House Of … Contemplation?

SPOILER ALERT … OR SOMETHING

|| By FITSNEWS || Ever since our founding editor spoiled the biggest Downton Abbey plot twist of all time via an errant tweet a few years back, we’ve been very careful to honor the concept of “spoiler alerts.”

So … consider yourself warned.  This article will address the much-anticipated third season of Netflix’s award-winning, critically acclaimed original drama House of Cards.  With some mild spoilage.

And yes … we know House of Cards‘ third season is so late February 2015 (and here we are in mid-March), but we’ve got an excuse: Rather than diving right into the new season when it was first released, we went back and started the entire series from the beginning … watching two or so episodes each night until we made our way to the new episodes.

And no … we haven’t finished the third season yet, we’re currently seven episodes (or a little more than halfway) into it.

Which leads us to our spoiler alert (for those of you who are inexplicably behind us in your House of Cards-ing, read no further) …

… ready …

… really …

…. because here it is ……

…….. W …. T …. F?

Seriously … what is going on with this show?   Is this some sort of joke?  And when is the real third season of House of Cards going to be released?

This website has effusively praised the drama in the past …

“House of Cards is simply one of the best things ever put on film … big or small,” we wrote in anticipation of this year’s installment.

The show is “an exquisitely crafted web of intrigue and guile that literally oozes honesty and raw emotion,” we wrote last year.  We specifically praised Academy Award winning actor Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of corrupt politician Frank Underwood as “the Michelangelo of Machiavellianism – a relentless, eternally adaptable schemer whose field of vision includes every conceivable chess move his opponents could make against him.”

We even once wrote that the show made The West Wing … Aaron Sorkin’s groundbreaking, issues-laden drama from a decade gone by … look “campy by comparison.”

We’ve also been intrigued by the show’s unique business model (even as we’ve opposed its ongoing taxpayer subsidization).

Now we’re almost to the point of opposing the show itself … for being terrible.

House of Cards‘ third season starts off with an episode devoted to a character we didn’t care much about in the first place … and who we kind of hoped had been killed off at the end of the last season.  That episode segued into a lingering back-and-forth over whether revenue from entitlements ought to be transferred into government economic development subsidies … and how Underwood and his allies might procedurally advance such a proposal.

Wait … what? 

Yeah … House of Cards is all about policy now.  So much so that it’s almost like watching C-SPAN sometimes.

Then there’s Underwood himself … whose sheer force of personality has driven this drama since its inception.  Well lately he’s driving it into the ground.

Screenwriters wrote him in the highest office in the land … then inexplicably decided to turn him into an insufferable bore.  With no testicles.  And a much weaker supporting cast around him … characters whose moods and machinations are developed with all the urgency and creativity of a local car dealer regurgitating his closing slogan.

It’s … terrible.  The plot.  The writing.  The acting.  All of it.  Zero cohesion, too.

Seriously, we’ve been waiting seven episodes for something … anything … to happen.

And maybe it eventually will … but halfway through the most anticipated season of the most anticipated television show in the world … we’re getting tired of waiting.

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