I don’t think I usually look at the credits of a Netflix series as they flow past me, except perhaps to look at the names of the lead actors. But, I guess, I don’t ignore them completely, and if something familiar passes by, it appears that my mind reacts and says to the rest of me, “What was that?” This is what happened last night when we watched the first two episodes of Bodkin, promoted as an Irish noir comedy thriller. I said “What was that?” to myself because it looked like I saw the names of Barack and Michelle Obama flash by. I backtracked and, yes indeedy, there they were, listed as Executive Producers.

What do Executive Producers do? My guess is that no two Executive Producers do the same thing in the same way, but Google AI says about the Obamas and Bodkin: “While they did not write, direct, or physically film they show, they championed and greenlit the project, helping it land on the streaming platform as part of their broader creative partnership with Netflix.” They did this through their company Higher Ground Productions. Nice work if you can get it.

Well, maybe I previously heard that the Obamas had started a production company, but I didn’t know that was going to have a partnership with Netflix, and I certainly did not know that it was going to sponsor Irish noir comedy thrillers, like Bodkin, a show with some entertainment value, to be sure, but no value beyond that.

Now, when this show first was seen on Netflix, the reviews were not all positive. For example, the Irish Times review said “Yet another entry in the worst genre ever – the Irish rural picaresque where booze flows, nuns scowl. A deeply annoying show that thinks it is critiquing cliches about Ireland when actively adding to the stockpile. Let’s ignore it and hope it goes away.”

The Irish Independent, on the other hand, said that the show might at first seem to be a bit of paddywhackery, but it turns out to be a “deliciously offbeat concoction of the intentionally silly and the sinister that delights in setting up more shamrock-laden cliches than you can shake a shillelagh at, and then gleefully shredding them.”

Digression: I keep thinking that I should keep a record of the first time I use a word in this blog. I can search and check before I do. Maybe one new word a day. Today: paddywhackery. End of digression.

In any event, what do the Obamas do as executive producers, at least of this series? Anything but lend their names? What makes that any different from Trump lending his name to a building or a bottle of vodka?

And let me add this, Obamas. You would have been better off paying a little more attention to the external architecture of your presidential library. The interior may be great, but where is Moshe Safdie when you need him?

By the way, I think the same about the Lyndon Johnson library, which is also great on the inside.

The Trump library will be different.

Of course, it will be placed in the laundry room on the 53rd floor of a hotel.

Speaking of libraries, there is a nice looking one in Episode 2 of Bodkin. It is a Carnegie Library. If the Obamas had paid attention while they were executive producing, the south side of Chicago may have looked better today.

By the way, did anyone watch the White House fights last night? Did everyone walk away in one piece? As for me? I was watching Bodkin.