I watched it faithfully for the first few seasons. Last season it seemed to be ebbing from its high point. I watched a couple three of the episodes for the current season, and haven’t been able to muster up the interest to pick it up again.
Has anything of note happened? I basically no longer care about the Alicia-Peter relationship, I could not care less about Lamont Bishop and his drug dealing/caring relationship with his son, and the Michael J. Fox character is too transparent to be interesting.
Spoilers welcome. But is there anything left of what was once a show I made a point to watch?
Having watched this season (2015) to the winter finale, I’d say if you’re not enjoying the episodes you’ve seen, you probably won’t get that much more out of the season, as it’s much of the same.
Nothing all that earth-shattering happens. Louis Canning (Michael J. Fox) is pretty low-key. Lamont Bishop is gone, since the actor has a new gig playing Luke Cage in Jessica Jones. And of course Archie Panjabi / Kalinda is gone gone gone.
They introduced a few new characters (Lucca Quinn, Jason Crouse, and Ruth), but the character whose growth I most enjoyed was with Alicia’s daughter, who is turning out to be a competent assistant in Alicia’s budding law practice.
I mostly watch for the court cases, since I enjoy learning new aspects of the law or seeing quirky new angles. The show is pretty consistent there. But if that don’t float your boat, then don’t bother. They do politics better on Madam Secretary.
I keep wondering when the daughter is going to school, if she’s spending all of this time on her mother’s law practice. As for the question in the OP, I’m watching but it has lost some of its edge. A big plot element this season is that Eli Gold (Alan Cumming’s character) is working to undermine Peter Florrick’s presidential campaign. But even that element isn’t great.
I’m a couple of episodes behind, so take your grain of salt.
Last season was a disaster, with two half-season arcs that were spectacularly stupid. Casey wasn’t going to written out as a character, so he wasn’t going to jail. Alicia wasn’t going to be state’s attorney. That they dragged those wasn’t’s out to the edge and over made them unwatchable. Plus the musical chairs at the law firms.
The new season started two terrible arcs. The bond court was an interesting place to spend an episode; a half-season? Never. I’m glad they dumped it after episode 4. Peter running for President? Even worse. Not one moment of that has been believable.
Getting back to interesting cases in the courtroom has kept me poised an inch from dumping the show. I never really cared for the Will character or Alicia’s relationship with him so it surprised me that the great show ended when he died. I think this is the last season anyway. I can make it to the end, but there’s no good reason to start here.
They set up Jeffrey Dean Morgan to be this year’s love interest, and he was just written out. Just like Matthew Goode and Steven Pasquale (who apparently was a place-holder for Goode) last year. Makes me wonder if men have a problem with Margulies, or if they just can’t figure out how to make Alicia happy without writing Peter out of the show. Which would be fine with me; the whole sham marriage thing has dragged out to the point of absurdity.
I might give up on the show entirely. I fast-forwarded through most of last week’s episode and realized I no longer care about any of the characters. The writers are really flailing around with no sense of direction.
I watch it because my wife likes it, but yeah, I don’t think it’s as good as it used to be. Often the single-episode law cases are still very interesting, but the overall story arcs are either unbelievable (Gee, I wonder if Peter will be elected President?!) or rehashes of what we’ve seen before (Alicia is attracted to another man!). At this point I have trouble keeping track of who is working for what law firm, since they all seem to reshuffle at least once a season. Kalinda is gone, Eli seems to be turning into a parody of himself. I think the shark has been jumped.
I also watch it because it’s one of my wife’s favorites, and I’ve decided that’s probably the best way to watch. I like the individual cases, and the general production and acting seem to be well done. I don’t really pay much attention to the overall arcs, and it sounds like that’s for the best.
I still like it. I agree that it’s not as good as it used to be, but it still has interesting cases and unexpected outcomes. Like the recent one where Alicia may have (unintentionally) blackmailed and ended up getting a good result for her client, and wasn’t sure exactly how to feel about that. I also always enjoy the bits with the guys listening in on Alicia’s conversations. I’m sure the reality is not like that at all, but it’s fun to imagine that it is.
I’m not a big fan of the soap opera type stuff (Alicia and Jason, Eli and Vanessa Williams) so I kind of tune out during that, but there’s enough to keep me interested. I still think it’s one of the better written network dramas currently airing (which is admittedly a pretty low bar).
All that said, if you’ve already seen a few episodes this season and weren’t impressed, you’re unlikely to change your mind by checking back in – the quality has been pretty even throughout the season so far.
I haven’t been enjoying it since Kalinda left, and the story lines are frustrating, and when they re-introduced the NSA crap I thought “Yep, I am just not excited about this show anymore.”
That really bummed me out. I really don’t want to see that crap again.
After last week’s ep, my wife and I both commented that they are having a tough time making it seem like anything of interest was happening. What was the deal? The 6-7 young lawyers walked out, and there was NO ONE else to do the work other than the 5 main lawyers? And then when they walked the 6-7 young’uns back into the offices, there were tons of people bustling about. I just didn’t get that.
And Eli’s crap is really getting old. Someone banging the door into his desk ceased being amusing approximately the second time it happened.
We keep watching it mainly out of habit. A lot of the legal stuff is done intelligently, with interesting twists on real life issues.