlayer downloads. Can’t enough of this show. This is why I love the BBC.
Update: Started watching series 4 which is now a co-production with Hulu (31% owned by Fox, and hence Murdoch-related that I fear may lead to a certain amount of censorship in what can go into the episodes) and can’t say I like it as much as series 1-3.
For starters they’ve started adopting (probably due to Hulu’s participation) an American-style format in which you get a recap of previous events at the start of each episode and a “next on..” preview. Horrible. Stop treating your audience like this. It’s the decade of the PVR and VoD. Use that time to throw in more material. If I want to know what happened previously I can take to the VoD services and re-watch.
I’ve also noticed that the directing is a bit different too and it just doesn’t quite feel the same all in all. Iannucci seems to be a little out of the loop (ha) on this series than before..