Lost last Sunday in all the frenzied kerfuffle surrounding Jon Snow and the return of Game of Thrones was the return of two other most worthy HBO series. Here's a reminder.
• Veep, starring the always outstanding Julia Louis-Dreyfus as vice president and now President Selina Meyer, airs at 9:30 p.m. today. This is one of those series that illustrate why the vast majority of good adult television is on premium cable.
Fans of the brash political satire will recall that Selina, the nation's first female vice president, became president when Stuart Hughes resigned to take care of his mentally ill wife.
The 10-episode Season 5 debuted April 24 with the continuation of the story of what happens now that Selina's own run for the White House ended with an unprecedented Electoral College tie with opponent Bill O'Brien (Brad Leland).
Tie? For some, Veep could be an important civics lesson, since the Electoral College tends to be an obscure footnote to the political process.
The quick overview: When we vote for president, we are actually voting for electors to the Electoral College. Whoever wins a state's popular vote gets all that state's electors (except in Maine and Nebraska). Each state's number of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation -- one for each member in the House of Representatives, plus one for each senator.
Arkansas, for example, gets six electors. Heavily populated California gets 55.
There are 538 electors and it takes 270 to win. It is possible to win the White House with a minority of the popular vote but a majority in the Electoral College. Latest example: George W. Bush in 2000.
It's also possible to win only the 11 biggest states and still be elected president.
In 2012, President Barack Obama won the popular vote in 26 states and the District of Columbia to capture 332 electoral votes. Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) won the popular vote in 24 states but only earned 206 electoral votes.
And, if there's a tie, hilarity ensues. At least that's what happened on Veep.
In the fifth season, there is drama afoot when we learn that there are still some uncounted votes in Nevada that might break the impasse. Selina sends her loyal team -- chief of staff Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky), Dan Egan (Reid Scott), Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons) and new member Richard Splett (Sam Richardson) -- to try to sort things out.
Holding down the White House are the rest of the gang -- irritating (and hilarious) obsequious sycophantic minion Gary Walsh (Tony Hale), Ben Cafferty (Kevin Dunn), Kent Davison (Gary Cole), secretary Sue Wilson (Sufe Bradshaw) and Mike McLintock (Matt Walsh).
Veep boasts one of the best and most hilarious ensembles on television.
But don't just take my word for it. The series has been up for the Outstanding Comedy Emmy all four of its seasons and finally won last year.
Even more impressive, Louis-Dreyfus has won four (!) consecutive Emmy Awards as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy. Those statuettes sit on the mantel beside the one she got for playing Christine Campbell on The New Adventures of Old Christine, and another for her portrayal of Elaine Benes on Seinfeld.
I strongly recommend a couple of episodes of Veep as the best antidote when the current presidential campaign just makes you want to go and hide under the bed.
The series, which is rated TV-MA (mostly for language), has a Season 6 on order for next year.
• Silicon Valley. This droll, surprisingly smart comedy airs at 9 p.m. just before Veep and is a collaboration between Mike Judge (the guy who gave us Office Space, Beavis & Butthead and King of the Hill) and Alec Berg, who has written for Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Silicon Valley also debuted last week with the first of its 10-episode third season. HBO sums it up by saying the series "takes a comic look at the modern-day epicenter of the high-tech gold rush, where the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success."
Chief among those least qualified is Richard Hendriks (Thomas Middleditch), who invented the start-up enterprise Pied Piper, a program designed to find music matches.
He accomplished that while crashing at Erlich's Hacker Hostel, which is an ordinary house owned by Erlich Bachmann (T.J. Miller) and rented out to techies.
Also in the geek house are Richard's best friend, Big Head (Josh Brener), and fellow nerds Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr).
There has been a bidding war for Richard's compression algorithm and hilarity ensues.
This season, the always steady Stephen Tobolowsky joins the cast as Jack Barker, the new boss of Pied Piper after Richard gets voted out as chief executive officer.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style on 05/01/2016