MovieChat Forums > State of Affairs (2014) Discussion > I tried, but so BAD!

I tried, but so BAD!

posted 9 years ago by jackstraws
12 replies | jump to latest

I've got nothing against Heigl whatsoever. I could care less about her personal life or whether she's "difficult to work with." I'm only concerned with what she does on screen & she was in a few good movies, but after a while she was just playing the same character over & over again. So I do understand why she wanted to do SOA.

However, this show is just awful! I love this genre, but this particular show, is terrible. The writing and the acting are equally atrocious. The story lines & the details surrounding them are mostly ludicrous. I've hung in through 13 episodes & I'll watch the entire 1st season, but it never got better. As hard as it is to imagine, it's actually gotten worse, reaching its most absurd in S1E13. Charlie storming Fattah's training camp all by herself, her incessant use of the cell phone leading up to that, & the conversation with the President are all 3 some of the worst examples of writing (and subsequently the acting as well) I've experienced in recent memory. Not to mention her "heated" argument with Fattah once she gets there!

Heigl just cannot convincingly play this type of role, at all. She doesn't have the range, but to be fair, with this writing even someone tailor-made for this sort of role could make it look good!

[–] jackstraws 9 years ago

***that should read "could NOT" in that last line.

Sorry!

[–] maria_selymesi 9 years ago

I stopped watching after ep. 4 or 5. Just popped in to make sure I didn`t quit too soon. So thanks for the reassuring comment!

Do.Or do not.There is no try.

[–] TxMike 9 years ago

My wife and I started the season watching it but we both found out we really don't like Heigl's acting. We naturally compared her and it to Leoni in 'Madam Secretary' and for us there is no comparison. Leoni is so much better, believable, funny, serious, that it makes 'State of Affairs' look like an amateur pretender.

I caught the last 10 minutes of the last episode and Heigl in the field with an automatic weapon just didn't seem believable.

She is the producer of this show, I understand why she wanted to make it and star in it, but I don't see that the network would pick up an additional season. Way too many other interesting shows on TV.

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Make a choice, to take a chance, to make a difference.

[–] jackstraws 9 years ago

Everyone seems to immediately jump to a comparison of Madam Secratary, but I don't really look at those 2 as being all that similar. Apart from both having or attempting to have) a strong female lead the only real similarity I see is that in SOA Heigl works for the CIA and in Leoni's character used to work for the CIA.

That being said, I think Madam Secratary is fantastic. I've always thought Leoni was a good actress and she does not disappoint in this show either. The casting for that show was superb and the writing is great as well.

I think SOA is a subpar ripoff of Homeland, which itself has seemed to go a bit downhill the past season. I do still think it's pretty good: writing and acting.

When I posted my original comment, I didn't realize that Ep 13 was the season finale, apparently. The ending was so terribly done, I assume that was their attempt to wrap it all up because it's not coming back. I don't know that to be true, but that's what it feeks like. It just seemed so hastily done that was the only conclusion I could come to (although as terrible as the writing for this series has been, maybe not).

[–] jackstraws 9 years ago

I think Heigl and her Mom should've come up with something else to bring her back to the limelight or whatever. This genre (which I love) is probably a bit over saturated at the moment anyhow.

Using this type of show seems to come off as a bit lazy and sorta desperate. It's like they saw how well it's worked out for Claire Danes and just said to each other, "Hey! Let's do that" and then threw together a crew and rushed everything to get it done at a moments notice.

Again, I don't care about the off the screen crap and only care about what actors do on the screen. I don't think Heigl's an absolutely terrible actress, but I do there's a reason she was only landing work on Rom-Com's. There's nothing wrong with that. An actor/actress that knows their strengths/weaknesses and chooses roles using that knowledge can have a fantastic career. So that's why I said I thought they should've come up with something different for her. It seems like there's a trend of fairly big name actors coming to TV. I think that's great and Heigl should've looked for or helped to create a sitcom or an hour long "dramady" (drama and comedy) to star in. I think that's something she could've put her own stamp on and gone in to have immense success with.

[–] TxMike 9 years ago

I don't think Heigl's an absolutely terrible actress, but ...

... but she is not an exceptional actress either. To me that is the disconnect, she wants to be an exceptional actress but simply doesn't have it, certainly not to carry a prime time TV series like this one. She is a competent actress and can be good in the right ensemble cast. I think it is just an example of ambitions are greater that her potential.

When she was 15 or so she was in a movie "My Father the Hero". I recently looked that one up on Netflix and watched it. Part of my reaction was, " I was curious about Heigl, she is now an established TV actress but I had never seen her in an early role. I find that she was better then than she is now. She reminded me of a blond Natalie Portman at the same ages. "

..*.. TxMike ..*..
Make a choice, to take a chance, to make a difference.

[–] jackstraws 9 years ago

You said it, not me! I was just trying to be nice, though. I agree with all that you said, that's why I had said she should've come up with a different idea for a show. I think that starring in a show that's this bad and won't get a 2nd season is probably just as bad as not being in anything at all as far as helping to re-establish herself. Especially when her performance is so terrible in it.

[–] harrison_1 9 years ago

The only reason I checked out this show at all was that I got sucked in by a sexy advertising promo that featured a couple of scenes of Heigl in her underwear and in various states of undress. It turns out those scenes were over and done with very quickly at the beginning of the first episode and it's been all down hill from there. In fact I stopped watching all together half way through episode 3, but if Heigl had at least one bikini, underwear or sex scene in each episode, I would be tempted to keep watching.

[–] semperneoeon 9 years ago

Thank god I'm not the only one who think this show is horrible.

[–] lulupalooza 9 years ago

@jackstraws

I could care less about her personal life or whether she's "difficult to work with."

Hopefully you meant that you could NOT care less....otherwise you do care to a degree, which I doubt. :)

"Don't get chumpatized!" - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

[–] jesse-blue 9 years ago

KH is the wrong cast for this type of show. Simple as that.

To portray a tough-as-nails yet emotionally broken woman with a career in intelligence and field work, you need an actress that can deliver a much more believable performance. I'd be thinking more along the lines of Maria Bello or Katee Sackhoff or some Michelle-Rodriguez-like character, maybe even something along the lines of Zöe Saldana (now THAT is what I call a babe). Hell, even Claire Danes (who I adore and who is an accomplished actress) could not have pulled off SOA.

The sad thing is that SOA could have worked out with the right script and a better female lead. If this gets axed, I will surely miss Alfre Woodard which I love ever since I saw her in Star Trek: First Contact (Jean-Luc blow up that damn ship! Noooooooo!) ...