REVIEWS

circumswoop:

This week The Debates returns for its 11th season. Quadrennially, America has watched, 3-5 times per fall, ninety(ish) minutes of paint drying and verbal PowerPoint as two or, one crazy-ass time, three middle-aged or very old white* men try to outpresident each other. (A spinoff, The Vice-Presidential Debates, is a total snoozefest but keeps getting renewed anyway.)

Production value on the show has gone considerably up since season one in 1960, when all television looked like a bad dream. Since the infamous makeup malfunction of season eight, there have been no major surprises, glitches, or LSD flashbacks, excepting the episode from season nine (2004) when GW Bush, a returning champion, got vaguely Rumpelstiltskiny and had everyone talking.

Season 11’s premiere is Wednesday night. The returning champion, President Barack Obama, will debate the challenger, Governor Mitt Romney. To prepare, I’m going to do recaps of sorts for five classic episodes. The show isn’t on Netflix or Hulu but you can totally get that shit on YouTube. Not liveblogs per se (more like deadblogs) these quasi-recaps will get at what’s relevant about The Debates, and why you should watch the new season. Even though it will probably be terrible.

First up: Kennedy-Nixon I

*With one recent exception

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