Stometer
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
UnowPriceless
hyped garbage
FuzzyTagz
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
BelSports
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
castricv
LEt me say first that I am a big fan of both the leads. Tenant will always be Doctor Who for me after Tom Baker and Watson is fantastic. Only problem? We've seen this backroom politic drama before and almost always done better. Whether it is the deliciously evil House of Cards (UK) or in drama form in the Good Wife n the US, so I really wanted a new spin or feel.Didn't get that. Tenant's motivation are sound, but in no real way would it have happened like this. He either makes a push knowing there will be huge backing or at least have a fail safe. IN this case there were none and he is left to try a back handed way at prominence again through his wife. OK fine. It's well acted, but mostly soulless. The autistic son could have been compelling, but is mostly left for easy emotional pulls later (more on this).There are non-affairs, political maneuvering that is beneath the intelligence of the film, and too literal analogies between their sex life and their current political status. It seems made for those who get their news from The Sun and can't sit through House of Cards.My biggest problem is that even with the plodding through 4 hours they ACTUALLY HAD the right ending!! If only they had stopped it after his autistic son gives him the toy at the diner table. It was a complete illustration of how ambition and lies can destroy your soul and your family. He lost everything for nothing and couldn't see all the good around him until it was too late. I almost felt the show vindicated itself with that ending.....But no. They have to add this strange pc ending where they both are magically in power and she is prime minister and he is on HER cabinet. For shame. The point was not to have her make it to the top and him drag along. It was to show them as both miserable people who have self imposed this upon themselves and we are all worse off for these people in power. What a missed opportunity. Or perhaps England has gotten so nihilistic that it cannot see higher truth anymore?? Ahwell. 5/10
Michael Last
The Politician's Husband featured a fantastic performance by David Tennant as the manipulative politician and husband. I thought Emily Watson's performance was decent, but her character seemed a bit one-dimensional. This could have been due to how the character was written. Either way, the story was engaging from start to finish. The side plot involving their home life and special needs child was engaging, and I believe would have been the perfect instrument to properly end the mini series.*Spoilers Below This Line* After the death of Aiden's father, Freya makes plans to take the kids away so that her husband can collect his things and move out of the house. As he sits at the kitchen table, distraught from all of his recent losses, his son (diagnosed with Aspergers) slowly approaches and hands him a toy, before leaving the room. I think this would have been the best way to end the series, as it finished the parallel between Aiden and his son Noah. Earlier in the episode, Aiden's father had remarked how Aiden was given a son who was incapable of deception, and that he (Aiden's father) was given one to whom it was second nature.To have the series end with Noah trying to show compassion or empathy for his father (which is exceedingly difficult for a child with Aspergers), it would have highlighted Aiden's own selfishness and tied a neat little bow around this drama.Instead, the next few minutes revealed a startling "twist", where Aiden and Freya have been named Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister - the final reveal being that Freya is actually the one elected as PM. While it's a fun thought, it was a little too unrealistic for me. It didn't seem to match the rest of the story.Regardless, this is still one of my favorite political dramas so far.
Al Rodbell
I love political drama. The West Wing was absorbing, and Borgen, the brutally realistic depiction of the first woman P.M of Denmark, including the breakup of their marriage and rather genuine depiction of lust was brilliant.This series that we watched in one sitting on Netflix, did have some structure of political reality, yet there was a single scene, one of sexuality as assaultive hatred, of the husband brutalizing his wife, that certainly was "realistic." Yet, there was no warning, nor was there any realism that was consistent with their status and relationship.It was just thrown in to attract a certain audience who considers this as being edgy I write this review to warn others that this is not an "adult" themed film, but excess in the form of realism. I'm no prude, but this scene was sickening and destroyed the film for myself and my wife.
bjarias
It's mentioned somewhere that if you can 'dream it up', well then, it could possibly happen... that might be true except in this instance. For most of the three episodes things moved along fairly believably... except that it was somewhat difficult seeing the to leads together for a majority of the time. Don't know what it really was, but they just did not at all gel together. Anyway, we then arrive at the final few minutes, and all credibility is chucked completely out the window, with an ending so ludicrous it defies all logic. Hope this is not a growing trend, for this is now the second production viewed in succession that completely challenges in similar manner the intelligence of its' audience. Could easily have 'dreamed up' a couple different scenarios that would have better matched the preceding material.