Hello everyone. Welcome to my review of the second UK House of Cards miniseries.
So, let me be upfront about my opinion of To Play the King: it's just not nearly as good or as fun as the original House of Cards series.
The show takes place a few years after the events of House of Cards, with Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) as prime minister of the UK. Urquhart's relatively easy reign is interrupted by a new, liberal king (Michael Kitchen). Francis at first misjudges the king as a dimwitted fool, before the king's speeches about poverty strike a chord with the voters. He also takes on a brilliant new political adviser, Sarah Harding (Kitty Aldridge). Her hiring causes resentment with Francis' previous close adviser, the chief whip Tim Stamper (Colin Jeavons).
There are also leftover scars from the events in the previous series. Francis is haunted by his memories of Mattie, especially the moment when he pushed her off a building to her death. We also see a mysterious figure has come into possession of Mattie's tape, which documents the fact that Francis murdered her.
So, why isn't it as fun? I think it partly has to do with the fact that Francis is already in power. In the previous season, there's a sense that we're continually pressing forward each episode toward Francis becoming prime minister. Here, he's only fighting to stay in power. In the previous series, he's fighting to move up. In this series he's fighting to stay in the same place. That's just not as interesting.
Another part of what made the previous series fun was the fact that we got to watch Francis methodically put together his schemes. Here, he just argues with the king for most of the time until the final episode. There's a plan to release scandalous information about the royals that is set up in episode 1, but that's it. There's nothing else Francis does. It's really pretty boring.
You might accuse me of just wanting this sequel series to steal stuff off the original. Maybe you'd have a point if this series already didn't do that with the affair story line between Urquhart and Sarah. I've already seen the exact same story line in the previous series. I should point out that element was the weakest part of the original.
There are still plenty of good things going on here. Ian Richardson is still excellent as Francis Urquhart, but the series is so focused on a million other story lines that he doesn't show up a whole lot.
In the end, To Play the King is a much more dull experience than House of Cards. It's really too bad because I love Richardson as Urquhart. Too bad he was handed sub par material.
Here's to hoping our final miniseries, The Final Cut, is much better.
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