Madam Secretary, a show about geopolitics, spycraft, justice, fair play, and refreshingly, religion, ethics, morality, and family! You name it, it’s got it. One would imagine that such a melange would quickly implode under its own weight but surprisingly becomes a sincere, clever, and heartfelt homage to people in public service. She refers to this in one of the episode – “I am not a partisan politician, I am a public servant”. Now and then, the show speaks to itself.
I am a huge fan of NBC’s the West Wing and Madam Secretary is a close second. While the dialogue is not as snappy as west wing, it certainly aspires to it and at many a times lives up to this. While the former primarily focuses on the political aspects of the government, the latter expands its scope to focus more on the interpersonal aspects of the protagonist with an optimistic twist, in contrast to TWW’s bitter-sweet narratives. At times, both shows make me cry while they aspire to be idealistic.
Episode names are a point of interest to me in any show I watch. TWW is great at this. The use of phrases such as Post hoc, ergo propter hoc makes my imagination run wild and tingles my literary nerves, if they exist, and fill me with joy. Madam Secretary too have great episode names. Reminiscing from my recent memory of watching the latter half of Season 2, episode names such as Render Safe or Vartius are equally effective at rejuvenating my interest in life and prompting me to do productive work. They really function as an inspiration.