Alastair McKay All the President’s Men meets House of Cards as Trump becomes news
Reporting Trump’s First Year: the Fourth Estate
Sunday, BBC2, 9pm
— has numerous tugs at the elasticity of the actualité before being handed his own petard and receiving the order to hoist it. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” Spicer says to the White House press pack. “I can sense the love in the room.” James Comey, meanwhile, does a diplomatic dance as the abnormality of the new normal begins to dawn.
The heroes here are the journalists (another retro sentiment) and there are some lovely turns of phrase. Dean Baquet, the charismatic NYT executive editor, talks of a “nut-grab”; a technical term which sounds more painful than it should, while someone else mentions “crazy-pants bullshit” — an appropriate summary of where we’ve been, and where we’re going. It falls to Haberman to make sense of Hurricane Donald on day 12 of the presidency. “Everything is through the lens of himself,” she says, with the fatalistic weariness of a woman who has been staring into a smashed kaleidoscope for 20 years.
In The Bridge, the story is starting to congeal; a relief after six weeks of subtitled red herrings. Next week’s episode is the end, and the sainted Saga Noren looks as if she will a) accept the advice of her therapist and allow herself to be more selfish or b) remain dutiful and die. This being The Bridge, the happy option is given only fleeting consideration, while Saga examines the scorecard of the current serial killer: “Poison. Gas. Hanging. Decapitation, Firing Squad.” It’s surely the right time to retire Saga. Those undiagnosed quirks — absolute dedication to logic, the startled deer approach to emotions — have become cartoon-like.
But you wouldn’t wish her ill. “It often turns out wrong, even when I do the right thing,” Saga says, still weighing the question of whether dying is more important than doing a good job.