Television spinoffs are all the rage at the moment. The Netflix show Luke Cage came from Jessica Jones. Punisher is being spawned from Daredevil. Better Call Saul was sired by Breaking Bad.
So it makes sense that the 2016 presidential election would get in on the act, commissioning the one-off vice-presidential debate after the success of its parent series, The Presidential Debates.
Here are the takeaways.
We got closer to learning which vice-presidential candidate is which
Before Tuesday’s night’s debate 40% of Americans could not name either vice-presidential candidate, let alone tell them apart.
Thanks to the hour-and-a-half slog, we now have at least some sense of which one is Virginia senator Tim Kaine and which one is Indiana governor Mike Pence.
Tim Kaine is the yappy little puppy. He interrupted too much and was a little bit too keen. Pence is the overly relaxed one who had his face permanently set to condescension.
If you only saw photos from the debate: Kaine looks like a friar who has drunk too much mead. Pence looks like he has been embalmed.
Sometimes commercial breaks are a good thing
Did anyone really want to watch two men in their late 50s argue for 90 minutes straight?
This was one of the rare occasions where television viewing would have been improved by the show being broken up. It certainly would have been more humane.
Three commercial breaks during Tuesday’s debate would have been perfect. One to use the bathroom, one to fetch refreshments, and an extra one in case of emergencies.
Pre-cooked lines are terrible
Ronald Reagan had a good one once, but he was actually an actor. Tim Kaine is not an actor, and it showed in his delivery on Tuesday night. Although in Kaine’s defense, he wasn’t working with the best script.
“Do you want a ‘you’re hired’ president in Hillary Clinton or do you want a ‘you’re fired’ president in Donald Trump?” Kaine quipped early on.
Ignoring the tumbleweed, he dipped into his joke bag again when questioning Donald Trump’s ability to be commander-in-chief.
“Donald Trump can’t start a Twitter war with Miss Universe without shooting himself in the foot,” Kaine noted.
He continued: “[Trump has] got kind of a personal Mount Rushmore, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.”
In a comedy club this would be the point where you might hear an isolated cough from the audience, or perhaps the scrape of a chair.
Pence sensed this.
“Did you work on that one a long time?” the Indiana governor said. “Because that had a lot of really creative lines in it.”
He was being sarcastic.
Bring back Trump
The commission on presidential debates served up an earnest debate between two longtime politicians. But the problem is we have tasted Trump now. It tastes awful, obviously, but it has rendered everything else bland by comparison.
Kaine and Pence did not call each other names. They did not insult whole groups of people. Neither man referred to his phallus.
Consequently, neither came across as unequivocally odious.
We’re used to turning on a debate and sitting back while Trump shoots himself in the foot, as Kaine might say. Kaine and Pence didn’t so much as stub their toe.
Pence defended Trump and Trump’s views, but he did it pleasantly, like a smiling sales assistant telling you he won’t honour your return even though you have a receipt. Trump is the mechanic who chases you out of his garage with a wrench after destroying your car.
Trump returns on Sunday for the penultimate presidential debate. Enjoy it while it lasts.
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