The Politician

Like the first season, there’s a high level of energy that verges often on a level of camp that is almost reminiscent of vintage Glee episodes; there’s a lot of speechifying on the part of characters. But while at times the second season is quite watchable — 90 percent of the time thanks to its cast — the show doesn’t really know what it wants to say about, well, anything.

Midler plays Hadassah Gold, loyal chief of staff to Senator Dede Standish, who is played by Judith Light. The pair don’t so much steal the show as turn it into their own personal heist movie. Unfortunately, they’re not on screen all the time, and we’re stuck with the rest of Murphy’s characters.

The gloss of "The Politician" may not compensate for its overall shallowness or the messy pointlessness of its plot, but it does remind us of celebrity's power to persuade us to make foolish decisions, including with our time. Except, that is, for these two hours [two episodes about voters].

The Politician’s second season is snappier than season one, avoiding the midseason doldrums that really plagued that first run of episodes. It turns out, though, that a show can be snappier while still being remarkably dull, and for The Politician, that’s largely because it has zero conviction in the full wackiness of its own premise.

There’s no understating the immediate way Light’s presence (along with Bette Midler as Hadassah Gold, Dede’s conniving chief of staff) lifts “The Politician” into a more crackling realm. ... Everything that first seemed smart, snarky and on-point about “The Politician” begins to wear thin; the jokes that it makes — as well as the contemporary real-life debacles it lampoons — are too easily made.

These episodes are so short and move so rapidly it’s clear they’ve been edited down to the bare minimum to constitute a story. They’re designed to keep you from thinking too hard about anything that happens.

The second season of Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan's Netflix comedy is a hollow and perplexingly stale glimpse into American politics. At seven episodes, several running under 40 minutes, The Politician is neither effective escapism in a moment of general cultural discomfort nor does it have anything vaguely insightful to say about our electoral process — a basically unforgivable sin for a show airing in an election year.