Political Animals

Too much of Political Animals feels like good-enough-for-government-work drama, and I can't help believing it would have been more compelling, maybe genuinely subversive, if it had replaced some of the scenes that attack the show's main themes head-on with pick-axes, and substituted ones that showed the female characters simply doing their jobs, commanding more than reluctant respect from men.

Political Animals may be super-fun, but it is also superficial.

Political Animals, an inconsistent, sometimes ludicrous, but also juicily fun political soap, is about something that ultimately makes for better TV: the idea of Hillary Clinton.

No one associated with Political Animals needs to hide under the covers, exactly, but nothing here qualifies as a game-changer, either.

Sunday's 90-minute premiere makes for an unintended hoot, both ridiculous and often ridiculously watchable.

The actors are great, but the show isn't.

It's not a Comedy Central spoof, but it skews ridiculously close to one.

This is more soap opera than satire, an intermittently entertaining but not exactly subtle look at the private and public lives of one extremely colorful family.

What Animals is trying to do is take The West Wing and turn it into Dallas. And if you don't like Dallas, that can be a real letdown.

It would have been better served by focusing on the first word in its title, not the second.