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 Sounds familiar?
Satirizing Washington politics is getting harder for the
award-winning TV comedy but the new season, starting April 16,
has an uncanny knack for nailing current U.S. politics - and it
does not even have a Trump-like figure.
Executive producer David Mandel says writing on the sixth season
of "Veep" started in June 2016, well before Democrat Hillary
Clinton lost her bid in November to become the first woman in
the White House.
Any comparison to Clinton's stunning change in circumstances is
an "accidental coincidence," he says.
"The overall plan to have ("Veep" character) Selina Meyer lose
the tied election and have her become a former president who is
desperately trying to remake her reputation in the world all
goes back two years. It has nothing to do with Hillary losing,"
said Mandel.
Nevertheless said Mandel "it's getting sort of frightening" how
closely the series about a political system where idealism is
trumped by compromise tends to echo real Washington politics.
"Sometimes when we sit around to come up with a storyline, we
think 'What's the stupidest thing a president could do? What's
the worst thing a president's press secretary could say?' and
right now some of those things seem to be happening on a daily
basis," said Mandel.
Presidential memoirs, corruption in the former Soviet state of
Georgia, sperm donation, the U.S. debt ceiling, payments for
speeches and cheating spouses are just some of the topics this
season as the vainglorious Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) tries to
worm her way back into public life.
The arrival of Republican businessman Donald Trump in the actual
White House has not changed the underlying premise of the
series, which launched in 2012 before President Barack Obama won
his second term.
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"We're not changing the show and trying to figure out how to do
Trump. We're doing a show about power in Washington D.C., the people
that crave it and how frighteningly sometimes stupid and incompetent
they can be. Right now that is lining up very well," said Mandel.
When it came to losing power, "Veep" had plenty of advice. Writers
spoke with Republican Mitt Romney, who lost out in two presidential
elections, and to a former aide of President George H.W. Bush, who
was defeated in 1992 by Bill Clinton after one term.
Authenticity is key to the success of "Veep," which has won two best
comedy series Emmy awards and five Emmys for Louis- Dreyfus, whose
character started out as a vice-president who the president never
calls.
The show's characters never reveal their party affiliations, so
despite the barbed jokes, it has a thriving audience in Washington
D.C., said Mandel.
"Whenever we meet people from whichever party, they think 'Veep' is
about the other guys."
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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