Veep: Season 6

Bit of an aimless soft reboot in Season 6 for Veep (wow, Season 6 already?) but what else can you do after the way Season 5 ended aside from break up the team and send them all away to their respective next chapters? And then, of course, what else can you do but ultimately bring them all back together by season's end?

I'll say this - Veep was funny but fairly forgettable for me in its first two seasons, then started getting really good in the third, then hit some fantastic highs in the fourth and fifth, and then got, maybe, if anything, kind of too broad and cruel and mean in its sixth. Like, this used to be a razor sharp satire about the political process and how Washington is full of miserable people stuck in go-nowhere careers as aides and staffers and low-level congressmen, and how they're all just sprinting in place to stay ahead of the latest scandal, break the newest spin, biff on the newest memes, and so on. And it's no longer that show, really. Not at all.

But, to be fair, what could possibly be a bigger satire of the American political machine than the American political machine itself in 2016 and 2017. I mean, you've seen this, right? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqPbVwtw7qQ)

Based on the set ups in the Season 6 finale, I think when Veep comes back for Season 7 it'll only be even broader and dumber, with Selena vs. Jonah as a thinly veiled Hillary vs. Trump send-up. But then... what else can you do, if you're Veep, these days, with all this going on? When Veep debuted, our political system was ripe for a smart, sharp parody, but it's all just so hopelessly stupid and broken now. Like, how would Jonathan Swift have followed up A Modest Proposal if England went ahead and made eating Irish babies legal? Where does he go from there? What can Veep do now, but be as broad and mean and funny as possible?

I still liked this season a lot - but where it used to throw some beautiful, nasty breaking balls, it's just getting by on high heat down the middle now - which is the opposite of how actual baseball pitchers age, but, you know.