- Network: USA
- Series Premiere Date: Jul 15, 2012
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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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Fast-paced, darkly funny and scathingly sharp, Political Animals seamlessly blends family drama with real-world issues, including an early crisis in the Middle East.
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The show's tone [is] vulgar, jolly and winning. [16 Jul 2012, p.39]
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Political Animals' rich characters and complicated relationships seem like they'd need six seasons to develop.
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Political Animals can be slightly murky when it comes to invoking issues and ideologies. But when it comes to the microlevel of politics, the misdirection and machinations politicians employ to satisfy their own ambitions and thwart those of others, Political Animals is peerless.
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[Political Animals is] a high-class, relatively naturalistic, behind-closed-doors soap opera that plays in fairly obvious yet also fairly affecting ways with the space between public face and private pain and is made highly watchable by an excellent cast that finds the human among the hokum.
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Political Animals is a welcome escape from the current campaign grind, leaving us already hoping for a second term.
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The dialogue can be crisp, sharp and witty, particularly among colleagues in both the White House and at the Globe.
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Political Animals hews fairly closely to the USA tone and smartly employs any number of light-drama conventions, thus it can likely be enjoyed simply as an entertainment
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Political Animals verges right up to the edge of ludicrous with the right combination of salty-sweet and silly-smart.
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Fortunately, as the saga unfolds, it delves into fresher territory, and Political Animals becomes an intriguing, even occasionally humorous, family soap opera.
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With a cast this good, and with so many potentially juicy conflicts already in play, I'm going to take a more optimistic point of view than Elaine Barrish (Sigourney Weaver) might.
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It's more interesting when Elaine takes aim at the easy-target man's world she inhabits.
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There are just enough witty lines and interesting choices, such as in the editing of the bulimia scene, to create fleeting sensations that all is not dross.
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This half-comic, half-serious soap opera à clef could be awful, but instead it is surprisingly fun.
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A slapdash, invigorating, flawed-but-delectable mini-series with a premise of brass balls.
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What distinguishes the good ones are colorful performances, scandalous twists, and the age-old reminder that money and power can't buy love--all of which Political Animals has.
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Political Animals crams elements of conventional TV fare into a blender and makes something that is wildly different and kind of liberating.
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If you found the parallel universe in Lost perplexing, Political Animals's sheer optimism might leave you utterly baffled. Yet Weaver's grounding performance goes beyond maternal warmth and shrewdness, because Barrish doesn't just see the best in people; she demands it.
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It is nowhere near as sharp or as on-point as it needs to be.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 41 out of 50
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Mixed: 1 out of 50
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Negative: 8 out of 50
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Jul 30, 2012
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Jul 18, 2012
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Jul 17, 2012