Scandal

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) runs a firm of political fixers in D.C. Her group of loyal associates are gladiators. She has a troubled secret relationship with President Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn). He has a political convenient marriage to Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young). Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry) is the calculating Chief of Staff and David Rosen (Joshua Malina) is the Assistant US Attorney. Olivia hires Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes). Troubled Huck (Guillermo Díaz) and Abby Whelan (Darby Stanchfield) are two of the associates. Olivia's scheming father (Joe Morton) runs the mysterious shadow government organization B613. Grant assigns Jake Ballard (Scott Foley) to guard Olivia in mid second season.

For a time, Shonda Rhimes owned a night of network television. Grey's is the gold and this is the silver programming. It burned hot for a couple of seasons with overblown plots, and overwrought melodrama. The love triangle is the pinnacle. It definitely burned bright for a time but it burned itself out. By the fifth season, the convoluted story twists and ties itself into a knot. The biggest dead end is Fitz's presidency ending. Even the white hot romantic triangle fades into nothingness. The acting is usually big and over the top. Kerry Washington does a lot of near cry acting with her quivering lips. When a story twists and turns this much, it will almost always go out of control. The last few seasons are simply this show stalling and running in place. Shondaland has an expiry date.

I don't need to add anymore about the horrible writing , summed up by another reviewer who called the dialog "50 Chihuahuas going after one hot dog". This program is nothing more than a 30 minute 70's soap opera saturated with product placement. The premise that Olivia Pope is a power player is absurd. She is a compromised incompetent cluster*@ck that could not solve anything in real life.

This may be the laziest writing and research for technical background I have ever seen on a major TV show. Their lack of knowledge and terminology how thing work in real life is either lazy or incompetent. From " two F-15's are waiting on the Carrier ready to take off" (try Wikipedia) to numerous medical, security and government protocols that could never occur in real life, only shows that this program only wants to be about comical love stories made for 16 year olds.

Unbelievable on too many fronts for anyone to not just laugh.

If shonda rhymes knows how to do anything it's create a show that is utterly ridiculous and unrealistic in every way but very entertaining.

As a medical professional I think greys is the best and worst show. I love the characters but the medical stuff frustrates me. But still I allow myself to switch off and enjoy the show.

And I think that's what you also need to do with Scandal. If you have an intelligent bone in your body you have to switch off your brain and suspend total belief. This show is so ridiculous in so many ways. But who doesn't love some political drama, lots of cliffhangers, mysteries and plot twists.

I'll admit it is better in the first few seasons and just gets to preposterous levels by about season 6. The utterly horrible and treasonous acts committed by employees of the White House are insane I'm so glad that it's not unrealistic as it would be just plain scary if our world leaders acted this way.

Nevertheless it had me hooked after about 3-4 episodes and I binge watched the entire series in a few weeks.

I'd label this one a guilty pleasure. Don't watch if you can't switch off your brain as it will only leaving you saying wtf a lot!!!!

I really love this series and think the acting and story are terrific!

My only complaint is that more often than not it seems as though someone hit the fast forward button. Most of the actors speak so fast that it is difficult to follow and I am constantly rewinding to catch what they said. Also, the picture is at times too dark.

It would be much better if they could slow the pace just a little. It really does seem as though the actors are being timed to see how fast they can say their lines.

The casting of the characters is very good and I hope the show stays on the air for many years.

I was a big fan of this show in its opening season and most the way through season 4. It was clever, with some good writing, interesting characters, and good plot twists. Then something happened and it turned into a soap opera. Rather than being an interesting show with some big moments, it turned into every scene being a yelling feast. I love an intense interaction, but when it's every dialogue in every scene...it's gets old. It's like they turned the volume up to 11 and left it there for 2 seasons. Characters became ridiculous and inconsistent, writing got predictable. Every character intensely flip flops back and forth, usually multiple times an episode. I'm trying to finish the show just to see how they resolve everything but it's basically just suffering through episodes that are mostly unwatchable. Sad to see it fall so far from its first seasons