Scandal(ized) and Loving It!

It's the age of binging. No, I'm not talking about on food or alcohol, although I’m sure somebody somewhere is binging on one or both of those things. I'm talking about on television. We live in an age where binging on television is the new normal. Not only is binge-worthy television more easily accessible these days, with Netflix, On Demand, online, and complete seasons on DVD, it is highly entertaining and addictively watchable. When you're fortunate enough to latch on to a series that makes you want to skip meals and sleep, choosing instead to watch the next episode, then you've struck television gold in your quest for your next great binge. My latest is Scandal.

The rapid fire sound of a clicking camera shutter snapshots images across the screen, giving me the sense that someone is always watching. The camera slowly pans the scene, alternating between clear and prism distorted shots. Scandal has a look and style all its own. For me, these stylistic choices mimic the idea that someone is always watching, but what did they actually see. I don't know what took me so long to join the masses in watching this series of sex and politics, but I'm thankful that I no longer have to shake my head apologetically or shrug my shoulders unaware when it comes to Olivia Pope references or articles written about Bellamy Young's portrayal of First Lady, Mellie Grant. I am now in the know and couldn't be happier to be an attendee at the gladiator party.

Let me start by saying Shonda Rhimes is a genius. She has created, with Scandal, a television show that appeals to me even more than Grey's Anatomy did when it was fresh and new. Scandal is a political drama with enough thrills, sex, romance, power hungry politicians, and yes, scandals, to fill a six month quota in just one episode. It’s never boring. I am constantly intrigued and never surprised when I find myself shocked. There's a level of anxiety that hovers in the room when I watch. The story lines can take any twist or turn during a given episode, but those twists and turns always feel right. The brilliant writers know how to give enough backstory to leave you wanting more, while answering questions you didn’t even know you wanted the answers to. They know how to shock you and they know when to give you the payoff. I am never sure what to expect, but being open-mouthed (jaw to the floor) is an expression my face has gotten used to.

When you watch a show called Scandal you expect there to be plenty of what the title suggests. You will not be disappointed. There are scandals that last an episode, scandals that span the season, and one major, overarching series scandal that looms over everyone’s head. However, the show is about so much more than the sum of its scandals. 

Kerry Washington's character, Olivia Pope is a “fixer,” a crisis manager. Her job is to fix the problem. And manage her client’s problem she will, even if she can’t manage her own. She runs Pope & Associates, a collective of lawyers, sleuths, and hackers who help her help the client. There's quite a bit of dysfunction between these characters, but the same can be said of any family. And that’s what the characters who work at Pope & Associates are, a family. For that matter so are the characters who work in the White House. All of their paths cross, their lives overlap. They know each other as much as they allow themselves to be known. Sometimes they work together as a team. Sometimes they work against each other. There is a desire among these characters to take care of one another, but there is also a willingness to hurt each other for the greater good. The question of who can you trust is always in the air and friendships seem only as deep as Olivia Pope's Prada bag. 

If the scandals make the show interesting, it’s the characters that make the show compelling. The storytelling is so engaging, the scenes so well acted, that the machinations of the political figures that thrive and breathe in Scandal's Washington, D.C. make me question what childish plots and crafty schemes our real life politicians keep hidden.

Scandal is delicious and just as good as all your friends keep telling you it is. It rightfully earns its People Magazine praise as "TV's juiciest drama." I don’t want to give anything away. I want you to experience for yourself the political intrigue as it unfolds in all its breathless, sordid detail. The search for your next great binge is over. Pour yourself a glass of wine. "It's handled."

This piece also appears on HuffPost TV

Oh, the Addictive Powers of Those Pretty Little Liars

This piece originally appeared on Huffington Post Entertainment

If you’re a TV junkie like I am then you live for good television A series that entertains, challenges, and whets your appetite for more as each episode ends. I love a densely woven serial like Lost or a juicy prime time soap opera like Revenge or the revived continuation of Dallas. That said, almost every part of me feels I should hang my head in shame at this confession. I’ve got a new addiction, and I can’t seem to feed it enough. My name is Michael, and I’m addicted to Pretty Little Liars. I have fallen under its spell completely.

It’s a whodunit story that reminds me of the first season of Desperate Housewives crossed with the texting, fashion, and snark of Gossip Girl splashed with a smattering of Twin Peaks; a teen-bent soap opera filled with secrets, forbidden love, and teen angst. It brims with beautiful girls wearing beautiful clothes and hot guys who find themselves shirtless--if you're lucky. It's also a creep-fest filled with shadow lurkers and dark, stormy nights. Who you can trust is constantly changing, but betrayal is always on the agenda. The cliffhanger is alive and well and perfectly executed at the end of each episode.

On a recent trip to Boston, I found myself with a free afternoon. Flipping through the channels, I discovered a marathon of PLL airing on ABC Family. I decided to watch. That decision proved to be one that would hook me and reel me in. When I returned home from that trip I promptly bought seasons one and two. I devoured them. I’ve been eating, drinking, breathing the goings on in Rosewood, Pennsylvania. The backlog of ignored recordings on my DVR stretches back four weeks.

On the outside the fictional town of Rosewood looks exactly how you might expect a quaint Pennsylvania town to look--white painted churches, manicured lawns, pristine town square. But under the cover of darkness, the shadow of secrecy seems to be twisting its tendrils deeper into this town, entwining the residents in an endless search for a murderer. The victim, poor little mean girl, Alison DiLaurentis. It seems many had a grudge against her, but the finger-pointing to her killer is in constant flux. Aria Montgomery, Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin, and Emily Fields are the friends Alison left behind; the girls most devastated by her death, and the ones working overtime as amateur sleuths to solve the crime.

The secrets extend farther to include more than the ones surrounding Alison’s murder. Each family has secrets--each girl has secrets--and the mysterious “A” knows them all. Does God have a rival in the omnipresent department? We all have secrets, but in Rosewood the secrets are under constant threat of exposure and always seem to get revealed.

I admit the conclusions reached by the Liars can often be predictable, but let’s face it, the girls are in high school, (albeit unlike any I went to high school with) and they’re quick to assume the wrong answer. We all know what they say about people who assume. I’ve had many an eye roll moment as I watched them get it wrong time and again. The plot twists, however, are consistently surprising. Honestly, the show is a lot of fun. As the series progresses the dialogue gets sharper, the one-liners funnier. If you give it a chance you might find yourself thoroughly entertained. And that’s what it’s all about isn’t it, entertainment? Don’t give up on it. Embrace it as a guilty pleasure. Just get ready for the withdrawals because when you have no new episodes to watch, waiting is an itch for which there’s no fix.

Stop hiding in the shadows PLL junkies. Somebody out there probably knows you’re watching anyway. As the theme song says, “Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.” -A