Mandel keeps the tone light (up to a point) and the energy high, and the expansive cast includes actors with comic bona fides Ike Barinholtz, Domhnall Gleeson, and Gary Cole, most of whom show up to steal a scene or two before disappearing back into the fabric of the story. ... It's Harrelson and Theroux's show, however, and both skillfully perform the tightrope act needed to keep the series funny without ignoring the gravity of the events it depicts.

White House Plumbers doesn’t feel pointless. The show’s ensemble cast is electric, and there’s a surprising amount of visual style to boot. Theroux and Harrelson are both stellar, but it’s the show’s delicate depiction of their characters’ real-life buffoonery that will jolt and delight both history-class dropouts and Watergate buffs alike.

While sometimes White House Plumbers finds it hard to satirize what is already ridiculous at face value, it still gets off some big laughs and is bolstered by the performances of Harrelson and Theroux.

Plenty of good work here. But one is left with the feeling there’s a terrific two-hour movie buried beneath this uneven five-part series.

Watergate meets “Veep” in “White House Plumbers,” an at-times-surreal HBO limited series that occasionally feels a little too over the top, mostly because the real-life characters actually were. At its best, it’s a lightweight companion to “All the President’s Men,” presenting the flip side of all that planning and frantic covering up by what amounted to Keystone Criminals.

It seems to lack a clear identity or a clear sense of what it is. It looks the part, and the talent involved is undeniable, but somehow the chemistry is off and the parts don’t fit together. These on-screen dirty tricks just aren’t quite dirty enough.

In the end, White House Plumbers takes itself a touch too seriously to succeed as a farce but draws its characters too broadly to achieve any real pathos.