Plotlines

I hate emails with offers from second-hand shops. They always tempt me with genuinely good discounts and even free shipping. Maybe I should ask them if they’d sponsor articles like this. No, of course, I’m just kidding! I want to keep this as advertisement-free as possible, which is also why I don’t mention the names of shops, whether physical or online, or prices.

Long story short, this selection is brought to you courtesy of one of those emails. And as a little warning upfront: strong women (the kind I sorely miss in today’s Hollywood) take center stage here, along with plenty of drugs! But take a look for yourselves:

Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad brings back more than just a few memories, and they don’t primarily come from the series itself. Back then, I bought the first season on iTunes, but never got beyond it. Of course, I know all the memes and the transformation Walter White undergoes throughout the series.

The memories I’m referring to come more from friends and former colleagues who confirmed how accurate the series is, as well as friends who tried to convince me to give it another chance.

And here I am, writing these lines and wanting to give the series another shot. Since there are some shows I used to like but don’t anymore, and vice versa, I’m curious to see how I feel about Breaking Bad now.

It was quite a bargain, which is why I already have the second season sitting here as well.

The Good Wife

A woman who always lands on her feet, no matter how much she stumbles. She searches for her path and rarely lets obstacles unsettle her. Over seven seasons, we see exactly such a woman, Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies, whom some may still remember from ER or Ghost Ship (2002).

But it would be extremely unfair to mention only her, as Archie Panjabi as Kalinda Sharma and Christine Baranski as Diane Lockhart also deliver outstanding performances. The latter even got her own spin-off series, The Good Fight, which features an excellent season focused on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

I actually watched The Good Wife in its entirety back then, and I followed it up immediately with The Good Fight, the series starring Christine Baranski. Yes, I simply love shows with well-written characters, especially when they involve strong women who aren’t just a fireworks display of clichés and allow strong men to stand beside them without tearing them down (a tricky topic, please forgive me if I keep bringing it up).

Unforgettable

I already knew Poppy Montgomery from Without a Trace, and yes, I admit she has a certain fascination for me. This was also the reason why I started watching Unforgettable back then.

The series spans four seasons, and I watched two of them at the time. I don’t remember why I didn’t continue. I just noticed that the last season wasn’t produced by CBS but by A&E, which is rarely a good sign for a series. Not only that, but I’ll see how far I get with it anyway. Furthermore, I’m also not sure if all four seasons were ever fully released on DVD here.

Besides my fascination with Poppy Montgomery, I also found the concept of the series interesting, even though it’s sometimes stretched a bit too far, especially when it comes to Detective Carrie Wells’ (Poppy Montgomery) sensory perceptions. However, this doesn’t happen too often, and it’s not exploited to the extent that it feels like a superpower or makes solving cases in each episode too easy.