The Good Wife

Discuss TV shows old and new.
Post Reply
Message
Author
Nothing
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:04 am

The Good Wife

#1 Post by Nothing » Sat May 21, 2011 1:23 am

OMG was just subjected to the anti-Chavez propaganda episode of The Good Wife... Knew Ridley Scott was a rightwing douche, but this is taking it to another level. A happy conclusion is thankfully provided when their uber-rich oil-mining client (sympathetic because he has a bad heart, you see) screws $86m out of the Venezuelan people, a fee that has been doubled due to our hero law film's "dictator surcharge". Worse is that most Americans will actually buy this shit.

User avatar
matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: TV of 2011

#2 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat May 21, 2011 1:57 am

Hah, the rightwing press were bitching that the show treated Chavez like a joke instead of a 'ruthless dictator'. I doubt Scott has much to do with it- from what I've heard, he rarely gets involved with the show except on a visual level, and executive producers rarely do much with storylines- but yeah, that episode was just embarrassing. The show didn't even seem to expect the audience to be able follow its Deep Political Points (Venezuela is eeeevil!)

Chavez isn't my favorite South American political figure (I'm an Evo Morales man) but calling him a dictator (from the country that brought you Friend to Democracy Pinochet) is pathetic, treating nationalization as theft is uh maybe a little bit reductive, and playing him the way South Park played Hussein just makes the whole thing seem like even they knew it was a bad idea. At best, it was weird, dumb, and pointless. At worst, it was a piece of attempted propaganda so shitty they couldn't even get the message across clearly, the one thing the Right is good at.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: The Good Wife

#3 Post by domino harvey » Sun Sep 22, 2013 7:34 pm

Does anyone watch this show? I've seen it popping up a lot lately with regards to all the Emmy coverage and a lot of beat writers are talking it up as some thematically dense network drama that's going unnoticed by the public at large. The viewing commitment seems pretty daunting at this point and even if it was amazing it'd be at least a dozen deep behind whatever other TV shows I've got lined up to get through, but I'm curious all the same

User avatar
Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: The Good Wife

#4 Post by Matt » Sun Sep 22, 2013 11:05 pm

It's a very enjoyable, classic network drama. It's not like your quality cable shows, but it's also not trying to be. It works within the confines of the network drama form and does it very well. The cast is great and the guest stars are even greater (plus all the appearances by The Wire alums).

Yes, catching up will require a significant time commitment due to the long network seasons, but it's worth it. The show is smart about technology and social media, which cannot be said about most TV dramas. The first season has some rough patches and moves a little slowly, but it finds its rhythm in the second season.

The episode discussed above was kind of dumb, but it's a blip in an otherwise very good run of episodes.

User avatar
Lost Highway
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:41 am
Location: Berlin, Germany

Re: The Good Wife

#5 Post by Lost Highway » Tue Dec 05, 2017 4:51 pm

I loved The Good Wife. It was great comfort TV in an old school network drama style and yet it was very sophisticated in terms of characterization and in the way it dealt with modern technology like social media and its ethical challenges.

Now I’ve watched the first season of its spin-off The Good Fight and it may be even better. It puts its most compelling actor Christine Baranski at the centre and puts her in a predominantly African American law firm. Those too daunted by working their way all the way through 7 seasons of The Good Wife could start here. A lot of the recurring characters from the original series are ported over too including my favourite, Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tasconi. She deserves her own spin off, she is like a female version of Columbo.

Post Reply