Battleground (2012) – Episodes 1 and 2: “Pilot” and “Who is Clare Villareal?” – Starring Jay Hayden, Teri Reeves, Jack De Sena, Ben Samuel, Lindsey Payne, Jordan T. Maxwell, and Alison Haislip.
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Hulu and Netflix are both attempting to get into the original programming business, and I’ll say this for Hulu: they know how to push their product. I visit both Hulu and Netflix almost every day, and Hulu is consistently putting reminders of BATTLEGROUND in front of my eyeballs while I have not once seen a reminder for Lilyhammer show up at the Netflix site.
Not once.
It’s great that they include an ad in the Blu rays and DVDs they send me, but I can’t click on a mailer and get a program to start. On another day, I’ll rip into the screwy recommendation and navigation system that Netflix uses, but today I’m here to give you my first thoughts on BATTLEGROUND, Hulu’s first foray into original scripted programming. So here it is:
I like it.
Two episodes in, and while I won’t argue this is the greatest show ever, I am impressed enough with the smart writing and solid characters to keep watching.
BATTLEGROUND tells the story of a political campaign in Wisconsin, focusing on the behind the scenes work of the staff of a dark horse candidate. The show is presented documentary style, incorporating both campaign footage and post-campaign interviews. To this point, they’ve only showed post-campaign interviews with Ben Warner (Ben Samuel) and his now-girlfriend, Lindsey (Lindsey Payne).
It’s a smart strategy. Ben is the political newbie in the campaign, the newest volunteer and socially inept ladies man. He serves as our inside man, the guy that gets to have everything explained to him so we know who everybody is and what role they perform in the campaign. The leading man is campaign manager Chris “Tak” Davis (Jay Hayden), who has yet to run a successful campaign, and isn’t likely to win this one. Kara “KJ” Jamison (Teri Reeves) handles the media, Cole Graner (Jack De Sena) writes the speeches, and Ali Laurents (Alison Haislip) runs the social media part of the show.
They’re all twentysomethings, but thankfully they come off more as young professionals who want a career in politics rather than wide-eyed idealists. Tak is already showing signs of being burned out by the process, even though he barely looks old enough to be in grad school. Their youthfulness is one of the aspects that makes BATTLEGROUND work for me, because even though they’re interested in winning (they seem much more interested in winning than they do in any kind of political ideology), they’ve got a distinct vibe of people still trying to figure things out, and there is a real need for them to be creative because the campaign has very limited funds to operate.
The series sets up a triumvirate of young pros with Tak, Cole, and KJ. Cole is the guy who writes speeches and never wears anything more formal than a clean t-shirt. KJ is impeccably dressed, looking like she just stepped out of a Kohl’s catalog. And Tak is positioned somewhere in between them; he wears the same style of professional clothes as KJ, but he’s often got his shirt unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up.
The first episode introduces us to all of the characters and their predicament. The favorite to win the Senate seat is the entrenched old, white male with all the money and contacts. There’s a debate scheduled but he’s not going to attend because he’s way up in the polls, so Tak tricks his campaign manager counterpart into getting him to show up by convincing him that Samuels isn’t. It’s clever and it allows the Samuels’ staffers to have a small victory. We don’t see the debate because that’s not the focus of the show. Unlike a show like The West Wing, BATTLEGROUND isn’t interested in politics. We know Samuels is a Democrat, but there’s few attention given to her positions or time devoted to her speeches.
In the second episode, Samuels gets hit by a planted question from a school girl about a former associate of Samuels. There have been whispers and rumors over the years that Samuels and this woman were more than just colleagues, and we get to see the pressure mount on the campaign. The personal conflicts start cropping up; last episode we saw that Tak, while married, is interested in KJ, and we saw (but Take didn’t) that KJ and Cole have a romantic thing going on. This episode we see KJ and Cole plan to watch a game together the day after a straw poll, and then Cole tell Tak he can’t watch the game with him because he’s watching it with KJ.
Cut to the post-campaign interview session with Ben and Lindsey, who tells us that was where it all went, “Boom.”
I like the desperate nature of the campaign, the struggle to get things done on a limited budget and being behind in the race. I like that Samuels herself is a secondary character, and that her husband is kind of a dick to Tak, as his desire to do the impulsive, emotional thing is countered by Tak’s professionalism. It’s a short view vs. long view dynamic and it’s a good battle to watch. I like that, other than Alison Haislip, I don’t know who any of these people are
BATTLEGROUND is obviously modeled on shows like The Office or Parks and Rec, but that’s not something that’s going to automatically make or break a show. BATTLEGROUND stands on its own as a rather well-written, well-acted show. Hulu’s got themselves a winner.
