image courtesy Wikicommons
On the heels of the success of House of Cards on HBO, the cable news channels (and the networks) have launched their own drama series – MOTHERLAND.
Like House of Cards and Homeland, it is a political thriller.
The first seasons, which I have just screened, could become another Breaking Bad, even it the plot line is a bit over the top and requires a serious suspension of disbelief.
The series opens at the inauguration of a TV Reality Star as the President of the United States. (Already I find this almost impossible to buy into, but let’s go with it).
No one in the country can believe that this TV star, (who has the attention span of a gnat and a self-absorbed ego the size of Texas), has been elected, but strangely, defying all odds, he has.
Cut to Moscow, where the President for Life of Russia, (having suspended all civil rights and seized control of all media outlets), is now pursuing his personal vendetta against the West for having destroyed his true country – The Soviet Union. The Russian President, it turns out, is actually an old KGB operative and he sees his life mission as the restoration of the Soviet Union. He is also a black belt in Judo, and even though the new Russia is about as broke as Italy, he is going to use the size and power of his nemesis, The USA, against itself – very Judo. (Judo is a recurring theme here).
The Russians (Soviets), it turns out, having been almost bankrupted by the last arms race, have plowed all their money into Weaponized Online, and they use their vast skills to hack into the American Election to make sure that their man (the Reality TV Star) gets elected – against all odds.
Now, not only have they hacked the Democratic Party servers, but also the Republican, and they have enough dirt on the Reality Star to humiliate him publicly forever. They know their marks – they are the KGB after all! And so, the Reality Star has no choice but to do their bidding. And where does their bidding start?
Well, the first thing the Soviet Leader wants is to restore the economy of the New Soviet Union, and this means oil. So the Russian President demands that the American President install the Chairman and CEO of EXXON as the Secretary of State! (I also found this almost impossible to believe, but it’s TV after all). And he does it!!
Amazing.
Next, the Russian President demands that the American nitwit President gut the entire Intelligence Service of the USA – the CIA, The FBI, all of them. (Again, I thought this was utterly ridiculous, but in Episode 2, that is just what he does!)
In Episode 3, the Russian KGB guy demands that the dopey President of the US, (who is still the Executive Producer of his old reality TV show – again, ridiculous. Who writes these things? Anyway, the Russian KGB guy demands that the puppet President of the US pull the US out of NATO! And guess what, he does that too!!! (Boy, this Russian President has the idiot American by the short hairs!!!)
Anyway, in Episode 3, the Russian KGB President announces that Russian citizens are being mistreated Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and that the Russians have the right to protect their citizens, so he invades those three countries, and of course, the US and the now gutted NATO can’t do a thing. Then, the dope President of the US tweets that it is OK, because the Russian guy is right.
That’s as far as I got.
There’s this sub plot where a journalist from the NY Times is about to break the story about how the Dope in the White House is actually a Soviet agent, but the President of the US declares martial law and closes down the NY Times and the Washington Post, and declares that the only believable source of news is Breitbart… and the Hollywood Reporter.
I think this is going to be a big hit, if you can get past the ridiculous plot!~
