Mini ETs eating the brains of politicians in Washington? That would
explain everything.
 |
| On a Capitol Hill bug hunt... Mary Elizabeth Wanstead as Laurel Healey. (Image copyright: CBS) |
Last year, before Donald Trump was making the jaws of politicians and political commentators across the world hit the floor in astonishment/disbelief/disgust/terror, a rather enjoyable political satire called BrainDead debuted on the CBS network in America.
At the time, some people thought the
premise was a bit far-fetched: Surreptitiously,
alien insects devour the grey matter of Democrats and Republicans, taking them
over in the process and making them more extreme. To start with, people around them
either don’t notice the change or try to laugh it off.
In the light
of recent events, that seems more like reportage than science fiction.
BrainDead was a sweet little thing, created by Robert and
Michelle King. The good-in-everything-she’s-been-in Mary Elizabeth Winstead played
Laurel Healey, a documentary maker hard up for cash who agrees to work for her
Senator brother, the randy Luke (suave Danny Pino – someone always has to play a
randy Senator.) So far so West Wing, but
the arrival of a meteorite infested by a minuscule extra-terrestrial life form pushes
things in an enjoyably offbeat direction.
Notorious
drunk and womanising Republican Senator “Red” Wheatus (the always watchable
Tony Shalhoub, probably best known for Monk)
is suddenly downing health drinks and becomes a Machiavellian political
operator, engineering a Republican majority in Congress. He’s more than matched
by the brittle, brilliant Democratic Senator Ella Martindale (stage veteran Jan Maxwell), who once she’s bug-ified refuses to compromise on
anything the Republicans are involved in.
From there, there’s lots of political
send-up and comment to be enjoyed, such as Wheatus encouraging the alarmingly
right-wing ‘One Way’ pressure group – who want to include information about
bomb making on their website – the Senate Intelligence Committee approving the
use of torture on ‘suspected’ terrorists and the reliably screwy Wheatus trying
to engineer a war with Syria through dubious witnesses in Senate hearings… Hmm.
See what I mean about the reportage?
There’s a
parallel The X Files-style plot
driven by the memorably batty conspiracy theorist Gustav Triplett (Johnny Ray
Gill, underplaying wonderfully), a scientific maverick who discovers the bugs
are intelligent, lethal and organised. Lots of heads explode – strong,
resistant personalities, emotion or alcohol can cause the combustion – and this
part of the story serves up some of the broadest comedy in the show. In one
sequence Laurel, already on the cusp of a charming Romeo and Juliet-style romance with Republican Chief of Staff
Gareth Ritter (Aaron Tveit, again underplaying wonderfully), is saved from infection
when Gustav actively engineers drunken sex between the pair in Laurel’s flat. Confused
but open-minded, Gareth eventually joins the bug resistance.
The nimble mix
of US political machinations and Invasion
of the Body Snatchers conspiracy thriller was very engaging, but had
probably run its course by the end of thirteen episodes: the invasion-by-possession
idea (which, to be fair, was a familiar one anyway) would only really work once
before it became repetitive, no matter what the setting (and there were plans
for three more seasons where the bugs variously took on Wall Street, Silicon
Valley and Hollywood). CBS did the decent, respectful creative thing and didn’t
renew.
Having said
that, I really admire what the Kings did with BrainDead (impressively, they were also responsible for the
award-winning The American Wife).
Alongside the serious political intent bound up with light repartee and
gross-out humour, there’s their anarchic approach to the ‘Previously on…’ recap
at the start of each episode. Over a montage of clips, the story exposition is
sung by Jonathan Coulton, accompanied by an acoustic guitar. As the series
progresses, his vocalising of events and strumming becomes noticeably more frantic (and
funnier).
Perhaps the
sharpest political point in the whole series is that when the bugs desert their
Capitol Hill hosts leaving them with half-a-brain, the politicians continue their
Washington careers as though nothing’s happened (covering the gaps in their
skulls with an orange toupee, perhaps?)
Maybe seven
months on is a bit late for me to flag BrainDead
up as one to watch, but judging by what’s been going on in Washington since
the Trump administration took over, you might be laughing even louder if you’re
new to it.
Then again,
it might make you even more terrified of where America’s heading.
