Inside the inner workings of the federal government, Cap South is a mocumentary that has the spirit of a live action adaptation of The Daily Show.
‘Cap South’ describes itself as Workaholics meets The West Wing – but for anyone who has yet to see this show, ‘Cap South’ doesn’t have a serious bone in its body. The show centers around a lame duck congress woman filling in for her deceased husband while following the misadventures of her staff. The series is filled with tons of political parodies seen through the eyes of years of pop culture, with references ranging from ‘All The President’s Men’ to cold war era campaign attack ads. I particularly enjoyed the ‘Titanic’ / ‘Terminator 2’ mash up in support of ‘nuclear energy’ which just wants to have some fun and continue to contribute to our collective entertainment.
What ‘Cap South’ really brings to the table is a good variety of quality, politically themed jokes. There are the stand alone episodes, which have an assortment of different styles. While most follow a simple plot there are episodes that feel much, different, such as the episode ‘Hill Rat Commute’ which follows the Chief of Staff around the Capital, on his way to his office – quite a laborious journey. Some episodes have a random sponsor, such as ‘SALT’ (Are You Getting Enough?) and just about every episode ends with some sort of outtake, or unscripted ad lib that didn’t make the cut. The idea here being that the viewer never really knows what’s in store within each episode. The creative team has embraced a style that lets every member contribute some unique comedic moments that don’t always have to be political in nature.
The show also provides political attack ads and advertisements to go along with a series of ‘Crazy Constituent Calls’ that highlight what the show’s characters are doing when they are actually working. Interestingly enough, the call complaining about the US Postal Service was a quality fan contribution – something that sounds like it could be a great idea for additional content moving forward. While the phone calls have their moments the really good supplemental content is found in the attack ads which pit energy competitors ‘BIG WIND’ against ‘BIG SUN’ along with the aforementioned atomic energy group who just wants to be ‘left the f&*k out of it.’ I got a good laugh out of the ‘pro wind’ commercial that featured some pretty subpar audio due to excessive wind gusts – accidental or not, the irony was awesome. These commercials are shot in a completely different manner and have a much cooler editing style that adds a lot of production value to the series overall.
‘Cap South’ is really well done – with a level of acting not found too often outside of LA or New York productions. Filmed on location in D.C. a lot of the actors are from New York and make the trek down to the capital for the shoots. What is really cool though is that the show was actually filmed on Capital Hill, through the halls of its buildings and all around the area. While plenty of web series creators share stories of running from security, to being arrested or at least hassled by cops, for a show shot “in an undisclosed location in and around Dick Cheney’s bunker” the lack of trouble seems interesting. The show cited “a lack of shame” and “lax security with Congress in recess” as the reason for their ability to grab some seriously cool, authentic locations. I don’t think the show would be nearly as good without it.
I do need to point out some negatives of course, and while they are nitpicks, they probably will come off sounding like serious issues but they really aren’t. The show has an excellent amount of content, around two hours, which are filled in with something like eight different characters. While each character seems to be unique and fill a role I don’t think I found any of them particularly interesting. It’s easy to compare shows like this to The Office (the show that really propelled this production style forward) but there is no straight man Jim to Dwight’s absurdity. Most of the characters here are a little absurd, and while that style of comedy has a lot of merit sometimes I believe it can detract from the overall believably of the story and an audiences ability to connect with characters on a human level like they would in a drama. The characters here are funny, they make me laugh, but if any of them were to be killed off I’d be more inclined to laugh at such an event than miss the character. This likely comes down to personal taste, as I see this style of comedy becoming the more common method but I wish that I cared more about Elliot & Nicole’s budding relationship, or Rep. Gracie Todd Englewright’s upcoming election campaign.
All in all ‘Cap South’ is one of the more impressive series highlighted in this column and definitely worth a look, especially if you enjoy some good old political humor. I tend to see web productions as a modern social art form and it’s nice to see someone take up the banner of poking fun at our often ludicrous method of self government – hopefully creator Rob Raffety doesn’t lose any future work prospects over this one.
‘Cap South’ can be found at their official site http://capsouththeseries.com