I have a friend who has been bugging me for months now to watch a TV show
called "Scandal". The odd thing is, I have never heard of this show from
any other source. I am pretty sure I have never seen it discussed on this
list, I have never read an article that I can recall about it, never seen a
commercial for it. But apparently it is fairly successful, as it is in its
second season on ABC.
Last week I was home sick and noticed season 1 of this show was on the
Netflix, so I decided to put my friend out of her misery and watch the
first episode. I wound up watching the whole season (7 episodes I think).
I'm not proud of that, and I won't defend it, but there is something kind
of addictive about it in a trashy way. But my point is, while it has a kind
of glossy finish and the superficial appearance of a good show, it is not a
good show. The people on are not smart - they talk fast, as if the writers
had watched a lot of Sorkin episodes and concluded that the way to make
characters sound smart is to have them recite a lot of dialog quickly,
ignoring that the first rule of making characters sound smart is having
them say something that can at least plausibly be mistaken for smart. They
are not interesting, or sexy, or morally or psychologically complex. The
main character is supposed to be amazing and powerful and super competent
and intimidating, but she is really none of those things; instead of making
her a little bit of some of those things, the writers simply make the other
characters tells us they think she is those things, but give us no evidence
to support it. This is not simply a matter of oversimplifying complex work,
or being melodramatic - the characters literally say stupid things ("Man of
the people?" the president says in the first episode of the second season,
you must have talked to <main character's name, which I forget right now>
she is the only one who talks like that". What? I guess if he means the
only political advisor silly and banal enough to advise the president to be
more like Abraham Lincoln is this one dimensional pretender, then I guess
maybe he is right). House of Cards this show ain't.
I know, why am I watching the first episode of the second season if I have
so much disdain for it? Let's just say the friend is also the person I
sleep with, and I am supposed to catch up to watch the rest of it with her
soon. Valentine's Day is coming up after all.
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