The Stunned Ox Look

...Today's TV review from the DiploMad 2.0, who does a find job demolishing "Madam Secretary," CBS's prime-time contribution to Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign; a brief excerpt:

finally pulled the trigger . . . well, pressed the On Demand button and watched the opening episode of the Hillary campaign "Madam Secretary" TV show on CBS, the Clinton Columbia Broadcasting System. It, as expected, was rubbish.

Tea Leoni, who plays the lead character Elizabeth McCord, has perfected the mouth-breathing stunned ox look. She plays the whole episode looking like, well, an ox gasping for air after being hit in the head by a defective stun gun. She is a "brilliant" ex-CIA analyst, who left the Agency on "principle" to become a "brilliant" University professor, and is recruited by the President, played by Keith Carradine, to become his new SecState following the mysterious death of his old SecState in a plane crash on his way to Venezuela on a mysterious mission which might not have been authorized and, deep breath, his death might not have been accidental! Wow!

[snip]

Anyhow, the scenes at State run from ludicrous to idiotic to back to ludicrous. What is captured  accurately is that Secretary McCord is surrounded by a staff of feminine men ("Girly-Men as Arnold would have called them) and ballsy women. That certainly fits with what I saw during Hillary's tenure. Her staff worries about nonsense, like her hairstyle, and what she is going to say about her dinner with the King of Swaziland (Why? Why pick on Swaziland?) That is pretty realistic. Secretary McCord goes through the day, of course, with her mouth agape and her eyes almost crossed with that stunned ox look Leoni has picked for her character.

Read the whole thing...it's far more entertaining than say, an episode of "Madam Secretary."