When it was originally on: 2012-2018

Original network: ABC

Where you can stream it now: Netflix, Disney+, or Hulu

Had I seen it before: Yes. I don’t think I ever finished the whole series, but maybe into season 4 or 5? But it’s probably been a solid decade since this point so it was fun to revisit.

What IMDb says: A former White House Communications Director starts her own crisis management firm only to realize her clients are not the only ones with secrets.

Why I picked it: There are certain names in TV creation that rise above the rest, and one of those names is Shonda Rhimes. I love including such titans of the craft when I can, and I was a little surprised to see I hadn’t gotten to Scandal yet. Looking back, Scandal feels like the show that turned Shonda Rhimes from “the person who created Grey’s Anatomy” to “Shonda Rhimes,” a name that could be slapped on any television production for instant cache.

I also loved Scandal back in the day. I was doing some DC political internships at the time and while everyone else was watching House of Cards, I was on my own little Scandal island. There was a glamor to it, but also grit at the same time. I haven’t seen it in a while and I’ve watched a lot more TV and learned a lot more about TV writing since, so it’s I’m curious to see if it still holds up.

I also love that there’s a great reveal at the end of this pilot. I’d seen the show before so I knew what it was and could spot all the foreshadowing too, but damn it’s still great. If you’re trying to do a pilot that simultaneously ties up the Case of the Week™while also planting the seeds for soapier storylines that can bare fruit for many years to come, Scandal is a great one to study.

What I liked: I like how Scandal manages to feel familiar, yet fresh. It’s not exactly a legal procedural or a cop procedural, but it scratches all the same itches as one. A show that has a similar case-of-the-week structure, but our characters aren’t confined by things like “laws” or “The Constitution” like the shows that came before it is a promising premise, and the pilot demonstrates why. We watch Olivia and her team do all sorts of terrible things in the name of protecting their client, and it makes for an entertaining show.

One could argue there’s a lot of telling-not-showing happening here, but I actually like how the pilot builds a reputation for Olivia and then already starts to subvert before our 43 minutes are up. We don’t leave feeling like Olivia is the bad guy… but she’s not exactly the good guy either. That moral ambiguity is a big part of what makes the show interesting and feel a bit more complex than more old-school procedurals.

What I didn’t like: I get that you need a new person to enter into this world so we have an excuse to explain the world out loud. A lot of pilots use this technique, including ones I quite like. But in this case, that person is Quinn, and Quinn is inept. It’s entirely unclear why Olivia Pope wanted to hire this girl. They sort of tried to explain it with a scene where Huck says some bullshit about how Olivia fixes things or whatever but I don’t buy it. If there’s a method to Olivia’s madness to be revealed later, they could’ve hinted at that better. I feel like you also could’ve written a version of Quinn that doesn’t just spend 90% of the episode looking at others saying “oh my God, what do we do now?!?!?” but alas.

I also wish they could’ve made the supporting cast pop a bit more. Huck, Stephen, Abby, and Harrison don’t really have much defining them besides “works for Olivia.” Oh, and Stephen’s about to propose to his girlfriend, that’s something. On the one hand, there’s perfectly good rationale for just making this the Olivia Pope show. She’s ultimately going to be the reason we come back for more and there’s a finite amount of time to introduce a lot of people and plot. At the same time, I’ve seen other pilots that face similar challenges and pull it off better, including the Jane the Virgin pilot I reviewed a couple days ago (click here to read that).

Do I want to watch Ep. 2?: For sure. The reveal at the end makes me want to see what happens next.