...but why must the show go on?

[selenak]

Am I ever glad I abandoned The Good Wife and my emotional investment in same before all of this went down, because the latest PR attempt to deal with a certain actors-in-the-same-room related disaster completely backfires as the Kings attempt to deflect the questions as if they'd never done an interview before. Seriously, guys, "no comment" would have been better than "to be clear, we didn't really shoot Josh". Seriously?

This is starting to look like good material for a Robert Altman directed Hollywood-on-Hollywood farce. Also, whatever Julianna Margulies next job will be, it's bound to include a huge reality check.

From the bizarre to the real life gruesome: good article on why torture doesn't work, and which interrogation tactics actually DO work. Mind you, sadly it probably won't be read by people who aren't already against torture, but still, good article. Probably more relevant than ever, given Jeb Bush's pro torture stance.

And lastly: one of our living legends in German politics, Egon Bahr, died at age 93. Here is an obituary in English. Perhaps the best way to describe him to non-Germans is that he was a real life West Wing character who really did believe in this whole public service as a calling thing, while at the same time also being West-Wing-style devoted to "his" Chancellor, the late Willy Brandt.

Comments

[jae]

I'm not particularly invested in the show anymore, either (though still watching), but boy, did that interview ever make me angry. I'm actually not 100% sure why, though, because I don't feel like the public has any sort of inherent RIGHT to know any of the behind-the-scenes story.

I guess I feel like the whole thing has been approached dishonestly from the beginning, and this made that worse because they're acting as if we have no right to call foul. It would be so much better to just say: "look, we understand that people have strong feelings about this, but we're not going to answer questions about it."

-J

[selenak]

Exactly. As opposed to even in this same talking about the "tightly knit Good Wife family". Nobody has any right to behind the scenes gossip, but everyone has a right not to be patronized and sold rubbish, either. Say "no comment", and it's okay. But this? Talk about making it worse....

[muccamukk]

Man, I have no investment in the show other than mild curiosity, but that interview made me want to punch someone. I actually support the producers not wanting to gossip about their cast, but "No comment" would have covered it.

That whole, "oh you silly people, that's just how TV works!" line was patronising as hell.

[selenak]

No kidding. And I just had to hear it all over again from an lj commenter who appears to believe I somehow am unaware of scenes being shot with actors at different locations for cost reasons after a few decades of movie and tv watching. Good grief.

[percysowner]

I didn't start watching TGW until season four, so I have never been that invested in the show It was good, but I just didn't have that strong attachment. I was interested that they shot the last Kalinda/Alicia scene the way they did, but not upset, because I came in after K/A "broke up". However, the interview itself made me angry. I agree that we, the audience don't need to know the backstage gossip, although if you don't want the audience asking those questions then you need to find a way to not make it so obvious that there may be something to gossip about. The thing is this interview wasn't asking about backstage gossip. It asked how keeping the two characters apart affected telling the story, especially when the story had beats where the two would be together in the same room, like after Will's death. It asked how they responded to fans feeling duped once they found out that the final scene was green screened. The Kings could easily have given an answer along the lines that of course everyone on staff wants the audience to be happy and it would have been great if we could have managed schedules/shooting so that the two actresses would have been there at the same time, but sometimes life gets in the way. We wanted to give Kalinda a final scene with Alicia and this was the only way to do that. Instead we got the condescending answer that people should know that what happens on screen isn't real life.

I think that killing Will hamstrung them in writing out Kalinda, because it would make another character dying seem like overkill. The Kings have said that they wanted to go 7 seasons, so under their own statements this next season may very well be the last. How much easier to kill Kalinda, after what she did to Bishop and have Alicia mourn the fact that they never mended fences.

What really bothers me is that the Kings have announced that Peter will be running for President and that he will be running against Hillary Clinton. They then repeated the "the audience shouldn't be idiots who don't realize this isn't true" theme. I am really uneasy that the character who was, let's face it, based on Bill Clinton is going to spend up to 22 episodes telling us why Hillary Clinton should not, under any circumstances be President. AND present a real candidate's positions in any way they think fits their story line, without any chance of rebuttal from that candidate. I wouldn't be happy if they used any real life candidate in their fictional show.

Basically, I'm not at all happy with TGW right now.

[selenak]

re: killing Will meaning they couldn't kill off Kalinda, very likely. Though honestly I think another reason was that Kalinda had been THE break-out character of the show in season 1 (Archie Panjabi was the first member of the cast to win an Emmy, which allegedly caused the problems with Julianna Marguiles, who didn't get her own Emmy until a year later) and despite a reduced role remained incredibly popular throughout the show. Will was mostly well liked, but he wasn't beloved in the same way. Killing the audience favourite is a serious gamble, especially if the audience favourite is female and one of your show's self declared goals is to offer a female centric narrative.

re: Peter running against Hillary Clinton, sigh. That sounds like a stupid storytelling choice for all the reasons you listed. Again: am glad I quit.

[umadoshi]

Seriously, guys, "no comment" would have been better than "to be clear, we didn't really shoot Josh". Seriously?

Infinitely better, even. Wow.

[selenak]

Head, meet desk.

[ide_cyan]

The article on interrogations vs torture makes me think of Scott & Bailey and its excellent suspect interview scenes.

[selenak]

Oh, this reminds me: must check whether the third season is out on dvd now! Yes, Scott & Bailey have great suspect interview scenes.