Nader, prospective Attorney General (on screen cameo) Robert Redford, prospective Secretary of the Interior Jim Hightower, prospective Secretary of Agriculture Studs Terkel, prospective Secretary of Labor (on screen cameo) Gloria Steinem, prospective Secretary of Health and Human Services (on screen cameo) Joan Claybrook, prospective Secretary of Transportation Nicholas von Hoffman, prospective Chairman of the Federal Reserve Barbara Jordan, prospective Ambassador to the United Nations Art Buchwald, prospective Ambassador to France (on screen cameo) Episodes Home media The miniseries was produced and first broadcast on Home Box Office, scheduled irregularly over the real-life seven-month campaigning period from February through August 1988. In 2004, the Sundance Channel rebroadcast the series, adding new one- to two-minute preludes created by Trudeau and Altman to each episode "in which the actors reflect, in character, on the '88 campaign from the perspective of the present day". That October, Sundance produced a four episode sequel, Tanner on Tanner. In 2020, Tanner '88 was added to HBO Max. Production The hybrid of fiction and reality that came to be the miniseries' trademark was initially accidental. Trudeau described the concept behind the miniseries as wanting to "let the audience feel they're eavesdropping, to create a sense of authenticity by observing the process, to follow campaign culture in all its tribal rites—not to make a topical movie about 1988." Tanner evolved during production, becoming, as Altman put it, "two-thirds scripted and one-third found art". Trudeau and Altman intended to make more episodes, but HBO did not extend the run of the series. Reception and influence Reviews for the miniseries seem to improve over time. In one of the earliest reviews of the pilot episode, The New York Times called the show an "interesting misfire" that "insists too much on its own sophistication about politics". The same paper held the second episode in higher esteem, calling it "humorous cinéma vérité" that's "slick and occasionally witty". In its "Best of 1988" look at television, Time magazine called it: "the year's definitive satire of media politics". In a 2003 review of K Street, the New York Daily News said "Tanner skewer[s] brilliantly the insanity and inanity of presidential politics". By 2004, Slate was saying: While the two shows are stylistically very different, Aaron Sorkin has acknowledged that Tanner had an influence on The West Wing, which he created over a decade later, in its underlying idealism and in its view of political staffers