Crooks, Rooks, Shnooks and Last Looks: Best Political TV Series of 2022
By J. Max Robins, December 27, 2022
It was famed 20th century journalist, humorist and chili expert H. Allen Smith who reportedly said, “The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for [best-of] lists.” Who are we to argue with a writer who tied for the top prize in history’s first-ever Great Chili Cookoff, in 1967? (Look it up.)
In that spirit of taking things seriously but with either one or both eyebrows raised, I present my hot take on the six TV series of 2022 that most pointedly capture the loud zone where media meets politics. Extra bonus: If you’re a political junkie and want to be thoroughly entertained, everything singled out here is guaranteed binge-worthy entertainment!
Best Reality Series: The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol
Talk about riveting TV that makes history! The 11-part series that began last June and had its dramatic finale episode on Dec. 19th with the recommendation that the Justice Department indict Donald J. Trump on multiple conspiracy charges, displaced the 1973 Watergate hearings as the most compelling Congressional mini-series of all time.
Helmed by ex-ABC News president James Goldston, the hearings no doubt played a crucial role in the defeat of so many Trumpist election deniers in the midterm elections. Throughout the televised hearings, Goldston spun a narrative with the masterful skill he employed in his 2003 Michael Jackson documentary, which ended the reign of the then King of Pop. Narrated by a cavalcade of White House intimates, including daughter Ivanka and ex-Attorney General William “It’s bullshit” Barr and ex-teen model and advisor Hope Hicks, the hearings wove an epic tale of Trump’s maniacal efforts to overturn an election he knew he’d lost, a fact that made him SAD.
In the finale, Hicks revealed how Trump blew off her pleadings to prevent a murderous assault on the Capitol with the chilling response: “The only thing that matters is winning.” Words that Trump lives by, even when he’s lost and it means bloodshed…
Best Purple State Series: Yellowstone
An insanely popular modern horse opera, Yellowstone stars Kevin Costner as John Dutton, the family patriarch who goes to Tony Soprano lengths to save his beloved Montana cattle ranch from greed-driven real estate developers, investment bankers and mega-rich California weekend ranchers. Pegged a Red State series by a passel of progressive pundits and Twitterati who love lots of clicks and easy targets, this Paramount+ series’ current season, its fifth, is about political power and how it can be wielded to keep it.
It opens with Dutton as Montana’s newly elected governor, declaring he is the “enemy of progress.” Becoming governor is the best way to thwart the building of an airport that threatens his beloved Yellowstone cattle ranch, which is in perpetual debt. Indeed, Dutton spends more time herding and branding cattle than he does in the Montana State House. In fact, he’d rather leave the down-and-dirty work of politics to his deliciously profane, two-fisted-drinking daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly.) As my pal TV Guide chief critic Matt Roush rightly observes, John Dutton is more of an “anti-Trump” guy who would view the twice-impeached ex-President as “the kind of entitled East Coast rich guy threatening his way of life.”
Best Real-Life-Succession Docuseries: The Murdochs: Empire of Influence
This is essential viewing for anyone interested in the astonishing power of partisan media, where facts are relative and making millions and wielding influence is everything. When I first wrote about Empire of Influence, I noted that through in-depth reporting and finely honed storytelling it “builds a potent case for how Rupert Murdoch’s insatiable lust for power and profit has turbocharged white nationalism and the decline of democracy.”
Featuring internecine family warfare straight out of Succession’s fictional patriarch Logan Roy’s demonic “F-off” playbook, the seven-part CNN docuseries is as filled with salacious scandals as any primetime soap opera. Watching Rupert Murdoch build an omnipresent empire, turbocharged by sex, lies and video is one riveting media nightmare.
In the wake of the just-published congressional J6 report and the Machiavellian Murdoch media machine backing away from the wounded Mar-A-Lago commander-in-chief, Empire of Influence is more vital than ever. Lest we forget, Fox News was a primetime destination for insidious Trumpian election denial.
Best Watergate Miniseries Ever: Gaslit
One ‘wow’ of a recreation of the 1970s Watergate scandal, Starz’s Gaslit helps the younger among us remember that “D.C. political crazy meets a ratings-hungry media” didn’t start with Donald Trump. The series puts a late Mad Men-era magnifying glass on Richard Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell (Sean Penn) and his infamous mega-media-mouthed spouse Martha (Julia Roberts), who did her booze- and pill-popping part to bring down Tricky Dicky’s administration. Gaslit is a revelation throughout its 8-episode run, even for those who remember. We watch Martha, played with screen-chomping vigor by Roberts, seduce TV talk show hosts and feed the spotlight hunger of ambitious journalists in those pre-social media days. We also see how power-brokers, such as John Mitchell (in a bravura performance by Penn), knew which levers of media power were the ones to pull to enact an evil agenda. A whole cast of Watergate players, including John Dean and G. Gordon Liddy, are fleshed out to make this soapy fun. No wonder HBO has its own Watergate break-in miniseries, dubbed The Plumbers, featuring Woody Harrelson on deck for 2023.
Best Inside Dope on The Never-Trump Right: The Lincoln Project
This is one savvy dissection, offering up the good, bad and ugly of political advertising as media warfare. The Lincoln Project is a master class in each brushstroke of those dark arts. The 5-part docuseries goes inside the organization, which is helmed by a murderer’s row of never-Trump Republicans Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, Mike Madrid and George Conway—Kellyanne’s saner half. That trio saw Donald Trump as a treasonous grifter undermining democracy and realized they had the means to trip up his 2020 White House rerun and get rich along the way.
As I wrote last October, “their collective goal was to turn the same kind of negative, often nasty, humor-laced messaging used by Fox News commentators and Trumpian political operatives to punch below the belt. Desperate times called for mean marketing moves.” The Lincoln Project is a compelling media and politics morality tale about the perils of stealing your enemy’s playbook to a point where you demagnetize your own moral compass. “There’s a lot of money in anger and outrage and we’ve monetized it,” says Lincoln Project co-founder Madrid. “Does it wear on your soul?” he finally asks. “F—k yeah, it wears on your soul.”
Best Bird’s Eye View of How Politics Infects Our Soul: The Good Fight
Throughout its six-season run, The Good Fight has been a well-wrought, sometimes surreal look at being a true-believer progressive in a Trumpian America. The protagonist, Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski), who on occasion communes with her hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg from the beyond is the sole white partner in high-powered Black Chicago law firm Reddick Boseman. In the final season, the streets of the Windy City have become a battlefield, with violent white militia groups attempting to start a race war, including a sniper attack on the firm. Included in the trippy year is a shadowy, too-good-to-be-true Black paramilitary group prepped to save the day. Part of the surreal mix is an Elon Musk-like gazillionaire who controls a fictional version of Google, and goes about buying the Democratic Party and running Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for President in 2024.
From its inception, The Good Fight has been an insightful micro-dosed view of a world of fake news and alternative facts and the lengths we go in our minds to keep from going mad. The series began with Trump’s election and fittingly concludes with his announcing his 2024 run, while the battered and beleaguered Lockhart and fellow partner Liz Reddick (Audra McDonald) recommit to the good fight, resigned to the idea that what was once considered crazy has become the permanent normal. Watching – or rewatching – this great series is a fine reminder that when it comes to history, the important things will definitely be on the finale.
Finally
If these six watchables teach us anything, it’s that the “new” normal has indeed become permanent. Best to stop wringing our hands and focus on how much lower the bar can go.
J. Max Robins (@jmaxrobins) is executive director of the Center for Communication. The former editor-in-chief of Broadcasting & Cable, he has contributed to publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Columbia Journalism Review and Forbes.
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Who other than Rupert Murdoch should be the immoral center of the year’s best real-life “Succession” docuseries? “The Murdochs: Empire of Influence” aired on CNN. (Image: Wikimedia)
