Billions, Madam Secretary, The Good Wife & The West Wing

Monday March 14 2016

Trivia Answer: Tom Selleck played Richard the optometrist on Friends
First Fives: Elke Raskob, Mike O'Dea, Mark Campinelli, Jim Carter & Ed Ziskind
Honorable Mention: Lance Beitler

THE NUMBERS

Thursday's Broadcast Top 5
Grey's Anatomy-ABC 2.1/7.8
American Idol-FOX 1.7/8.2
Scandal-ABC 1.6/6.3
How To Get Away With Murder-1.4/5.2
NCAA Tournament-CBS 1.3/4.2

Thursday's Cable Top 5
NA

Thursday's Social Media Top 5
How To Get Away With Murder-ABC 116,000 Tweets
American Idol-FOX 102,000 Tweets
Scandal-ABC 79,000 Tweets
Grey's Anatomy-ABC 58,000 Tweets
WWE Smackdown-USA 43,000 Tweets

THE SHOWS

Madam Secretary
I never worry about Elizabeth McCord. Never. She's really an impressive person, isn't she? Plus it's easy to keep it all together when you have Blake doing all the heavy lifting, isn't it? Blake bought the blueberry lemon muffins, (even though, there's know way Tea Leoni eats them in real life) did all the organizing and research for Allison's tour of Rafferty College and even knew prepared for Stevie spontaneously come along. We all need a Blake in our lives, don't we? Blake couldn't have known that there would be protesters at Rafferty though. The Chilean Gold situation got out of hand JUST as the motorcade was leaving for the weekend. Of course he was able to find the leader of the protests' Mommy & Daddy, and get them Skyped in to help solve the problem pretty quick. I think Henry could use Blake over in the White House war room. Blake needs to call over to Olivia Pope and get the number for their sticky window people. Henry's operating with 3 photos on a white board. Not cool for the White House to be so behind in sticky window technology. Do you think Les Moonves sent a note to the writers and said, "bonus for anyone who can weave other CBS shows into their scripts?" Last night, Stephen Colbert & The Amazing Race were both mentioned during Madam Secretary. Double bonus for someone in the Writers Room! 

The Good Wife
Whoa, pretty emotional opening scene with Blair Underwood and his daughter. Didn't see that coming at all. I was pretty surprised by a few things this week on The Good Wife. Alicia's gotten pretty aggressive, hasn't she? The old Alicia would NEVER have handled the Jason thing, the Diane thing, the Cary thing and her Grand Jury testimony so perfectly. Alicia was poised, smart, confident, mature and comfortable. Of course I definitely think she would have handled Grace's plagiarism case regardless of her growth and maturity. Mom's always come through for their kids, especially kids that ran your law firm for free and didn't go to school for months. She really owed Grace SOMETHING, didn't she. I don't think the old Alicia would have unbuckled Jason's pants in a bar with the possibility of Luca Quinn or anyone with a cell phone catching her hand where a woman married to the Governor's hand shouldn't be. Nope, the old Alicia would NEVER do that!  I'm loving this Alicia big time. I'm really going to miss her.


Billions

I know there was a LOT that went on in Billions last night. The Rolls Royce was vandalized, Lara's restaurant was destroyed, her farm was destroyed, there were super annoying protesters at Axe Capital, Chuck lied to Wendy, Don went to see a saint and then died before he could actually help the US Attorney's office out. Axe tried to fix everything with the FDNY, I mean there was a LOT going on last night but all I can still think about this AM was Goose's eyebrows! I can't remember the last time I saw Anthony Edwards but he's not looking good at all. He was bald in ER so it wasn't that, it was those crazy eyebrows! How in the world does a wife or girlfriend, or stylist, or make-up artist or agent or anyone in the guys life, not tell him to do something about those eyebrows? How did he even get hired with those things? So distracting. So wrong. Anthony...do something about those things fast! Maybe those eyebrows are why I can't remember the last thing you were in...because you weren't in anything. BECAUSE OF THOSE EYEBROWS!!! If your friends won't tell you, then I will. I random TV blogger! FIX THEM and I promise, you'll start seeing more and more scripts. Everyone loves Goose! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLzVbz2HHzo 

THE OTHER STUFF

 
-For various reasons, I decided this weekend that I wanted to re-watch all of The West Wing. I've been thinking a lot about the show lately. There's so much political insanity in this country right now and I've never felt less excited to cast my vote than I do right now. I remember watching The West Wing and wishing Jed Bartlett was real. I'm 6 episodes into Season 1 and while I know anyone can just go binge this show at any time, I really think that NBC should consider re-airing the entire series on Friday nights or Saturday nights in Primetime. This coming Friday, "Caught on Camera with Nick Cannon" and "Grimm" is on the schedule. While I was re-watching the show, that feeling came over me that I only get every once-in-a-while. You know what I mean. It's that same feeling I got when I watched Friday Night Lights and Parenthood. Smarter, better, hopeful and in awe. With the exception of the technology used 16 years ago, the show doesn't feel dated at all. We're reminded of just how brilliant  Aaron Sorkin's writing is and how incredible Martin Sheen, John Spencer, Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney, Rob Lowe and Richard Schiff all were. The West Wing was nominated for a Best Drama Emmy every single year it was on the air. It won 4 times. I don't remember feeling it at the time, but The West Wing was (and is) an important show. It should have been required viewing for everyone. If you've never seen it and don't go out on Friday nights, think about watching it for the first time. If you have seen it and don't go out on Friday nights, think about watching it again.      


-If you still subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, you may have seen (and read) the James Corden article this week. In it he explained where the idea for Car Karaoke came from. I hunted it down on YouTube and yes, it's a long clip, and yes I'm not sure who a bunch of the British celebs are in the clip, but there are quite a few you will recognize and it's totally worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq_cwwWcyqQ

- I seem to always watch cooking shows and documentaries on Netflix but never anywhere else. I watched a really interesting documentary on Netflix over the weekend called GRACE. It's the story of Curtis Duffy, a chef in Chicago who recently received a 3 star Micheline rating for his restaurant. Ever since watching, all I want to do is fly to Chicago and fork over my $235 bucks and sit through a dinner there. Anyone ever been? If you're into food or restaurants or your just bored, or trying to watch your spending, stay in one night and watch this one.

-The Passion aired live last night on FOX. I didn't watch it, not my thing at all, but if you wanted to but forgot, or you got distracted by Goose's eyebrows, or the NCAA buzzer beater of the night, no worries, Netflix will have it for you on 3/22. Netflix IS taking over our world. It took over mine all weekend.

Monday's Trivia Question:  Of course I have to ask a West Wing trivia question after my West Wing Weekend...What state was President Bartlett Governor before he became POTUS?


WWTM-Kristy
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