Posted in: Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: labour, netflix, political satire, the crown, The Tories, UK General Election

UK General Election: Seems "The Tories" Is Facing Its "Series Finale"

What if the UK General Election was reported in Hollywood trades as a long-running TV series called The Tories that was getting cancelled?

Writer's note: I decided to look at the current UK General Election through the prism of television – I hope you enjoy it! We're heading into the climax of the "UK General Election" arc of The Tories, a storyline that everyone expected but was dropped sooner than expected. Everyone thought it wouldn't come till the end of Summer and end in the Autumn. In US shows, this is usually a decision made by the networks to end a series sooner rather than later, but in this case, the decision was unilaterally taken by out-of-his-depth Executive Producer Rishi Sunak without telling the writer's room, producers, cast or crew. And The Tories isn't just having their season finale – based on exit polling that hit as this was going to post, it could be their series finale, a final cancellation. This is what happens to a series that hangs around for far too long and gets progressively worse, as the general reaction to the series has shown.

Everyone was surprised and extremely unhappy, even leading to several minor cast members that no one ever heard of resigning or retiring because they knew they would be out of a job after the finale. This series has dropped from merely being on the bubble to a dead-certain cancellation, all thanks to the showrunners being out of their depth and completely out of touch with the market.  Dropping a climactic series arc like "UK General Election" appears to be an act of desperation and a failure to read the room. The ratings are still expected to be boffo, if lower than hoped, as the nation tunes in to see The Fall of the Tories.

The Chaotic Plot Arcs Leading to the UK General Election

The beginning of the end of The Tories really began in 2019 when a new cast took over, led by the bumbler Boris Johnson and his cabinet of hilariously craven idiots. Their inept COVID policies may have resulted in the needless deaths of tens of thousands of people – including their fans. Then, Boris threw a COVID drinks party while the country was held prisoner in their homes, prohibited by law from seeing loved ones or attending their funerals. Boris was ousted and replaced by "Mad Liz" Truss, who was the last Prime Minister to see Big Liz the Queen, the series matriarch and fan favourite who kept the show's vision and fandom invested. Big Liz's death was one of those not-unexpected plot turns, but questions persisted in true conspiracy theory fashion.

The series went into freefall once Big Liz departed. Mad Liz tanked the entire British economy in one afternoon when experts thought it would take years. Mad Liz was replaced by the Not Ready for Prime Time "Rishi Rich" Sunak and his even more craven and painfully inept cronies – including Suellla Braverman, who came off as a supporting character trying too hard to be a scene-stealer and looked like a daffy, likable best buddy out of Sex and the City – if the hit HBO series had a character who gave off racist, fascist vibes – and a bunch of Culture Wars loons who ran around spouting nonsense like rabid cats in a sack hung over a fire. Waiting in the wings is potential future series lead Nigel Farage, who has shown all of the decency and grace of a desperate, third-rate used car salesman – selling fascism as if it was a clapped-out Ford Mondeo by passing it off as spanking new and shiny.

The UK General Election Arc – A Desperate Ratings Grab That Works!

In the current "UK General Election" arc, Sunak has been outdoing himself on the campaign trail A Plot, moaning about not getting Sky TV as a kid (which is like not getting HBO), skipping out on V-Day Memorial to do a self-serving but disastrous TV interview that the interviewers didn't even want to do with him, dropping a shock election July 4th date in the rain and pissing off everyone in his own party who were planning to go on summer vacation – and in the rain without an umbrella – and one final pre-election day humiliation just days ago: getting upstaged by the Nation's Most Tattooed MILF because the bookers hate his guts more than the voters do. Whew! And so on. The Tories introduced an avalanche of hilariously farcical plotlines that are too little too late to save the series.

Dwindling Hopes for a Future Return or Reboot

Like many political soaps, The Tories would normally hope to return to the air after Labour's ratings tank after a certain number of years, but this finale season of the series has been particularly fraught with the possibility that it will be wiped out as a viable series for a generation, which can run from ten to twenty-five years. Are we facing the prospect of a much darker, grimmer, and even more melodramatic series after the new rebooted series of Labour ends, one perhaps called Reform? That depends on the plotlines the spinoff series unveils in the next five years.

Early buzz for Labour has been, at best, lukewarm, with the general belief that the new series will be tepid and dull but no less miserable as the new team tries to correct and undo many of the unpopular arcs The Tories planted over fourteen years. However, there are already complaints that the new series will not undo or walk back the "Culture Wars" storyline that the majority of viewers found tedious and boring, if not outright despicable.

Thus, the United Kingdom's biggest and greatest hate watch comes to an end – but there will likely be a spinoff series to follow called Labour. It is too soon to speculate on its ratings, but Starmer the Blank looks like DIET TORIES, and fans will be probably no less miserable under his rule.

UPDATE: Check out the top of the post for live updates from Sky News on the polling results, and a breakdown of the exit poll predictions from BBC News… 

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