Gentlemen good and bad

On March 11, Dozhd showed the premiere of the new program Good Lord, a week earlier than NTV - Yes, Mr. President! The names have something in common (presumably, it is no coincidence). The difference is fundamental. On "Rain" - political satire, on NTV - soft, sometimes touching humor.

On Dozhd, five commercials filmed by the former combat team of the Citizen Poet (Vasiliev-Bykov-Efremov) are accompanied by a live discussion of the latest events to which they are dedicated. Such different characters as Boris Nemtsov, Pavel Lungin, Leonid Yarmolnik, Vladimir Semago, Kirill Kabanov, journalists Pavel Lobkov and Stanislav Kucher participate. One and a half hours of live broadcast almost never sag, the events chosen are relevant: from the death of Chavez to the return of ppm. Funny, witty, tough.

On NTV this time, by today's television standards, it also seems to be a quality product. "Comedy Club" presented a friendly "cabbage" parody of Putin. And the caveman Dmitry Grachev looks like a parodied object, and the situations are familiar, long replicated by the same television, and the journalists of the presidential pool were mocked, and even funny in places. Vladimir Vladimirovich loves humor, his press secretary reminded us, so he looked at the program to himself before going on air. Humor approved.

Why were we shown this? And why NTV? Well, firstly, because the mission of NTV is to pave new paths. For the Investigative Committee, he reveals the Anatomy of a Protest. For the townsfolk, he finds yet another way to distract from reality. On the same weekend, the channel aired an interview with Yuri Luzhkov from London. It did not contain a single gram of new information, but there was an attack on Medvedev. No designation of a future attack? Secondly, as it is now clear, knowing about the return of the Good Lord, they decided to preempt the satirical program, soften the blow, tried to reprogram the attention of the audience. For firefighters, this is called "oncoming fell."

In addition, a parody of the president was needed to create a new image: apparently, they decided to use humor to humanize Putin, who over the past year has pretty much lost attractiveness even for many of his supporters due to legislative arbitrariness, criminal prosecution of the opposition and the return of Cold War rhetoric.

In the NTV program, you can even see reflections of reality, but the allusion is unequivocal - to the caring "father of peoples", a beloved propaganda image, albeit without a mustache and a pipe. The people want order - the people will get it, you just have to echo Vladimir Vladimirovich all the time: “Yes, Mr. President!”

And then another mystery of our inconsistent propaganda followed: on the following Sunday, that is, on March 10, NTV did not show a new episode of the program. For several evening hours, Vanga, sorcerers, psychics and other obscurantism were launched. Either it seemed that the puppet Putin would not be able to say anything new, or the reaction of the audience turned out to be sluggish, and they decided not to lower the rating. No, not the channel, but the president.
Will there be a continuation? This question applies even more to the “Good Lord”. Can we make it to Monday?