Why ‘The 100’ is the best political tampil on televisi 

Why ‘The 100’ is the best political show on television

" data-content="A TonDC lawyer muses about science fiction show The 100's political relevance in Washington." target="_blank">

A TonDC lawyer muses about science fiction show

This article was submitted by Hypable reader CapitalChick.

Being a lawyer in a nation’s capital full of lawyers mean that casual conversation tends to focus on politics. Maybe it’s because some of us have worked for or litigated against the government, or merely because politics is a spectator sport in this town. And, being lawyers, we tend to focus on debating more than one point of view and exploring how decisions are made. 

But if there’s anything that Washingtonians love more than gossiping about politics, it’s obsessing over television. And recently, I’ve noticed that one television show keeps coming up in conversation again and again.

No, it’s not the show about the sartorially gifted fixer of political scandal or the diabolical congressman who climbed over bodies to ascend to the presidency.

Rather, it’s the one set in ‘TonDC,’ the ruins of my city 97 years after a nuclear apocalypse. The crumbling Lincoln Memorial may be the only recognizable landmark so far (wow, those trees grew fast!), but the dilemmas are eerily familiar. And that’s because

Despite airing frequent stock footage of the U.S. Capitol building, television shows that purport to be about politics often have little to do with gritty philosophical quandaries and petty squabbles that permeate this city. But for all of its wonderful science fiction trappings, sprawling mythology, and excellent character development,

also dwells in the challenges of leading and persuading people to follow.

Do you debate the merits of both real and fictional political decisions over beers with your friends? We, the ancestors of TonDC, do and this show keeps us busy.

excels at political allegory, and many of show’s most dramatic decisions allude to past or current events. The strategic merits and moral complexities of these admittedly fictional decisions are hotly contested during happy hour.

For example, Clarke Griffin and Commander Lexa, two leaders of allied groups, allowed TonDC to be bombed in the hopes of preserving their agent Bellamy Blake’s secret infiltration of the enemy. Was that scenario an allusion to Allied forces allowing civilian targets to be bombed during World War II in order to preserve the secret that they had cracked the German coding system?

In a later season, a nationalistic leader named Charles Pike rose to power by appealing to fear of foreign attack and a desire for self-determination. Can we equate that to the tide of recent populist election outcomes in Western democracies?

Pike led a deadly preemptive attack on an unsuspecting army out of fear that they would attack first. Is this akin to present day counterterrorism drone strikes abroad?

An overarching theme of the currently airing season is whether strife among rival political factions will threaten humanity’s ability to survive a looming nuclear disaster. Is this a metaphor for the political obstacles that stand in the way of addressing climate change? Yes, these are things that we debate during happy hour.

explores the ways in which leaders manipulate information to persuade people to follow them. And in the era of alternative facts, fake news, and media outlets barred from the White House,

This theme is revisited time and time again and with varying results. First, the drama’s foundational conflict between engineer Jake Griffin and democratically elected political leaders Abby Griffin (Jake’s wife), Marcus Kane, and Thelonious Jaha turned on whether to disclose a space station’s impending system failure to the public.

They debated whether to reveal that everyone on the spaceship would die if a solution was not found. The risk of chaos was real and the democratically elected leadership decided to conceal the crisis and execute Jake to silence him.

Later, Kane and Jaha plan to exterminate a subsection of the public in their sleep so as to preserve more oxygen for everyone else. Abby eventually dissents and serves as a 21st century whistleblower. Her actions allow the public to volunteer for self-sacrifice instead.

season 2, we are introduced to Cage Wallace, one of the leaders of a group of apocalypse survivors living inside a bunker at Mt. Weather, VA.

Cage at first hid from his public government efforts to harvest bone marrow from teenagers who arrived to Earth from space for the benefit of his own people (who cannot venture above ground due to their inability to process radiation).

This cover-up allowed Bellamy to infiltrate Mt. Weather undetected and foment opposition during a critical time period. Simultaneously, Clarke and Lexa concealed their prior knowledge of the aforementioned TonDC bombing from the public and leveraged the tragedy as a motivation for battle.

During season 3, Kane and Abby’s failure to explain to the public the terms a political alliance that would end their independent democratic system allowed their electoral rival Pike to swing popular support in his favor and take their people down a path of populism and military aggression.

Most recently, in an episode aptly titled “A Lie Guarded,” we watched the consequences of Clarke’s calculated decision to withhold that fact that only 100 people can survive a second looming nuclear disaster by taking refuge in a spaceship for shelter, and her unilateral creation of a secret list of who will live and die due to limited resources.

The risk of chaos and the necessity of a contingency plan were both real and understandable from Clarke’s perspective. However, once the truth was disclosed to the public by Monty Green, the drama’s second whistleblower, Clarke’s best laid plans were discarded in order to quell dissent. Jaha astutely proposed an alternative lottery system for survival in order to encourage the public to focus on preparing for the apocalypse to come.

Clarke’s decision to withhold the truth and deny the public a stake in openly deciding who will survive was, simply put, bad politics. The lie certainly jeopardized the ability to preselect survivors by skill in the future, and it also may have undermined the public’s future trust in Clarke’s leadership.

Interestingly, even in this moment of supposed truth and open debate, Clarke and Jaha’s final exchange raised the question whether they actually intend to ever hold a lottery. Once again, the public was manipulated by its leaders to achieve a result for the common good. The audience should take note of how easily the public’s outrage at being deceived was swiftly massaged and channeled for the government’s purpose.

In that same episode, Kane, now Clarke’s ambassador and organizational superior, also withheld information from King Roan, the leader of their uneasy but vital ally. The discovery of this concealment resulted in the fracturing of an essential political alliance and a declaration of war. The audience was left to wonder if the conflict was caused as much by Kane’s lie of omission as the undisclosed information.

understandably debates the merits of these choices based on an actual or desired result. But

is also asking deeper questions about the ways in which leaders make these decisions.

Is it ever acceptable for leaders to lie or withhold critical information from their people in order to achieve an advantageous outcome? Does watching leaders deftly manipulate public opinion on screen make us uncomfortable? And with the varying forms of government depicted on the show, ranging from democracy to monarchy, do the rules of the game make a difference in a leader’s ability to lie to, conceal information from, and manipulate the public?

In other words: do we care about the way that we are led, or are we simply focused on the result? And what does this suggest about the public in the real world?

challenges the audience to debate intractable dilemmas and question how leaders make decisions. In our extraordinary times, those debates matter. I am often amazed as conservative and liberal friends debate events on the show and take positions that, if extrapolated to current events, are the opposite of what they might argue in the real world. That is what makes art in general — and science fiction in particular — a powerful lens through which to explore current political issues.

And so, I like to think that there is a special affection here in TonDC, circa 2017, for this challenging story about a post-apocalyptic future. The gorillas may get bigger, but the politics sure seem the same. As the ultimate survivor John Murphy would say, it’s just another day on the ground.

‘The 100’ season 4 continues Wednesday nights at 9/8c on The CW

This article was written by a Hypable visitor! Learn more and write your own right here.

Holy Dumbledore! J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World finally won an Oscar

Second ‘Cars 3’ trailer finds Lightning back at the bottom after crippling accident

Chelsey Reist interview: How ‘The 100’s’ Harper escaped death in season 1 and became a badass series regular

Previewing ‘The 100’ season 4, episode 5: War is coming

Mental health and TV: Awareness is rising, and it’s great

" data-content="It finally happened. Fourteen nominations later, J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World -- encapsulating Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts -- has won an Oscar." target="_blank">

It finally happened. Fourteen nominations later, J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World — encapsulating Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts — has won an Oscar.

won Best Costume Design at the 2017 Academy Awards on Sunday night. The movie did not win its other nomination, Best Production Design (which went to

A “surprise” because the Harry Potter film series was nominated 12 times (a number that made frequent appearances throughout the Harry Potter series) throughout the years, but not once did it win. Things changed for the Wizarding World in 2017!

It was an exciting moment for Harry Potter fans, as it was hard to watch the original eight movies lose time and time again — even when Warner Brothers made a heavy Oscar push for

. They held special screenings, printed special “For Your Consideration” booklets, and hung up billboards all over Los Angeles, and it was all for nothing.

Colleen Atwood won the Best Costume Design Oscar for

. She didn’t work on the Harry Potter movies, but her other credits include

Harry Potter received the following Oscar nominations:

: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score

: Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects

: Best Art Direction, Best Makeup, Best Visual Effects

" data-content="The 2017 Oscars took place Sunday night in Hollywood and found La La Land cleaning up with six wins. Here are the Academy Award winners!" target="_blank">

The 2017 Oscars took place Sunday night in Hollywood and found

cleaning up with six wins. Here are the Academy Award winners!

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel hosted the 2017 Oscars, which took place at the Dolby Theater. The event featured live performances of all five Oscar-nominated songs.

Related: We asked our parents to describe the 2017 Oscar nominees

Below is a complete list of Oscar winner and losers.

Note: The final winner of the night was originally announced to be La La Land, but the announcement was actually an error —

Meryl Streep – Florence Foster Jenkins

Hidden Figures – Allison Schroeder, Theodore Melfi

20th Century Women – Mike Mills

Hell or High Water – Taylor Sheridan

The Lobster – Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou

“The Empty Chair” – Jim: The James Foley Story

Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water

Fan Favorite Filmography: Breaking down the back catalog of Chris Evans

" data-content="Lightning McQueen's biggest enemy is himself in the new Cars 3 trailer." target="_blank">

The second major preview premiered during the Daytona 500 on Sunday afternoon, where voice actor Owen Wilson served as grand marshal.

trailer finds Lightning pushing himself to compete with high tech cars that are engineered to win. The character suffers a serious accident during a race and finds himself back at square one, having to work himself back up to what he once was.

main setting is unclear, we do see Lightning at least briefly returning to Radiator Springs (Gotta keep Cars Land at Disneyland relevant)!. This appears to be the I-need-to-rediscover-myself-by-remembering-my-origins scene.

looks dramatic, emotional, and possibly targeting kids

adults? We’ll race into theaters for this installment when Pixar’s latest opens this summer.

A synopsis from Pixar reads: “Blindsided by a new generation of blazing-fast racers, the legendary Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) is suddenly pushed out of the sport he loves. To get back in the game, he will need the help of an eager young race technician, Cruz Ramirez (voice of Cristela Alonzo), with her own plan to win, plus inspiration from the late Fabulous Hudson Hornet and a few unexpected turns. Proving that #95 isn’t through yet will test the heart of a champion on Piston Cup Racing’s biggest stage!”

We found Stan Lee’s hidden ‘Daredevil’ cameo!

‘How I Met Your Mother’ retrospective: Why Ted had to end up with Robin