Friday, October 24, 2014

How to Get Away with Murder on Network TV

We're several episodes into the premiere season of How to Get Away with Murder, in which one of my fave contemporary actresses, Viola Davis, as brilliant criminal attorney Annalise Keating, fond of glamorous, sexy frocks -- and wigs -- for her appearances in court, turns out an emotional rollercoaster of a performance weekly. She has thrown down the gauntlet, defying the Emmys not to nominate her for this starring role in 2015. Yes, she's not co-starring this time and you better believe it!

Annalise is one of the most intriguing, and very modern, characters starring in a network television series. She is very pulled together in the courtroom but a hot mess in a dress in her personal life. And, frankly, a very shady lady.

Though acted very seriously by the entire cast, Murder is pure camp. Every regular on the show is either involved in hiding a body, lives next door to a murder victim, is planning or entertaining committing a murder him/herself or suspects he/she knows a murderer. I live in New York City and my life isn't even like the denizens of the show's Philly.

Also, I adore the weekly craziness of it all. The concept is as absurd as Jessica Fletcher showing up at the scene of a murder every week on Murder She Wrote!

It's a very intense tv series with lots of sex and violence (about as far as those elements can be pushed nowadays). Part soap opera, part courtroom drama, for me it's kind of like Dynasty meets Perry Mason-in-a-dress (though Viola's much prettier than Raymond Burr). It's also nice to see a female lead on a network series who is a dark-complexioned African-American female who doesn't have a stick figure body but still brings sexy back. Brava!

There are basically dual story lines running through this show. One a continuing drama with plenty of suspense and mystery and the other a weekly court case that is resolved within the episode. The depictions of trials on this show only seem over-the-top when, in fact, they're not so very far from the reality of how things work in court in reality (i.e., last night's jury selection sequence).

Murder is set in Philadelphia. It's produced by Shonda (Grey's Anatomy. Scandal) Rhimes in much the same vein as Scandal. I'm addicted and can't wait for next week's fix. Voila, Viola!

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