In some ways the 80's show is even more over the top than House of Cards but I only watched season 1 of the US version where they changed the pivotal death scene. It seemed like they were planting the seeds to match the UK series finale, though.

I've seen the older version.

But it's a British one (and they always did some big quality work like Yes, Minister, Monty Pythons, Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy, etc, content wise), but not representative in production values to the modern one.