Genius Bonus: The King's public statements that action must be taken by the government on poverty, and his tours of stricken areas, are similar to those of Edward VIII during his time as Prince of Wales and his brief reign in the 1930s.
Harsher in Hindsight: To Play The King has an incident where a gas explosion kills 70 people in a council tower block in London. It's eerily similar to the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster, down to the press showing the monarch catching the public mood and the prime minister as cold and distant.
Michael Samuels is described as 'too young' to be Prime Minister, and played by an actor who was in his late 40s. While the series was being broadcast, John Major became Prime Minister at the age of 47 (though he appeared older, thanks to his prematurely grey hair). Seven years later, Tony Blair was 43 when he became PM.
Roger O'Neill dies in a bathroom. After Corey Stoll played Roger's counterpart Peter Russo in the US series, he went on to play the villan Yellowjacket in Ant-Man, where he kills a man named Frank, a diminutive of Francis, in a bathroom.
The show having the Queen die in the 90s can be this considering she lived another 30 years after this series, passing away in 2022... just after a Tory leadership contest which determined the new Prime Minister.
Though the timeline is ambiguous, if the "four straight wins" comment were to hold, that would imply that Thatcher stuck around until 1992-1994. If this were the case, Urquhart's gambit in the final series (chasing oil rights off of Cyprus) would be playing out in about 2007...amid what was, at the time, the biggest oil price squeeze since the 1970s.
Magnificent Bastard: Francis Urquhart plots, schemes, manipulates and backstabs his way up the political chain in the hopes of becoming Prime Minister; remaining above suspicion among all of his colleagues. He does it with class, skill and style, all the while giving conspiratorial No Fourth Wall asides to the audiences, explaining his thoughts on his opponents and next steps. He commits terrible deeds, frequently exposing scandals of rivals and supposed friends, manipulating others into doing his bidding and in some cases resorts to outright murder to get his way. Urquhart ends up as Prime Minister, determined to remain in office longer than even Margaret Thatcher, a goal which he absolutely achieves by the end, showing himself no less a cultured player of the grand game in the office as he was outside it. Even after his assassination, his machinations have ensured he will be remembered as a beloved figure in British history, his true villainy always concealed beneath his one signature line: "You may very well think that. I could not possibly comment."
Urquhart's murder of Mattie, which haunts him for the remaining two series.
The country considers the Cypriot massacre in series three to be this, leading to a complete reversal of Urquhart's approval rating, his abandonment by supporters and subordinates, and a call for resignation by Parliament en masse.
Never Live It Down: Mattie's screwed up Elektra Complex and calling Francis "Daddy". She doesn't do it until the third episode of the first series and not very often, though the fact that it was her last word probably didn't help.
Squick: Some of the relationships in the series have a rather wide age difference. Mattie Storin and Urquhart's sexual relationship — he is old enough to be her father (Ian Richardson and Susannah Harker were 56 and 25 at the time of filming), but they still end up in bed. It is implied that Mattie has an Elektra complex: she refers to Urquhart as "Daddy" many times.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Urquhart is a dick, who does dickish things to gain and stay in power, and skates away untouched from all consequences, while the one person who could stop him quickly crumbles into a useless, weepy mess who gets chucked off a roof. It's a bit hard to care what happens.
The series is firmly fixed to the early 1990s in its pre-occupations. The original four-parter House of Cards is based around the idea of replacing Margaret Thatcher (she resigned around the time the series was broadcast) and is full of the pre-occupations (not to mention fashions) of the late '80s/early '90s, including shoulder pads, sleazy tabloid journalism and cocaine. It's also dated by the assumption that a man as old as Francis Urquart was likely to become Prime Minister since it was still an era when PMs were expected to be well over fifty (John Major, in his late '40s when he became PM, attracted comments about how "young" he was to hold such an office). The 1993 sequel, To Play the King, is also something of a period piece thanks to the music (2 Unlimited) and politics (one character is a gay royal aide who's terrified of coming out, presumably because it would end his career; mass homelessness is portrayed as a new and shocking thing).
The satire on Thatcherism is very 1980s. (Uniquely by a Conservative, and one who worked for her.)
Newspapers featuring headlines about a Conservative politician having a 'pro-gay' stance seem positively quaint, now that only a minority of people are against equality.
Viewed now, the utter lack of any Internet-related modes of communication is striking. Newspapers are purely hard copy, and personal communication is via land line telephone or letter.
The Woobie: Several of Urquhart's targets become very tragic figures thanks to his manipulations.
The Collingridge brothers have their flaws but they really care for each other and are decent people. FU exploits their defects and makes them miserable.
Roger O'Neill harrowing pathetic demise and the ensuing breakdown suffered by Penny are hard to swallow.
where a gas explosion kills 70 people in a council tower block in London. It's eerily similar to the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster