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Series / Notorious (2016)

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Notorious is a drama series which aired on ABC and starring Piper Perabo and Daniel Sunjata.

After his client becomes a suspect in a hit-and-run incident, lawyer Paul Gregorian turns to media mogul Julia George to try and help him out. However, Julia has her own agenda, and that agenda does not necessarily benefit Paul's client. And thus begins a contentious dance between the media and the law.

The series premiered on September 2016. It was officially canceled in May 2017 after one season of ten episodes.


This series contains examples of:

  • The Alcoholic:
    • Oscar Keaton was sober for a while, but his wife's murder sends him off the wagon.
    • When she's not doing her show, Louise is usually drinking.
  • Ate His Gun: Levi swallows his gun in despair after Julia confronts him about his catfishing.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Ella and Ryan spend the first few episodes verbally sparring with each other before finally throwing out all pretense and hooking up.
  • Broken Pedestal: Julia's mentor, Dana Hartman, was the first woman in the Notori-verse to lead her own news show, but destroyed her credibility when word got out that she fabricated an entire interview. The scandal destroyed her career and her friendship with Julia.
  • Bully Brutality: In "Tell Me a Secret", the dead football player's injuries were the result of two of his teammates roughing him up on orders from their coach, though it's later determined that neither of the two idiots killed him.
  • Depraved Homosexual: Levi catfished Oscar not to humiliate him, but to romance him.
  • Driven to Suicide: After his catfishing is publicly exposed, Levi kills himself, unable to deal with the knowledge that Oscar now hates him.
  • Expy: The series uses several stand-ins for real-life media figures
    • Paul Gregorian is an expy of celebrity attorney Mark Geragos.
    • Julia George is an expy of Larry King Live producer Wendy Walker.
    • Callie Connors an expy of Greta Van Susteran.
    • El Toro is almost certainly a stand-in for El Chapo.
    • Ronald Teller is probably a based on Fox News founder Roger Ailes.
  • First-Episode Twist: Sarah Keaton is murdered.
  • Innocently Insensitive: In "Friends and Other Strangers", Julia forces Louise to present a video of a captive soldier being beheaded in order to fill the last few minutes of her show. It turns out one of Louise's paramours was a soldier who was beheaded. Naturally, she's pissed.
  • Missing White Woman Syndrome: In "Kept and Broken", Julia is pressured into covering the case of a missing white girl in order to compete with rival Callie Connors, whose ratings have gone up after she started covering the case. After learning that the parents of the missing girl are demanding money for their interviews, she decides to instead cover the case of a missing Latina girl who's gotten no coverage.
  • Nepotism: It's no secret around the office that Ryan got his job because his dad is Julia's boss. This is what drives him to go the extra mile to impress her.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Callie's decision to publicize Emily Parker's history as an underage webcam girl results in Emily being killed by whoever kidnapped her.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Callie Connors is very obviously based on Greta Van Susteran, with a bit of Nancy Grace thrown in for good measure.
  • Off the Wagon: Oscar tosses out all of his sobriety after Sarah's death, to the point that Paul tries to have his employees intervene to keep Oscar from getting drunk in public.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: The main plot of "Friends and Other Strangers" concerns a much-beloved musician with a long history of charitable acts being exposed as a serial rapist.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • In "Friends and Other Strangers", Louise calls out Julia for forcing her to air footage of a beheading just to fill some dead air time.
    • In "The Burn Book", Julia calls out Louise for going over her head in order to get permission to air some footage that Julia had promised to bury.

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