I usually try to stifle the amount of politics that comprises my news diet -- if only because I find I'm a less irate person that way, and my hair doesn't turn silver so quickly. But it's also because I trust HBO to cherry-pick the most notable news of the time and spin it into a overwrought melodrama, complete with Oscar-caliber talent. And House of Saddam, the pay-cabler's latest outing in political soaps -- premieres just in time to mark the two-year anniversary of the brutal dictator's death.

It seems like an unfair burden falls on Saddam Hussein's first wife, played by Shohreh Aghdashloo (who narrowly lost an Oscar to Renée Zellweger) to humanize the Hussein bloodline, which otherwise appears split into sycophants and psychopaths. And while Yigal Naor (last seen in 2005's Munich) plays Hussein to icy precision, a context for the character's pathology seems lacking, predictably pandering to the Hussein's signature barbarianism instead of delving into his moral relativism. And let's face it, that's the only reason why viewers would commit four hours of their lives to reliving the life and times of the despot.

Despite being a serviceable soap, elementary black-and-white characterization and gratuitous stock news footage cheapen it to something that makes it less HBO and more History Channel. So unless you have a burning curiosity to see how Hussein's histrionics would play out in a world imagined by someone who no doubt drew upon 24 as a muse, give this one a pass and let Christiane Amanpour educate you instead.