IAN O’DOHERTY Kennedys – cursed or spoiled?
THE KENNEDYS AFTER CAMELOT RTÉ ONE, TONIGHT, 9.35PM
AH, the Kennedys – the world’s most famous family still provoke immense public interest despite the fact that none of them have done anything for decades.
I’ve always been rather fascinated by the fascination with the Kennedys, not because they are particularly wonderful, or blessed with superior genes, but because they’re as close to Royalty as the normally egalitarian Americans will ever get.
Then there’s the so called ‘curse’ of the Kennedys which, given the number of deaths, overdoses, rapes and suspected murders the clan has been involved in, seems understandable.
Or, on the other hand, rather then being cursed, they’re simply a bunch of people who were brought up to believe that they could do whatever the hell they wanted and they’re just a bunch of spoiled, entitled rich kids who have a habit of doing stupid things.
Katie Holmes has already played Jacqueline Kennedy in the 2011 TV mini series and she reprises that role in The Kennedys After
Camelot, a new two-part drama which focuses on the family’s travails from 1968 to 1994.
Holmes plays a grieving Jacqueline, still recovering from the assassination of her husband and, subsequently, her brotherin-law.
You could argue that the Kennedys prove the law of diminishing returns.
After all, none of the younger branch of the family have ever done anything that remotely approaches the achievements of JFK and his brother, Bobby. In fact, the old joke used to say that the wrong Kennedy – Ted – lived, while the smarter ones were murdered.
Matthew Perry plays Ted in this drama and it will be worth tuning in just to see how the former Friends star plays a man whose main contribution to the world was making Chappaquiddick a household name...
Nobody does political drama quite like the Yanks and I’m not talking about House of Cards.
There’s always a sense of history being made with Congressional hearings, and Jim Comey’s testimony yesterday was riveting.
But did you see what they said on Fox News yesterday? No, neither did I. That’s because anyone who switched to that channel would have been greeted with a sign saying that the feed wasn’t available because of ‘reporting restrictions due to the general election.’
So, Irish viewers were denied the opportunity to watch an American network’s coverage of a Congressional hearing because of an election in the UK.
Confused? You betcha, but what made it even more baffling was the fact that CNN was still available.