Waiting for results on Election Day can be an agonizing process–even before polls start closing. If you’re climbing up the walls waiting for news (your humble blogger is mainlining The Good Wife), here’s the definitive guide to how to distract yourself until the buzz about exit polls has died down and hard data starts coming in, depending on what flavor of Election Day Crazy is plaguing you.

If you’re: Getting burnt from your GOTV efforts.
Watch: You’re probably pretty busy, but grab S2E22 of Parks and Recreation
Why: If Leslie Knope can gut out the worst block of a diabetes telethon in Pawnee, all while Tom Haverford’s absconded with Detlef Schrempf, we can make it through a single day of turnout when the stakes are higher and where people only have to sacrifice their time, not their money.

If you’re: An atmospherically disillusioned Obama voter.
Watch: Definitely, Maybe
Why: I know, I know. Definitely, Maybe is my personal Swiss Army Knife of romantic comedies. But seriously. If you were swept up in the hope-y, change-y thing and are considering staying home today because you’re discouraged (rather than because you are, say, disappointed in Obama on an issue area and yet inexplicably see no daylight between him and Mitt Romney: I have no ideas for you), watch Definitely, Maybe as a reminder that the road of apathy runs through terrible Chinese food, jobs in the advertising industry, and ill-advised marriages. Save yourself. Watch this. Then hit the polls.

If you’re: The racialized run-up to Election Day drove you nuts
Watch: The Man (1972)
Why: James Earl Jones starred in this TV movie, available from Netflix that addresses the question of what it would take for a black man to convince America of his legitimacy as president. The movie’s more optimistic than reality, set in a world where a black president could intervene in apartheid, for example, as part of that legitimizing campaign. But post Jay-Z’s appearance on behalf of the Obama campaign yesterday, it’s a nice thought experiment in what this election would be like if we’d started this work forty years earlier.

If you’re: Sick of horserace coverage
Watch: Marathon the British miniseries of State of Play
Why: Actually, there are a lot of great wishful thinking reasons to want to watch State of Play. There are Britishly excellent lawmakers calling BS on climate scientists who’ve been bought by the energy industry, political flacks telling the lawmakers they represent how disgusted they are by them, and lots of parliamentary note-passing. But most importantly, it’s a look at what it might be like to cover a scandal that actually has implications for the character of the people involved. Also, it’s six hours.

If you’re: Wondering how Hillary Clinton would be doing if she were fighting for her second term.
Watch: Catch up on Political Animals
Why: I’m sorry we’re only getting one installment of the USA Network miniseries. But Sigourney Weaver is great as Elaine Barrish, a former First Lady who lost her shot at the Presidency to a younger, hipper flavor of candidate, then swallowed her pride, went to work in his administration, and dumped her husband’s cheating ass. Silly? Sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s not brain candy.

If you’re: More worried about Congress than the Presidential election
Watch: Wait until Friday and see Lincoln
Why: At its best, it’s an incredibly impressive, funny movie about what it takes to get ephochal legislation passed, with, among other amazing bits of casting, John Hawkes and Jame Spader as the first lobbyists. And as brilliant, hardline Republican Thaddeus Stevens, Tommy Lee Jones will make you wish that the House of Representatives was both less civil and much, much more articulate.

Megan McArdle shares a lament with some of us here about Homeland‘s errors in Washington, D.C. geography:

The anomalies started small. A marine sergeant and his young wife seemed to be living in a fairly sizeable ranch house on a large lot located fairly close to Washington, a configuration that I am not sure exists–but which I am really quite sure is not available on at E-6 pay grades. A terror suspect was described by a CIA officer as living in “Truxton Circle”, a neighborhood which happens to be just southwest of ours. However, the appellation is a new one, and since both Truxton Circle and my own beloved Eckington are both on the outer frontier of gentrification, I can testify from personal experience that it’s highly unlikely that a CIA officer who lives in Virginia would be able to name the neighborhood; if he called it anything, it would far more likely be something like “way the fuck over on New York Avenue”. Furthermore, if he did somehow manage to apprehend that a suspect’s address was in “Truxton Circle”, anyone he reported this to would respond with a puzzled stare. Right now, the area is known less by its name than by its notorious housing projects.

We will not even ask why someone who is supposed to be teaching at one of our fine local universities–all of which are located west of 20th street NW–would be living miles away in an area that is at least an hour from work via public transportation.

This is true in all cities, but there’s an extent to which geography is destiny. And failing to understand the geography of Washington, D.C. is to fail to understand how power in the city works. Megan’s right, of course, that Farragut Square is fairly small, and that people don’t necessarily linger there. But it also gets very busy during lunchtime, particularly during the summer when it’s surrounded by lunch trucks, and it’s close to the Old Executive Office Building, which means that some of the people who go there during lunch are reasonably important. That, combined with the closeness of the space, and its proximity to two major Metro stations, means that a targeted, powerful attack there could be even more devastating than the one depicted in the show.

More broadly, not getting that the Brodys might not be able to afford the house that they have means that the show doesn’t entirely get how running for office and getting plugged into Washington’s power elite would change the family’s lives. Not knowing, for example, as the remake of State of Play didn’t, that Georgetown doesn’t have the Metro means you don’t know what it means for a young congressional aide to live there, to pay the extra rent, to have a car or schlep on the bus. Not getting the shifting dynamic of neighborhoods, the social realignment of the city, is to be stuck telling stories about the Washington that was, and may yet be. Not to understand that people in Washington are powerful but not as wealthy as the most powerful people in New York or Los Angeles is not to understand the particularities of the elite here — it’s not that there aren’t members of the 1 percent, lobbyists make bank, but proximity is more important than acquisition, and certainly more important than style. Motivations matter. And geography can be a measure of what someone — or a city — thinks counts.

I’ve said this before: the British miniseries State of Play is one of the all-time great pop culture looks at journalism and a fantastic murder mystery. And I’m saying it again because BBC America is airing the original, starting tonight, and you’re nuts if you watch anything else this evening — particularly because it gives us a chance to erase the memory of the totally mediocre American remake.

State of Play is one of the only cinematic explorations of journalism that works, precisely because it gets at how drawn-out the process of nailing down a good story is. Nailing down two murders, a corruption narrative, and a story about political maneuvering takes five reporters, with five different sets of sources. The story emphasizes that it takes different skills to work with disenfranchised residents of council housing than it does to massage a prime minister or browbeat a corporate executive. And State of Play recognizes the costs of doing that kind of work, of having a fidelity to the truth that overrides relationships or practical accommodations. How far can you pursue a story when you’re an editor with a wife who needs expensive medical care? What kind of person do you become when you subordinate past and future romantic relationships to your needs as a journalist? How justified is it to worry about your personal safety when you’re in pursuit of a story of national importance? It’s a vision of crusading journalism that’s unglamorous and deeply human, that recognizes that not everyone can bear the costs. Reporters like Cal McCaffrey are the elect not because they’re capable of goodness, but because they’re capable of its inverse.

It’s also a thrilling and effective look at the power and hollowness of political theater. We all love the idea of Congressional hearings where honest lawmakers take down corrupt witnesses, or noble witnesses reveal the pretentions and vanity of preening lawmakers, but State of Play shows us the choreography that goes into the rare moments when something like that happens. If you’ve ever wanted to see a political wife do something other than stand placidly by her erring husband, State of Play will let you watch one stick a knife in and twist it. And if you want to know what it’s like to be the press flack for some truly disgusting people, Michael Feast is pure acid as a man pushed to his absolute limit by the lies he’s supposed to tell.

This is not a comforting story. It’s not an argument that the political system is purifiable, or that the truth will set you free. State of Play is an argument for doing the best we possibly can, recognizing the costs that other people will pay to keep the rest of us as honest as possible. I don’t know that a standard that depressing is ultimately the one we should really be setting. But it’s probably worth acknowledging that in our present environment, it’s often harder and less rewarding to do the right thing, and we shouldn’t make false promises to the people who want to do it.