Being an old fart should mean I’ve never heard of Netflix. Wrong. I spent 4 out of the last 7 days gorging myself on series two of House of Cards.From the first episode I found myself screaming as Kevin Spacey’s acting skills plunged into new depths of evil

If you haven’t seen the series, it is a remake of the 1990s BBC series.

That was set in Westminster. The US series is set in Capitol Hill as Spacey’s character, Frank Underwood plots his way through various offices of state. He is aided and abetted by his equally evil wife played by Robin Wright. 

She also had scenes that made me scream out loud. Think Lady Macbeth and then some.

Episodic marathon

Devouring 13 episodes in such a short space of time got me thinking about how television has gone back to the future. Let me explain. When we think of Dickens, we think of massive paperbacks that we actually use as door stops.

The thing is Dickens wrote these as episodic pieces written in weekly magazines. People were on tender-hooks as they waited for the next instalment. That sounds a bit like me deciding to watch just one more episode before I head to bed.

The thing is the same literary texture that was seen in Dickens is now seen in great TV like House of Cards. So when you hear other old farts complaining about TV send them in my direction. I’ve been taking lessons from Frank on how to deal with miscreants.