House of Cards (Season 1)

House of Cards (1990) is a sharp BBC political thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Tory chief whip Francis Urquhart has just been passed over for a Cabinet post. So he smiles at the Prime Minister, shakes his hand, and quietly starts engineering his downfall.

Urquhart works by misdirection. He leaks to the press, turns rivals against each other, and grooms young reporter Mattie Storin as both a confidante and a disposable tool. Anyone standing between him and Number 10 becomes collateral. Every so often he turns to the camera with his trademark line: "You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment."

Ian Richardson plays him with reptilian charm, a performance that set the template for the TV political villain. Director Paul Seed adapted the four-part story from a novel by Michael Dobbs, once a Conservative Party chief of staff, and decades later it spawned the American remake with Kevin Spacey. The original is colder and crueler. Stream House of Cards (1990) online on iFILM.