Twenty Twelve, and the EUR 8,000 uniforms.

The excellent BBC comedy series Twenty Twelve had managed to fly under my radar for the entirety of its two-series run. I only found out about it thanks to the in-flight entertainment system of my Singapore Airlines flight to Sao Paulo. A few notes:

  1. Twenty-Twelve is the closest spiritual successor to Yes, Minister that I have ever seen.  The Thick of It was also a competent comedy, but the unpleasant source material made for a more restricted viewing niche.
  2. The Office was a great series, but personally I find the mockumentary format is now a bit over-exploited. Especially since their cinematographic style is diverging from that of contemporary documentaries.
  3. An other arguable Office influence: all characters essentially represent various shades and declination of bumbling ineffectualness. Fine, this might approximate your average government department, but frankly I find the lack of a Humphrey Appleby figure a bit distressing. Is it to Italian to ask that political fiction present a Machiavellian figure?
  4. The recent events concerning the security arrangements at the Olympics (privately contracted security guards failing to show up, 8,000 euros per guard spent on uniforms) give a definited ring of truth to the events depicted in the series.

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