Dynasty: Murdoch Review – Who Cares Which Billionaire Will Control More Billions? | television

‘TOr explain the Murdochs, you have to understand the TV show “Caliphate.” So said New York Times columnist Jim Rothenberg a few minutes into this four-part documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s empire — and specifically, his children’s battle to control it when he dies.

It’s a clever opener. Jesse Armstrong’s series about media mogul Logan Roy and his warring children, thought to be inspired by the Murdoch family, has been a smash hit, and this documentary soon enthusiastically matches up the older Murdoch brothers – the independent Prudence from Rupert’s first marriage, the obedient favorite Lachlan, the “problem child” James, and the intelligent but overlooked (pesky X chromosomes!) Elizabeth – with their counterparts in the succession. (Robert’s two young daughters from his third marriage are not in the running.) But don’t be fooled: despite the suspenseful strings and non-major piano embellishments, this is no Emmy Award-winning drama. Rather, it is an exhausting, exhaustive summary of all things Murdoch, the sibling maneuverings often being the least interesting part. In the documentary, as in life, they are overshadowed by their father.

In the notable absence of any input from the family, but with astute analysis from journalists who have spent a long time analyzing Murdoch’s data, extensive archival material and a short speech from Hugh Grant – who described Rupert as “a real danger to liberal democracies” – we watch Murdoch’s rise to media titan and political kingmaker. There are his “right-leaning populist” renewals of the News of the World and the New York Post, the endorsement of Ronald Reagan – whose deregulation policies, once elected, allowed Murdoch to launch Fox – and Murdoch’s dramatic about-face when Trump, whom he described as a “fucking idiot,” seemed about to become a king of his own making.

News of the World and Fox News alumni take us into the belly of the beast during the phone-hacking and sexual harassment scandals, and there are satisfying stories about the players involved: Former News of the World correspondent Paul McMullan recounts that editor-in-chief Rebekah Brooks would wander around the office, tossing articles in her wake to cries of: “This is bullshit. This is bullshit!” There are gentler but equally revealing tales: Robert’s betrayal in Family Monopoly; Or sitting on the pipe early in his career, noting what the Beautiful Birds were reading; Or he ignored his young children so much that James thought his father had gone deaf. There is also a startling claim that Robert’s second wife, mother of Lachlan, James and Elizabeth, killed a woman with her car – a story of which there appears to be no trace.

But, according to the premise, this compelling history is interrupted (in a confusingly non-serial fashion) with succession shenanigans large and small. The biggest of these is a secret plan concocted by Robert and Lachlan to change the family trust, eliminating the siblings’ equal voting rights in the company after Robert’s death, thus giving Lachlan control. In essence, the Family Harmony Project, as the couple calls it (certainly A nod to the dark comedy of Succession? Nobody’s So Disturbed is about keeping the company working for conservative politics, and preventing the more liberal James from pulling it leftward — a revelation that highlights the real, global consequences of this very personal disagreement. Meanwhile, the ensuing lawsuit exposes Robert’s ruthlessness: while his lawyer questions James, Robert gives him questions to ask in real time. Questions like: “Have you ever accomplished anything on your own?” and “Why were you so busy that you couldn’t call your father on his 90th birthday?”

Less interesting is the endless recounting of Elizabeth, Lachlan, and James’ career moves (we learn that Prudence, early on, has no interest in running an empire). It’s a depressing catalog of nepotism – Lachlan running his father’s newspapers in Queensland when he was 22, for example – that pushes them in and out of the position of “most likely successor” ad nauseam, without ever letting us get to know the people behind the promotions. The use of game animation, which sees sibling figurines landing on squares such as “Go work for Daddy” or “You are the subject of an investigation, you lose a turn,” fails to build interest. However, what it does do is remind us once again who is in charge: If a sibling tries to leave the game and strike out on their own, that powerful person offers them a new job or buys out the company they founded, putting them back on the board.

Ultimately, it’s this lack of agency that makes the series’ “realistic succession” such a difficult sell. It’s hard to care about which billionaire will control even more billions, but it’s especially hard when the outcome seems like a foregone conclusion (even if you didn’t follow the fight in the news). Because realistically, how often does Rupert Murdoch not get what he wants?