2003
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Written by Henry Bean
Starring James Carville, Mary Matalin, Mary McCormack, John Slattery and Roger Guenveur Smith
If you end up watching the final episode of the ten available for the now-defunct K-Street, you're likely to find yourself in a state of furious depression. Not due to the subject matter or the particular events of that episode, but because if you've made it to number ten, that means you've gotten hooked--and like one of the calculating dealers on HBO's sister show The Wire, you've been cut off cold. Sure, some of the series plots are resolved, in the same quiet fashion that most of the show's resolutions hold, but when the blank black screens start rolling with the "Appearing as themselves" listings, it will make for one of the worst crimes against a quality television show since, well, Misfits of Science. Because here's the sad truth: K Street wasn't just good--it was incredible. There's no show in the history of television that so successfully done what K Street accomplished, blending real people into a fictionalized situations, with as few actors as possible, and then surrounded that small unit with real people--people like Howard Dean, Tucker Carlson, Paul Begala, Orrin Hatch, Barbara Boxer and any other senator, congressman or lobbyist who happened by. There's no show that even tried. On top of that, each and every episode is directed, shot, and edited by Soderbergh on a herculean five day schedule. Even if K Street was merely watchable it would still be an inspiring feat of creation--and it's far more than "merely watchable."
Trying to explain the dynamic of K Street is a disservice to the delicate nature of the show, so instead we'll put it this way: television lost one of it's finest experiements when it lost K Street. Now that it's so cheaply available on DVD, one shouldn't miss the opportunity to see how special it really was--an intelligent, balanced look at the nature of politics, business and human relationships. Enjoy.
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