In a deeply polarized political landscape, weeks away from the midterm elections, “Alpha House” executive producer Jonathan Alter likes to say that the Amazon comedy about four GOP senators is “one of the only political endeavors getting bipartisan support.”
“A lot of Democrats say ‘I don’t like any Republicans except the ones I see on ‘Alpha House’’ and Republicans say ‘This is … a bunch of Hollywood liberals but the Republicans are lovable and you root for them, so we like it,’ ” Alter tells The Post in his office on the show’s set at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens.
Amazon introduced “Alpha House” as its first original series last year, with stars John Goodman, Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy and Mark Consuelos playing four Congressmen living together in a house in DC and “trying to keep their job and their dignity — and rarely can you do both,” Malloy says.
The satirical comedy from “Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau returns for its second season this Friday and is set during a looming midterm election.
Now that Senators Gil John Biggs (Goodman), Robert Bettencourt (Johnson) and Louis Laffer (Malloy) survived their primaries in Season One, they’re facing Democratic opponents — among them magician Penn Jillette and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, guest starring as themselves.
Haley Joel Osment plays local TV reporter Shelby Mellman.
izing Andy Guzman (Consuelos) is exploring a run for President (as will one of his roommates) and is engaged to his girlfriend Adriana — both of which are threatened to be derailed by his sex addiction.
“It’s not just a little dalliance, it’s a lot,” Consuelos says of his character. “It’s incredible how much trouble he tries to get himself into. He’s an equal-opportunity-affair type of guy. It’s ridiculous. It’s really too much fun for one man, one actor to play.”
Much of this season’s plot will deviate from politics, delving into the senators’ personal lives — and those of their aides — as well as their families, several of whom become involved in a reality show called “Real Daughters of DC.”
“In the second season we expanded the universe of characters and built some storylines around the aides and, I hope, we enriched the series by showing these two parallel worlds,” says Trudeau, who writes every episode.
While “Alpha House” debuted last year in a TV landscape full of shows set in DC — “House of Cards,” “Veep,” “Scandal” — Trudeau thinks his series stands out because it’s the lone show in which Barack Obama is President.
“We’re the only show that actually attracts the real world,” he says. “We’re a parallel universe to actual Washington.”
Though “Alpha House” films in New York, the show casts plenty of guests from the Beltway. Sens. John McCain and Elizabeth Warren, Grover Norquist and David Axelrod appear in Season Two.
As Alter puts it, “We’re into authenticity because we think that the understated comedy works better if it’s against a very authentic setting.”