Political satire in ‘BrainDead’ could use more smarts
As for its message on partisanship, we get the point
Not deadly, but not exactly lively, either.
If you’re grading on a curve, give CBS’s BrainDead (Monday, 10 ET/PT,
out of four) points for at least being a warm-weather exception. It’s not a rerun, or a crime show or a humorless bit of sci-fi tedium. It’s not about drug-dealing families or missing kids or, heaven protect us, restauranteurs.
Instead, what you’re getting from The Good Wife’s Robert and Michelle King is something else: a political satire about space-alien insects eating D.C. politicos’ brains that CBS is billing as a “comic thriller.” Which would be great if it were actually comic. Or thrilling. Or if the political satire didn’t slam away at one point like a hammer hitting an anvil in the exact same spot, swing after
swing after swing.
What spot, exactly? You’ll find it in the essay-like title of Monday’s premiere episode: The Insanity Principle: How Extremism in Politics is Threatening Democ
racy in the 21st Century. Not that you’d be able to miss it. Every other scene, it seems, drills home the idea that our political system has been pushed to collapse by partisanship and winner-take-all gamesmanship.
With the just-departed and already much missed Good Wife, the Kings gave us one of the smartest and best series of the decade — which is what makes this labored series so disappointing. The idea and many of the pieces have promise, but as a whole, BrainDead just seems to have gotten away from them.
They did get at least one thing very right: turning the lead over to Mary Elizabeth Winstead. With a mix of charm and savvy, she plays Laurel, a young filmmaker who is pressed by her dealmaking father ( Good Wife’s Zach Grenier) into joining the staff of her brother Luke (Danny Pino), the Senate’s Democratic whip.
Luke makes a deal to stave off a government closure with Republican Sen. Wheatus (Tony Shalhoub, unrestrained) — but it collapses when space bugs eat Wheatus’ brain and turn him into a rabid, take-no-prisoners partisan. Which also is bad news for Laurel, because she was fall- ing for Wheatus’ chief of staff, Gareth (Aaron Tveit).
And there you have the tripod on which BrainDead teeters. One leg is the kind of political story
The Good Wife told with much more care and precision. One leg is the Invasion of the Body Snatch
ers- style thriller as Laurel begins to notice people behaving oddly (which includes their devotion to
You Might Think by The Cars). And the third is an underdeveloped romantic comedy as Laurel juggles her love-hate relationship with Gareth and an attraction to a hunky FBI agent.
There are amusing moments, some provided by Laurel’s exchanges with Gustav, an eccentric genius played by Johnny Ray Gill. And there is some plot-driven interest in seeing who the bugs eat next and what their ultimate goal might be. Whether that’s enough to pull you in depends on how desperate you are for something to watch, and how willing you are to stumble clumsily through the halls of Congress.
My advice? Let BrainDead stumble without you.