Breakfast television in Britain has traditionally meant a faux-married couple on a sofa interviewing celebrities between the news headlines. However, the decision of Netflix to release new seasons of its subscription-only hit House of Cards at midnight Los Angeles time meant that the American political drama became available in the UK at 8am, offering as alternative muesli viewing the spectacle of Kevin Spacey subverting American democracy.
Launched Friday morning, the third series picks up Spacey’s Francis ‘Frank’ Underwood after six months in the White House. Having conspired to gain the vice-presidency in the first run and the presidency during the second, the politician seems set to spend his third TV term desperately plotting to hold on to the Oval office.
His approval ratings are even lower than his morals, and the satirist Stephen Colbert (playing himself) is ridiculing Underwood’s “America Works” plan to increase jobs but reduce welfare benefits. And the first lady, Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood, sleeping in a spare bedroom due to a “cold” that is suspiciously sniffle-free, has demanded from her husband a nomination as US ambassador to the United Nations.
The 1990s BBC series on which the show is based – adapted by Andrew Davies from Michael Dobbs’s novels – always had a Shakespearean vibe, complete with villainous asides to audience. The American version, scripted by Beau Willimon, continues to follow that model, with Wright and Spacey in this season suggesting what it might have been like if Lady Macbeth had married Richard III. A moment when Underwood, told that he has lost the support of his party, hunched over as if to prevent his furious feelings exploding from his chest, might have come directly from Spacey’s stage performance as the crookback king.
For many viewers, House of Cards has filled a gap that had existed since the West Wing finished in 2006, with Martin Sheen’s president Bartlet in retirement. The main overlap between the dramas is their interest in Washington procedure: “Mrs Walters of North Dakota, you have eight minutes,” a senate hearing line of dialogue from season three of the Spacey series, could have come from any of the seven years of the Sheen show.
The biggest difference is their attitude to politics. Screened mainly during the presidency of the anti-intellectual neo-conservative George W Bush, the West Wing presented a fictional commander-in-chief who was a liberal with a genius IQ. Going out in the administration of the inspirational but legislatively ineffective Barack Obama, House of Cards puts in the White House a Democrat who is repulsive but gets stuff done. Most intriguingly, given that the drama seems likely to continue through the 2016 US election, Wright’s character increasingly resembles the grossest Republican caricature of Hillary Clinton.
But, heavily in debt to both the West Wing and the British original House of Cards, the Netflix show has always been less innovative in its narrative than in its distribution. Although the week of release for the new series was chosen for American convenience, it intriguingly synchronises for British viewers with Wednesday’s conclusion of BBC2‘s Wolf Hall. Here, within two days, are the oldest- and newest-fashioned ways of watching a TV series: every Wednesday at 9pm for six weeks versus whenever it suits you from 8am on a Friday morning.
Only the retired, redundant, childless or unwell are likely to be able to watch all 13 episodes at once or in the huge blocks that this method of release allows. Others still need to work out a system for watching streamed TV. Seeing three episodes between breakfast and elevenses on Friday felt fine as a reviewer but would be curious way of viewing for entertainment. Much of the audience, I suspect, will group the episodes into movie-length blocks over a few evenings.
How people watch House of Cards – and how many – would be fascinating to know but remains as secret as the US nuclear codes, because Netflix is so cagey with viewing data. The start of the new season raised the suspicion that the lack of ratings pressure – or the need to lure viewers back in a week’s time – may have reduced the series’ attention to tension. The opening episode felt slower than Wolf Hall as it focused on the recovery from head injuries of an Underwood aide.
Released in a manner that suggests the audience cannot wait to see it, the third season of House of Cards may find that most viewers are content to delay their consumption.
