In true March Madness fashion, there’s one bracket that seems to have been neglected in Vegas this year. Forget Florida, Arizona, Iowa State, Virginia, Michigan, Baylor and the rest of the 2014 NCAA Sweet Sixteen. The real bracket final pits Frances Urquhart against Frank Underwood. It’s the BBC’s House of Cards vs. Netflix House of Cards. Michael Dobbs, who wrote the original 1990 BBC version and also served as executive producer on the current Netflix version, believes very strongly that the American remake remained ‘true to the spirit’ and ‘pays wonderful homage’ to the original series. That said, the 13 episodes of series one of the U.S. version doesn’t even get as far as the first series of the UK version which was only 4 episodes.

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Sir Ian Richardson’s FU

Kevin Spacey’s FU

You might very well think that, I couldn’t possibly comment.

Actually, I can and will comment. While I love Kevin Spacey and will periodically pop in the DVD of Usual Suspects, Sir Ian Richardson’s performance in the original BBC version of House of Cards is drop dead brilliant. After watching the Netflix version and then re-watching the BBC version, there is just a brilliant bit of camp to Sir Ian’s portrayal with Kevin Spacey’s being much, much darker. Both brilliant. My vote? Easy. Camp and dark beats plain dark every time.