30 Days of TV Meme -- Day 15 and Day 16
Day 15 - Favorite female character.
Again, a tough one, because I have a lot of favorite female characters--most, I note, in science fiction and fantasy shows. Listing them in alphabetical order:
1) Abby Sciuto, from NCIS.
2) Buffy Summers from BtVS.
3) Nyota Uhura from Star Trek.
4) Sam Carter from Stargate SG-1.
5) Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who.
6) Tara Maclay from BtVS.
7) Tessa Noel from Highlander.
8) Toshiko Sato from Torchwood.
9) Zoe Alleyne Washburne from Firefly.
They're all intelligent, all good at their careers or callings, all brave, and most (Abby, Buffy, Uhura, Carter, Tara, Toshiko and Zoe) work as part of an ensemble. One who doesn't work as part of an ensemble has a job that requires her to work alone; Tessa Noel is a sculptor. And Sarah Jane straddles both worlds--an investigative reporter and the Doctor's companion in Doctor Who, and the leader of an ensemble cast in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
I'd like to talk about all of them--they are all fantastic in various ways, and there can never be too much discussion of awesome women--but I don't think I have the energy. So which to choose?
As I did in the previous question, I'd like to focus on the awesome characters that don't always get the attention they deserve. So I pick these three:
1) Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
This is Sarah Jane as she was when I first met her, when she was the companion of the Third and Fourth Doctor. She was introduced as a companion in 1973 in an episode called The Time Warrior when she infiltrated a scientific complex which had had a number of scientists and a fair bit of equipment vanish by posing as her own aunt, virologist Lavinia Smith. The Doctor spotted almost immediately that the twenty-three-year-old Sarah Jane was much too young to be a long-famous scientist; however, she also spotted several holes in the Doctor's cover and wondered if he was a spy. When yet another scientist vanished, Sarah slipped into the TARDIS to investigate--in those days, the Doctor wasn't nearly so careful about locking the TARDIS behind him when he left, which led to quite a number of people becoming unintentional stowaways--and ended up back in the Middle Ages, confronting the Sontarans. (It was their first appearance on the show.)
Sarah Jane was the Doctor's companion for three years, and a brave, intelligent, resourceful young woman from start to finish. She was the series' first self-proclaimed feminist. In Sarah Jane's case, this often meant wanting to be taken seriously by those in authority and not being automatically told to go make the coffee just because she was a woman--which Three told her to do right after they met. This did NOT go over well:
Sarah Jane: [The Doctor has ferreted out Sarah Jane's identity] Are you going to give me away, Doctor?
The Doctor: I don't think so.
Sarah Jane [suddenly cheering]: Why not?
The Doctor: [leans back, tents his fingers] Well, you can make yourself useful. We need someone around here to make the coffee.
Sarah Jane [incensed]: If you think I'm going to spend my time making cups of coffee for you --
[she halts as the Doctor leaps out of his chair. Reubish is scribbling something in chalk on the side of the TARDIS]
The Doctor: Professor! Would you kindly desist? This isn't a blackboard, you know!
[begins to unlock the TARDIS door]
Professor Rubeish: Oh, I do beg your pardon, Doctor. I was just trying to prove...
Sarah Jane: What are you going to do in there?
The Doctor: [opens the TARDIS door] Make *myself* a cup of coffee. Good day to you.
However, she also got the chance to talk women's lib to a rather insecure queen whose advisers were largely ignoring her because she was a woman:
Queen Thalira: But I'm only a girl...
Sarah Jane: Your Majesty, there's nothing "only" about being a girl.
Can I please have that tattooed on the foreheads of everyone in Hollywood?
But the thing that I like best about Sarah Jane is not that she was an outstanding companion--which she was--but that she managed to build a great life for herself post-TARDIS and used her experience traveling with the Doctor to grow and become a hero in her own right...and at a time when a fair number of people are thinking about taking early retirement. And she hasn't changed. She's still brave, stubborn, passionate and valiant.
At the time I started watching, I was considering becoming a journalist. I would have loved to have been a journalist of the quality of Sarah Jane.
2) Tessa Noël from Highlander.
Tessa's one of the few female characters I've ever seen who's been depicted as a professional artist, and the show actually played that straight, showing Tessa sketching, modeling in clay and metal, using a blowtorch to create large metal sculptures, and arranging to appear at various parties and exhibitions so that she could sell her work. I liked that, because women artists and women's creativity are both often ignored or disregarded by the media. It would have been very easy for the show to brush Tessa's work aside as unimportant or to turn her into a genius for whom everything was effortless--but no, they depicted her as a talented sculptor striving to do her best in a highly competitive and fickle field. This is so accurate a picture of the arts as to be almost unheard of.
Although she's generally remembered as gentle and loving (and she was), that's not all she was. She had very good instincts about people (often better than MacLeod's, to tell the truth) and she was quite capable of speaking bluntly and even sarcastically. Her reaction after learning about the battle for power known as the Game twelve years into her relationship with MacLeod: "And you didn't think it was important enough to mention?" There was also this exchange between an Immortal photographer who was one of Duncan's former students and Tessa:
Gregor Powers: Tell me, how do you handle knowing that one day he's gonna watch you grow old, wrinkle and then die, and eventually move on to somebody else?
Tessa Noel (gives him an incredulous look): Were you born sensitive or did you have to study?
She was also more than capable of defending herself, despite knowing nothing about swordplay. She was able to get inside the head of one delusional Immortal who believed himself to be Jacques De Molay (a fourteenth-century Grand Master of the Knights Templar who was burned at the stake) and convince him not to murder her. When she was kidnapped by three men (two ordinary humans, one Immortal) while out in the wilderness, she not only left a trail for Duncan but made it her business to talk to all of her kidnappers, learning as much as she could about the way they thought and then managing to sow doubts without saying very much. One homicidal Immortal made the mistake of placing a sword against Tessa's neck while she was working and threatening to kill her if she didn't tell where Duncan was. Tessa's reaction was simply to lift the welding iron in her hands and say one cold, quiet sentence that made the Immortal woman back off immediately: "I may not be able to kill you, but I'll give you a facial you won't forget."
Most of the time, though, Tessa was the heart of the show--loving, laughing, loyal and compassionate. She gave the show a dose of hope and optimism. When Alexandra Vandernoot left the show to spend more time with her family, the show lost that hope, becoming much darker and much more pessimistic. It was still a good show for several seasons, mind. But it was never the same.
3) Tara Maclay from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
It's generally agreed that Xander is the heart of the Scoobies, but I think that Tara added something to the group that was just as vital.
A lot of people think of Tara only as sweet and shy, which she was. She was a kind, gentle young woman and she and Willow were adorable together. But, as the show went on, we learned that she also had a ton of integrity. Think of the moment in Tough Love when Tara is captured by hellgod Glory, who describes in vast detail what insanity is like, informing Tara that this is what lies ahead for her if she doesn't tell Glory who the Key is. Tara is terrified--but she protects Dawn and says nothing. Add another facet to that nightmare--Tara had every reason to think that she would be insane forever...and she still refused.
Talk about courage.
I don't think I could do that.
Under the circumstances, it's easy to see why, after being insane and being miraculously healed, Tara would have issues with magic that messed with her mind and memory. Sadly, Willow never understood that--probably because everyone in Willow's life, both friends or family, had ended up leaving her at some point, either through death, physical departure or emotional neglect. Willow saw the arguments she and Tara were having as a threat to the relationship and made Tara forget them and the emotions they stirred up, feeling that this effectively made the problems un-happen. It didn't...and when Tara found out what Willow was doing to her, she left. She loved Willow, but she wasn't going to settle for an unhealthy relationship where she'd end up losing all sense of who she was.
She was also the responsible and communicative one who understood that people have to go along their own paths and yet who didn't want her friends doing anything that would damage them. She took care of and worried about Dawn even after she and Willow had split up. And, despite being a very powerful witch, she was never very flashy. I don't think she ever felt she had to be. Once she got past the issues that her abusive family saddled her with (and believing that she was half-demon and therefore intrinsically evil had to be emotionally damaging), she was one of the strongest and most stable of the Scoobies, if not the most stable.
So those are my three picks. While I'd like to be the hero, the warrior woman, the discoverer and explorer, the kick-ass crime solver, the female characters I really love are the ones who make things better by being there, and by being their best selves.
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show.
That would be Whose Line Is It Anyway. I really have no justification for this, as it's often crude and vulgar and sexist. I got hooked on it when I was in the nursing home, as I rarely fell asleep before one in the morning, and since the nurses were inclined to wake me at midnight to make me take a final dose of medicine, I often tried to cheer myself up before I went to sleep. And...well, it was one of the few regular programs that was on at midnight that wasn't a talk show, a crime drama or religious. And it did make me feel better. It still does. I don't know why.
Completed Questions
Day 1 - A show that never should have been canceled.
Day 2 - A show that you wish more people were watching (or that you wish more people had watched).
Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Day 4 - Your favorite show ever.
Day 5 - A show you hate.
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 7 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 8 - A show everyone should watch.
Day 9 - Best scene ever.
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving.
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you.
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times.
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show.
Day 14 - Favorite male character.
Day 15 - Favorite female character.
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show.
***
Again, a tough one, because I have a lot of favorite female characters--most, I note, in science fiction and fantasy shows. Listing them in alphabetical order:
1) Abby Sciuto, from NCIS.
2) Buffy Summers from BtVS.
3) Nyota Uhura from Star Trek.
4) Sam Carter from Stargate SG-1.
5) Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who.
6) Tara Maclay from BtVS.
7) Tessa Noel from Highlander.
8) Toshiko Sato from Torchwood.
9) Zoe Alleyne Washburne from Firefly.
They're all intelligent, all good at their careers or callings, all brave, and most (Abby, Buffy, Uhura, Carter, Tara, Toshiko and Zoe) work as part of an ensemble. One who doesn't work as part of an ensemble has a job that requires her to work alone; Tessa Noel is a sculptor. And Sarah Jane straddles both worlds--an investigative reporter and the Doctor's companion in Doctor Who, and the leader of an ensemble cast in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
I'd like to talk about all of them--they are all fantastic in various ways, and there can never be too much discussion of awesome women--but I don't think I have the energy. So which to choose?
As I did in the previous question, I'd like to focus on the awesome characters that don't always get the attention they deserve. So I pick these three:
1) Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
This is Sarah Jane as she was when I first met her, when she was the companion of the Third and Fourth Doctor. She was introduced as a companion in 1973 in an episode called The Time Warrior when she infiltrated a scientific complex which had had a number of scientists and a fair bit of equipment vanish by posing as her own aunt, virologist Lavinia Smith. The Doctor spotted almost immediately that the twenty-three-year-old Sarah Jane was much too young to be a long-famous scientist; however, she also spotted several holes in the Doctor's cover and wondered if he was a spy. When yet another scientist vanished, Sarah slipped into the TARDIS to investigate--in those days, the Doctor wasn't nearly so careful about locking the TARDIS behind him when he left, which led to quite a number of people becoming unintentional stowaways--and ended up back in the Middle Ages, confronting the Sontarans. (It was their first appearance on the show.)
Sarah Jane was the Doctor's companion for three years, and a brave, intelligent, resourceful young woman from start to finish. She was the series' first self-proclaimed feminist. In Sarah Jane's case, this often meant wanting to be taken seriously by those in authority and not being automatically told to go make the coffee just because she was a woman--which Three told her to do right after they met. This did NOT go over well:
Sarah Jane: [The Doctor has ferreted out Sarah Jane's identity] Are you going to give me away, Doctor?
The Doctor: I don't think so.
Sarah Jane [suddenly cheering]: Why not?
The Doctor: [leans back, tents his fingers] Well, you can make yourself useful. We need someone around here to make the coffee.
Sarah Jane [incensed]: If you think I'm going to spend my time making cups of coffee for you --
[she halts as the Doctor leaps out of his chair. Reubish is scribbling something in chalk on the side of the TARDIS]
The Doctor: Professor! Would you kindly desist? This isn't a blackboard, you know!
[begins to unlock the TARDIS door]
Professor Rubeish: Oh, I do beg your pardon, Doctor. I was just trying to prove...
Sarah Jane: What are you going to do in there?
The Doctor: [opens the TARDIS door] Make *myself* a cup of coffee. Good day to you.
However, she also got the chance to talk women's lib to a rather insecure queen whose advisers were largely ignoring her because she was a woman:
Queen Thalira: But I'm only a girl...
Sarah Jane: Your Majesty, there's nothing "only" about being a girl.
Can I please have that tattooed on the foreheads of everyone in Hollywood?
But the thing that I like best about Sarah Jane is not that she was an outstanding companion--which she was--but that she managed to build a great life for herself post-TARDIS and used her experience traveling with the Doctor to grow and become a hero in her own right...and at a time when a fair number of people are thinking about taking early retirement. And she hasn't changed. She's still brave, stubborn, passionate and valiant.
At the time I started watching, I was considering becoming a journalist. I would have loved to have been a journalist of the quality of Sarah Jane.
2) Tessa Noël from Highlander.
Tessa's one of the few female characters I've ever seen who's been depicted as a professional artist, and the show actually played that straight, showing Tessa sketching, modeling in clay and metal, using a blowtorch to create large metal sculptures, and arranging to appear at various parties and exhibitions so that she could sell her work. I liked that, because women artists and women's creativity are both often ignored or disregarded by the media. It would have been very easy for the show to brush Tessa's work aside as unimportant or to turn her into a genius for whom everything was effortless--but no, they depicted her as a talented sculptor striving to do her best in a highly competitive and fickle field. This is so accurate a picture of the arts as to be almost unheard of.
Although she's generally remembered as gentle and loving (and she was), that's not all she was. She had very good instincts about people (often better than MacLeod's, to tell the truth) and she was quite capable of speaking bluntly and even sarcastically. Her reaction after learning about the battle for power known as the Game twelve years into her relationship with MacLeod: "And you didn't think it was important enough to mention?" There was also this exchange between an Immortal photographer who was one of Duncan's former students and Tessa:
Gregor Powers: Tell me, how do you handle knowing that one day he's gonna watch you grow old, wrinkle and then die, and eventually move on to somebody else?
Tessa Noel (gives him an incredulous look): Were you born sensitive or did you have to study?
She was also more than capable of defending herself, despite knowing nothing about swordplay. She was able to get inside the head of one delusional Immortal who believed himself to be Jacques De Molay (a fourteenth-century Grand Master of the Knights Templar who was burned at the stake) and convince him not to murder her. When she was kidnapped by three men (two ordinary humans, one Immortal) while out in the wilderness, she not only left a trail for Duncan but made it her business to talk to all of her kidnappers, learning as much as she could about the way they thought and then managing to sow doubts without saying very much. One homicidal Immortal made the mistake of placing a sword against Tessa's neck while she was working and threatening to kill her if she didn't tell where Duncan was. Tessa's reaction was simply to lift the welding iron in her hands and say one cold, quiet sentence that made the Immortal woman back off immediately: "I may not be able to kill you, but I'll give you a facial you won't forget."
Most of the time, though, Tessa was the heart of the show--loving, laughing, loyal and compassionate. She gave the show a dose of hope and optimism. When Alexandra Vandernoot left the show to spend more time with her family, the show lost that hope, becoming much darker and much more pessimistic. It was still a good show for several seasons, mind. But it was never the same.
3) Tara Maclay from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
It's generally agreed that Xander is the heart of the Scoobies, but I think that Tara added something to the group that was just as vital.
A lot of people think of Tara only as sweet and shy, which she was. She was a kind, gentle young woman and she and Willow were adorable together. But, as the show went on, we learned that she also had a ton of integrity. Think of the moment in Tough Love when Tara is captured by hellgod Glory, who describes in vast detail what insanity is like, informing Tara that this is what lies ahead for her if she doesn't tell Glory who the Key is. Tara is terrified--but she protects Dawn and says nothing. Add another facet to that nightmare--Tara had every reason to think that she would be insane forever...and she still refused.
Talk about courage.
I don't think I could do that.
Under the circumstances, it's easy to see why, after being insane and being miraculously healed, Tara would have issues with magic that messed with her mind and memory. Sadly, Willow never understood that--probably because everyone in Willow's life, both friends or family, had ended up leaving her at some point, either through death, physical departure or emotional neglect. Willow saw the arguments she and Tara were having as a threat to the relationship and made Tara forget them and the emotions they stirred up, feeling that this effectively made the problems un-happen. It didn't...and when Tara found out what Willow was doing to her, she left. She loved Willow, but she wasn't going to settle for an unhealthy relationship where she'd end up losing all sense of who she was.
She was also the responsible and communicative one who understood that people have to go along their own paths and yet who didn't want her friends doing anything that would damage them. She took care of and worried about Dawn even after she and Willow had split up. And, despite being a very powerful witch, she was never very flashy. I don't think she ever felt she had to be. Once she got past the issues that her abusive family saddled her with (and believing that she was half-demon and therefore intrinsically evil had to be emotionally damaging), she was one of the strongest and most stable of the Scoobies, if not the most stable.
So those are my three picks. While I'd like to be the hero, the warrior woman, the discoverer and explorer, the kick-ass crime solver, the female characters I really love are the ones who make things better by being there, and by being their best selves.
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show.
That would be Whose Line Is It Anyway. I really have no justification for this, as it's often crude and vulgar and sexist. I got hooked on it when I was in the nursing home, as I rarely fell asleep before one in the morning, and since the nurses were inclined to wake me at midnight to make me take a final dose of medicine, I often tried to cheer myself up before I went to sleep. And...well, it was one of the few regular programs that was on at midnight that wasn't a talk show, a crime drama or religious. And it did make me feel better. It still does. I don't know why.
Completed Questions
Day 1 - A show that never should have been canceled.
Day 2 - A show that you wish more people were watching (or that you wish more people had watched).
Day 3 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season).
Day 4 - Your favorite show ever.
Day 5 - A show you hate.
Day 6 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 7 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show.
Day 8 - A show everyone should watch.
Day 9 - Best scene ever.
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving.
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you.
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times.
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show.
Day 14 - Favorite male character.
Day 15 - Favorite female character.
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show.
***