100 TV Shows- #83-Entourage, #84-The Good Wife.
Two for the "I tried, I really tried" file.
Entourage
I came for the show-business snark and especially for Jeremy Piven, playing Ari Gold, based on Ari Emmanuel, brother of Rahm Emmanuel. Made it through three seasons on Netflix. LOVED ARI! (And LLoyd.) Hated everybody else, especially Turtle. Like skin-crawling hatred. I really couldn't stand most of Drama's plotlines, as someone who'd had show-biz dreams and got out early...the stuff was just so painful and cringe-worthy. I loved Ari when he was winning, but couldn't stand watching any scenes where the character was being humiliated or hurt or just not winning. If I'd been able to watch alone, I might have kept going, but it's one of those shows that Hubby didn't love enough to stick with and his dislike also rubbed off. The cameos just weren't enough to keep going when I wasn't enjoying it on my own.
Still love Ari though...and I tried to love that one of the other Gold brothers exists in a fictional space....
Which brings us to:
The Good Wife
I came to the show pretty much only for Eli Gold, a/k/a Rahm Emmanuel, political BAMF, especially as played by Alan Cummings, knowing I'd have to get through the whole first season before he even showed up. I figured it would be OK...Legal drama and all that. (See my post on LA LAW)
It started out OK. Then Eli showed up and it got really good...until things started bugging me. A LOT.
First of all, I always felt Alicia had WAY more chemistry with Peter than with Will, so the whole UST thing never did anything for me and it did even less when they actually did it. Her "using Peter for sex" scenes were 100% hotter than anything that went on with Will, especially the big elevator scene.
This made it impossible for me to see Peter as the BAD GUY, no matter how much the show tried to tell me he was. It just made Will more of a hypocritical jerk. I started to be happy when bad things happened to him. (I did like him with Diane and could have shipped it, if given a chance.)
The Good Stuff
Peter/Alicia
Kalinda/Alicia
Kalinda/Almost everyone
Diane/Kurt
Every line out of David Lee's snarky mouth.
Lemond Bishop
Colin Sweeney
Elsbeth Tascioni
And Eli-UNTIL THEY RUINED HIM.
The Bad Stuff
"Ripped from the headlines."
The kids!
Louis Canning
The UGLY SHIT THAT KILLED THE SHOW FOR ME.
Basically all of Season 4 , especially the Kalinda/Nick horror show. Marc Warren a/k/a the guy who appears in every single British TV show, ever, showed up and ... it was awful. The writing was the worst thing I've ever seen. I'm good with angst. I'm good with abuse. I'm good with sexual obsession. Somehow they took all of that and ended up making me hate everyone involved and not really feel sorry for Kalinda. What made it worse was watching in real time from DVR as opposed to just whipping through the first 3 seasons on DVD. So we'd wait for it go get better and it never did. It wasn't hot. It wasn't sexy. It wasn't fun...the ice cream scene haunted me for weeks in how bad it was compared to whatever they thought they were accomplishing. BLECH!
The final insult: Eli in bed with THAT WOMAN! Not his ex. Not Natalie. Not Alicia. Not ANY of the other awesome women (or men) on the show that I would have loved him to have sex with. And not even a dignified sex scene. The fact that MY BAMF Rahm-esque Eli had to have a stupid, silly, libido killing encounter with one of the worst characters on the show was the end.
Didn't watch another episode.
I did get a very nice Yuletide story in 2012, which can be found HERE>
Entourage
Click to viewI came for the show-business snark and especially for Jeremy Piven, playing Ari Gold, based on Ari Emmanuel, brother of Rahm Emmanuel. Made it through three seasons on Netflix. LOVED ARI! (And LLoyd.) Hated everybody else, especially Turtle. Like skin-crawling hatred. I really couldn't stand most of Drama's plotlines, as someone who'd had show-biz dreams and got out early...the stuff was just so painful and cringe-worthy. I loved Ari when he was winning, but couldn't stand watching any scenes where the character was being humiliated or hurt or just not winning. If I'd been able to watch alone, I might have kept going, but it's one of those shows that Hubby didn't love enough to stick with and his dislike also rubbed off. The cameos just weren't enough to keep going when I wasn't enjoying it on my own.
Still love Ari though...and I tried to love that one of the other Gold brothers exists in a fictional space....
Which brings us to:
The Good Wife
I came to the show pretty much only for Eli Gold, a/k/a Rahm Emmanuel, political BAMF, especially as played by Alan Cummings, knowing I'd have to get through the whole first season before he even showed up. I figured it would be OK...Legal drama and all that. (See my post on LA LAW)
It started out OK. Then Eli showed up and it got really good...until things started bugging me. A LOT.
First of all, I always felt Alicia had WAY more chemistry with Peter than with Will, so the whole UST thing never did anything for me and it did even less when they actually did it. Her "using Peter for sex" scenes were 100% hotter than anything that went on with Will, especially the big elevator scene.
This made it impossible for me to see Peter as the BAD GUY, no matter how much the show tried to tell me he was. It just made Will more of a hypocritical jerk. I started to be happy when bad things happened to him. (I did like him with Diane and could have shipped it, if given a chance.)
The Good Stuff
Peter/Alicia
Kalinda/Alicia
Kalinda/Almost everyone
Diane/Kurt
Every line out of David Lee's snarky mouth.
Lemond Bishop
Colin Sweeney
Elsbeth Tascioni
And Eli-UNTIL THEY RUINED HIM.
The Bad Stuff
"Ripped from the headlines."
The kids!
Louis Canning
The UGLY SHIT THAT KILLED THE SHOW FOR ME.
Basically all of Season 4 , especially the Kalinda/Nick horror show. Marc Warren a/k/a the guy who appears in every single British TV show, ever, showed up and ... it was awful. The writing was the worst thing I've ever seen. I'm good with angst. I'm good with abuse. I'm good with sexual obsession. Somehow they took all of that and ended up making me hate everyone involved and not really feel sorry for Kalinda. What made it worse was watching in real time from DVR as opposed to just whipping through the first 3 seasons on DVD. So we'd wait for it go get better and it never did. It wasn't hot. It wasn't sexy. It wasn't fun...the ice cream scene haunted me for weeks in how bad it was compared to whatever they thought they were accomplishing. BLECH!
The final insult: Eli in bed with THAT WOMAN! Not his ex. Not Natalie. Not Alicia. Not ANY of the other awesome women (or men) on the show that I would have loved him to have sex with. And not even a dignified sex scene. The fact that MY BAMF Rahm-esque Eli had to have a stupid, silly, libido killing encounter with one of the worst characters on the show was the end.
Didn't watch another episode.
I did get a very nice Yuletide story in 2012, which can be found HERE>