TV on Disc: Politics, Sex, and 'Scandal' in Washington D.C.

TV is always hungry  for a new twist on a familiar genre. In "Scandal: The Complete First Season" (ABC), Shonda Rhimes combines political drama and legal show in a format that straddles the new norm of stand-alone cases with serialized stories running through them. And in the mix, she finds a whole tangle of moral quandaries and personal conflicts.

Kerry Washington stars as Olivia Pope, one-time campaign consultant turned head of a crisis management firm. Her team (which is filled by the likes of Henry Ian Cusick, Columbus Short, Darby Stanchfield, and Guillermo Díaz) is a crack unit of political fixers for hire in Washington, D.C., the center of political scandal and public relations crises, and there is no shortage of clients. While there are lawyers on the team (as well as specialists in other areas), this is not about legal maneuvering. It's about protecting clients from legal troubles and media attention by any means necessary, which at times puts them on the wrong side of the law.

The first few episodes are splashy and aggressively provocative, with a storyline turning on a sex scandal with President Fitzgerald "Fitz" Grant (Tony Goldwyn), a compassionate conservative. When a former White House Aide (Liza Weil) comes to Olivia after an affair with the president has left her pregnant (one-upping the Clinton scandal), it comes with a personal sting: Olivia herself had an affair with Fitz and he still loves her. Her feelings are a little more complicated, and not without a jab of self-recrimination and echoes of betrayal.

But there's more to this, as Rhimes begins to reveal a few episodes in, as the political machinations in the White House (much of it involving the religious conservative Vice President Sally Langston, played with holier than thou force by Kate Burton) and the chilly relations between the president and his media-ready wife (Bellamy Young) come to light. Meanwhile there's something strange going on with the firm's newest member (Katie Lowes), and only Olivia knows she's not who she appears to be. In fact, the short spring-launched season ends with Olivia set to reveal all… in the second season. And yes, it's been renewed, so we await the answer.

I'm happy to see Shonda Rhimes use her success to create a network prime time show around a strong female African-American lead (do we really have to go back to the seventies to find the last one?), and even happier to see an actress of Kerry Washington's caliber anchoring a show. She makes Olivia a terrific character whose commitment to the client is so absolute that she can make morally questionable decisions, and she does question those decisions, especially in the season finale, where her actions allow a murderer to walk free.

Seven episodes on two discs, plus three featurettes. "Scandal: Setting the Pace" looks back on the first season and forward to the next with creator Shonda Rhimes and the cast, "Scripting Scandal" talks with the writers, and "Gladiators in Suits: Casting a Series" reveals audition tapes. DVD only.

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