I don't really have a ton to say about Doctor Who this week, tbh the ~base under siege~ episodes with the guest cast just aren't really my thing. I mean I don't want to sound negative about it, it was definitely a good episode still and actually one of the stronger example of that format (I didn't care for The Hungry Earth or The Almost People two-parters at all, this was definitely a step-up from them for me), but at the same time it's just not the type of episode that I get particularly excited about :shrug:
I've been trying to catch up with season 6 of The Good Wife so that I can watch season 7 live, so far I'm caught up as far as 611
Poor Cary, he seemed to have his wishes on starting up a new firm from the bottom completely ruled over by Alicia, and then Diane. Diane bringing in a load of partners from L&G, and even getting useless Howard back with them as well so that they could move back into her old offices, that was exactly what Cary and Alicia said that they didn't want when it come to making their firm top-heavy with partners who weren't contributing much. It seemed like, as soon as money problems came up, Alicia forgot all about her idealism and just started overruling Cary on everything, while Diane and Kalinda came up with the plan to get Howard back on-board without even discussing it with Alicia and Cary it seemed??
My impression is that the firm is very much being turned into Diane and Alicia's firm, and Diane especially does not view Cary as an equal in the same way that she does Alicia. Note how it seemed to be automatically assumed that Alicia and Diane would move into Diane and Will's old offices, and Cary ends up in David Lee's office, when if anything that should have been Diane's place IMO as Cary and Alicia are the main partners who started up the firm. Moving into L&G offices just seems to make everything extra awkward though, because of course it would be expected for Diane to move into her old office, and Cary was in no position to kick up a fuss, but really I thought that Alicia should have been more sympathetic as to why Cary wouldn't want to move back there. Even if they didn't want to stay in their run-down new offices, they could/should have gone somewhere else for an entirely fresh start
And I got the feeling that the political campaign storyline wasn't a very popular one from everything that I've heard about season 6's reception, but I don't mind it so far. I *did* find it slightly odd how some episodes this season had no legal case at all, but I still like that whole storyline for what it brings out in Alicia's character, especially when she ended up going up against someone like Prady, a really good and genuine opponent who wants to make a difference. I feel like Alicia likes to believe that about herself, but for her the appeal of politics is a whole lot more about power and having control over her life, so in that way the campaign ended up being a lot more revealing than if it was just about us being meant to root for Alicia going up against a completely scummy opponent. I also really enjoyed the moments of political satire, I'm astonished actually that Julianna didn't even get nominated for her work this year, she was fantastic at portraying Alicia's awkwardness in some of those interviews, especially the press release that they had to repeat and she was completely failing at it the second time
I was however disappointed with some of the behind the scenes stuff, the way that Robyn just disappeared for example. If she was just a background worker and unimportant than okay, but early on she was portrayed as being very close to Alicia and Cary, she was the first one willing to put up money for Cary's bail for a start, then after those first two episodes of the season she just completely disappears and doesn't even make an appearance when Cary is dealing with his trial?? If the actress couldn't be there for whatever reason, they should have at least come up with a quick explanation for her absence, Same with Alicia actually on a slightly different note, I don't know if the writers were just trying to make a deliberate point about how wrapped up in her campaign she was getting and she's starting to separate from her colleagues, but it rang false to me that she wouldn't be in court to support her partner when he was facing a lengthy prison sentence, especially considering that she did care enough to represent him at the beginning of the season. I couldn't help wondering if Alicia was avoiding court because they couldn't have Julianna in the same room as Archie, otherwise it seemed odd how Alicia was hugging Cary and was shown to be very supportive one minute, yet was absent from his entire court case and didn't even show up for the verdict. You would have expected the entire team to be there for that at least!
And the storylines with Alicia's kids often felt pretty pointless to me in past seasons, but I liked how early season 6 made use of Grace's religion when Alicia needed to understand how she could use it in court, or when she was running for office. Heh it was hilarious too when Grace and her friends were singing religious songs in her bedroom, while Alicia and Eli were talking ruthless political strategies in the kitchen! I also thought that the moment in her prayer group when Grace is made uncomfortable when the other kids there praise her for ~converting~ her Mom was very effective, after all of Alicia's insistence on not involving their children in Peter's politics, how ironic that it's now her political campaigning that's affecting her children. (It was soooo strange to me that Alicia being an atheist would even matter to voters, but I guess that's something about American politics that I'm missing?) Major eye-roll at Grace showing her Mother's jokey note to a teacher at the school though, that just felt way too contrived to me that she would be THAT dumb, surely it must have occurred to her that a parent writing a note all about knifing a teacher would be made into a really big deal?
And at this point I've pretty much given up on my early hopes for Peter/Alicia heh (and Peter is getting more smarmy and pushy the further he rises in political office), but the appeal of boring Finn is completely lost on me I'm afraid. He just seems like such a straightforward good guy that I don't see his appeal to Alicia at all, nor do I think that they have a lot of chemistry, he always seemed kind of bland and too much of a Boy Scout. I don't like his haircut much either /shallow. But then the sexiest man on the show to me at the moment is Lemond Bishop (well and Cary of course), so it's possible that I just have really dodgy taste in men :P
And I should really stop gossiping about this lol, but
Julianna Margulies says there's no feud with Archie Panjabi She basically says that "There's no animosity on my part...It was shot the way Robert wanted to shoot it", and she suggests that there were scheduling conflicts because of Archie filming The Fall. But then Archie tweeted in response to the article, saying that The Fall wasn't in production at that time (I didn't think it was because I knew that Gillian Anderson has been busy filming Hannibal so far this year), and that she was in New York and ready to film that scene at the time. Umm oops