Watching Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in Servant of the People is eerie amid real-life war

Slate

Zelensky's 2015-2019 Ukrainian political satire comedy, in which he plays a high school history teacher who is suddenly elected president of Ukraine, was so effective that he was elected the country's actual president a month after its final episode aired in early 2019. Servant of the People, which returned to Netflix last week, is a brighter satire than Veep and The Thick of It, its American and British counterparts, says Lili Loofbourow. "If history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce, what happens when the order is reversed?" says Loofbourow. "What if (for example) a television comedy predicts a real-life tragedy you are presently watching unfold—detailed to a level that includes the main protagonist? That’s what it feels like to watch Servant of the People right now: The first season of Volodymyr Zelensky’s sitcom about an ordinary guy who becomes president is on Netflix, and watching it on one screen while on another Zelensky narrates his country’s resistance to the Russian invasion feels like witnessing history stereoscopically. Because until recently I have only ever experienced Volodymyr Zelensky as the embattled president of Ukraine—first during the infamous telephone call that led to Donald Trump’s (first) impeachment, and then as the almost mythic leader he has since become: defiant, stripped-down, brave, and demanding—it is eerie in the extreme to watch his turn as the affable and frequently embarrassed president of a Ukraine that has not been invaded but longs for admission into NATO." ALSO: Servant of the People is a clever, mordant, earnestly positive comedy, even as it transforms into The West Wing meets Dave.