The Office of the President

After Tasavallan presidentti, the same makers have a new show on YLE, Presidentin kanslia ("The Office of the President"). In my opinion it's a clear improvement on Itse valtiaat, which it replaces in the Saturday night lineup. The humor is considerably sharper, more topical, and more timely.

The show also fixes many of the things I criticized in its predecessor. The pseudo-documentary form has been dropped, the characters interact with each other more, and they have better defined personalities. Sometimes things even happen on the screen, although the budget is obviously still quite tiny.

On the downside, jokes about Tarja Halonen being a Stasi informant will get really old really fast for the segment of the viewing population that doesn't hate her guts, which I'd guess is the large majority. It doesn't work as a comedic exaggeration, because there really are people out there who believe those sort of things of her.