Alpha House

:

Season 1
Season #: 2, 1
User Score
6.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 35 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 35
  3. Negative: 7 out of 35
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User Reviews

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  1. Kingbingo
    Feb 27, 2014
    1
    Great TV series can be made about politics as long as both sides get equal treatment. The West Wing despite being very left wing for the most part usually showed the Republicans to be just as smart and capable as the Democrats. Likewise in Parks and Recreation both the statists and the libertarians are both massively over the top charactertures.

    But in Alpha House you get the    Great TV series can be made about politics as long as both sides get equal treatment. The West Wing despite being very left wing for the most part usually showed the Republicans to be just as smart and capable as the Democrats. Likewise in Parks and Recreation both the statists and the libertarians are both massively over the top charactertures.

    But in Alpha House you get the Republicans from Parks and Rec and the Democrats from The West Wing. The series wastes no time in its ham fisted demonization of republicans, who right from the start are introduced as racist, homophobic, stupid, lazy and grossly hypocritical. It does stop short of making them evil (although that is clearly Amazons opinion in commissioning the series) but it does have a Democrat explain that all Republicans are evil for the viewers in episode 2.

    It’s a shame, it is an interesting premise, that could have appealed to a broad base of viewers, if only it treated all politicians and both parties to the same treatment. Instead we are left with a comedy targeted only at very tribal lefties, for whom seeing Republicans be stupid is sufficient alone for a laugh. The problem is if you’re not really political either way like me your left with a comedy that just isn’t funny. It’s just a very very polarised and blunt hatchet job.    … Expand
  2. Rewrite
    Jan 16, 2014
    2
    I had high hopes for this show, hoping for a lighter 'House of Cards' driven by Gary Trudeau's talent. Those hopes quickly crashed.
    There were moments in this show that were good that were drowned in the larger cringe-worthy abyss. The scenes that featured Clark Johnson were often interesting and felt like they were realistic. John Goodman is capable of being very funny when he is well    I had high hopes for this show, hoping for a lighter 'House of Cards' driven by Gary Trudeau's talent. Those hopes quickly crashed.
    There were moments in this show that were good that were drowned in the larger cringe-worthy abyss. The scenes that featured Clark Johnson were often interesting and felt like they were realistic. John Goodman is capable of being very funny when he is well directed (Inside Llewyn Davis) but when he is not as in this show he's too over the top. The scenes involving Marc Consuelos and especially Matt Malloy were like actors trapped in a bad Saturday Night Live sketch.
    The writing for this show is awful. There is little subtlety and little wit of a good Doonesbury comic strip, just cheap laughs and retread pokes at cardboard politicians, something even Doonesbury lapses into at times. The politicians happen to all be Republican, and as ThinkProgress points out, "One of the dullest decisions in the original pilot of Alpha House was to make all members of the house Republicans, and to make them all risible." But the bigger mistake is not to make the characters actual people. That doesn't mean they have to be likable (again, see Llweyn Davis), just flesh them out some.
    If you're the kind of person who laughs at any joke that makes fun of Republicans or Conservatives is funny then this show might be for you, but if you're the kind of person who is empathetic to diverse viewpoints and appreciates intelligent comedy then don't waste your time.    … Expand
  3. Lienoone
    Jan 27, 2014
    1
    Just now I suffered through the first episode, and I really like political tv shows, drama and comedies, but this one is just in every sense boring and not funny at all !
  4. RokuGuru
    Mar 12, 2016
    3
    The big problem with this show is that it's not very funny. It's supposed to be a parody of right wing politics, but like left wing talk radio, the so-called jokes are boring. The episodes are short also, so there's not as much content as expected.

Awards & Rankings

75
#75 Best TV Season of 2013
94
#94 Most Discussed TV Season of 2013
43
#43 Most Shared TV Season of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
68

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Erik Adams
    Nov 27, 2013
    42
    Alpha House hits a few notes of inspired satire--like the bowl of American flag lapel pins the senators keep on the kitchen counter--but Trudeau’s been more biting and much funnier elsewhere, past TV efforts like Tanner ’88 and the malaise-infected Doonesbury Special included.
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  2. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Matt Zoller Seitz
    Nov 22, 2013
    70
    Political comedies tend to work best when they're absurdist (like Duck Soup, or HBO's Veep) or much, much subtler (the gold standard being Tanner '88, a collaboration between Trudeau and Robert Altman). Alpha House falls somewhere in the middle and gets stranded there, though the company is so likable that it's a limbo you may not mind being stranded in.
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  3. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
    Reviewed by: Rob Owen
    Nov 20, 2013
    60
    Another of those amusing but not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny sitcoms that are so popular on premium cable channels.
    Read full review
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