Graves

Republicans are bad. Democrats are good.

[ yawn ]

Is there anything more tired than that old narrative? And aren't shows like this a dime a dozen? Alpha House was actually funnier and it's canceled.

I'll watch some more and perhaps change my review after doing so, but I'm not holding my breath that this sad little show will perform any better than the 1st episode did.

When will Hollywood learn that predictable is boring as hell?

The only reason I didn't give it 1 star is because Sela Ward's acting is actually pretty good considering the disaster that is this show's writing.

Former Republican President Richard Graves (Nick Nolte) is adored by his supporters, and reviled by almost everyone else. He starts to have doubts about his legacy. His wife Margaret (Sela Ward) is looking to run for office. Isaiah Miller (Skylar Astin) is his true-believer new body man. His daughter Olivia (Heléne Yorke) has a broken marriage. His son Jeremy (Chris Lowell) is bitter after four years in the army. Sammy (Callie Hernandez) is the new waitress at his local diner who opens up his eyes to a new outlook.

Nick Nolte sorta works as this burnt-out former man of power. He has the demeanor. The varying cast around him mostly work as individual characters. It's the interconnections and the plot writing that often falls down. The waitress is an odd character to get sucked into his world. She needs to be tied to the family a lot more securely. At a certain point, there are too many recurring characters. It needs to work on the relationships between the main characters. I like all the actors and Nolte does his good standard gruffness. The plot does keep drifting which gives the show an unhelpful instability.

I only watched the first episode of this series, but I feel there's no reason to believe the show would get any better.

The basic premise is an ex-U.S. president regrets his actions in office and decides to rectify all the awful choices that make him a historically terrible president. (Graves seems to be mainly based on GW Bush, who certainly ranks as one of the worst presidents.)

First off, this is a very silly fantasy premise. Politicians are huge egotists, and they really feel qualified to make all these decisions. Certainly some presidents have looked back at some of their decisions with regret, but I suspect most of them would insist that at the time of those decisions it was a sensible option. I certainly don't think any president would do a 180 because pundits and historians were attacking him; after all, there would also be pundits and historians praising him - even Bush gets that.

But the first episode suggests the real problem with the series will be cowardice. Because the first thing Grave says he'll try and rectify is cutting funding for cancer research.

Is there any issue that is safer than saying, I'll do more for cancer research? As terrible as cancer is, it's very well funded and thus not struggling as much as a lot of other programs.

If this were a political satire, which it pretends to be, it would start off with something genuinely controversial. Voter-suppressive ID laws, immigration policies, abortion.

Perhaps the series is just warming up, but here's the thing; satire doesn't dip its toe in the water to check the temperature. It doesn't ease you in. Satire is cutting and savage and strikes out in all directions. Satire, in other words, is Veep. Graves is, well, not much of anything.

I wouldn't be as annoyed with the series cowardice if it just had the decency to be funny. But I didn't laugh once.

That being said, the acting is good, even if the characters are stock.

Anything with Sela Ward gets a 10, and then you work backwards.

Nick Nolte has become a caricature of himself and the days of "Affliction" are long, long gone.

Think of Bill Maher writing a series of acts of contrition for George W. Bush, spend no time editing them or inserting irony and wit, and you have "Graves".

The stereotypical characters, including the cameos of "real life" politicians, make you embarrassed to watch, and if you are looking for some nexus or meaningful connection to the current election campaign, do not hold your breathe.

Hard to figure out why it was not so much better. A group of professionals phoned it in.

I usually like political satire shows, and this in a way is a great satire with a nice touch. Nick Nolte, which I never though much as an action actor, surprised me with a great performance. I had to watch the first episode twice to really appreciate the humor and Mr. Noltes performance. The rest of the cast is doing, OK, but it's Mr. Noltes performance that really shine in this show, as he should do of course. (Just that it's not every time that the lead star manages to do that though.)

In short: Funny show, with political satire. Best performance of Nick Nolte so far in his career.