Veep plunders U.S. politics
A few short years ago, TV marathons and binge viewing would have been unthinkable. Now, they’re a longweekend tradition. From five backto-back episodes of Simon Barry’s homegrown sci-fi thriller Continuum on Showcase to daylong marathons of Yukon Gold on History TV, binge viewing is a familiar holiday ritual.
Veep, Armando Iannucci’s keenly observed, sharp-witted evisceration of U.S. politics, may seem like an odd choice for Canada Day, but it’s so sharp, so withering and, more important, so funny that it’s a natural fit. Whether you believe Canadian politics are dull, over-familiar, off-putting or just plain annoying, the antics in Veep are so outlandish, so over-thetop and so out-there that they make one proud to be Canadian.
The past season featured such lunacy as a calamitous foreign-policy trip to Finland that nearly ended in an international incident; a tense negotiation between warring political factions at a teenager’s birthday party; and a televised photo op in which a prominent U.S. politician lectured Israel on the Middle East peace process … at a North Carolina pig roast. Veep is just the latest evidence of a brilliant mind at work. (HBO Canada, from noon)
In tonight’s followup hour of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, the residents of Chester’s Mill realize their predicament when a house goes up in flames and firefighters can’t reach it. (Global — 8 p.m., CBS — 11 p.m.)
The new summer series Siberia is about a group of reality-show contestants dropped into what they think is a TV survival show set in Russia’s wilderness, only to discover it’s a real survival test. (NBC — 11 p.m.)
For those who are active and outside during the day, CBC will air its celebration concert in prime time, complete with fireworks and an Ed Robertson-Chris Hadfield duet. (CBC — 9 p.m.)