only one favorite female character????
It appears that V has been renewed for a second season. I'm a little surprised, frankly, but not displeased. The past couple of episodes have improved (lots of Bechdel test-passing in the last one, yay!), and although it still has some not insignificant overall problems, I will be interested to see what they do with a second season.
And there does not yet seem to be official word of this, but rumor has it that Lie to Me will also be renewed (despite not having aired the rest of season 2 yet), and this makes me even happier. Especially because they're losing the show-runner who seems to have been primarily responsible for some of the changes in season 2 that I wasn't so wild about. Let's hope whoever replaces him will restore some of the Gillian-being-awesome-ness ensemble-y goodness of season 1. I like Cal, but I did not sign up for The Cal Show.
(An aside: I have finally lived in Canada long enough that spelling has become a conscious decision. Favourite or favorite? Neither is instinctive anymore, neither looks right, and I feel like my choices in spelling have identity implications. Am I feeling more American today or more Canadian? I find this very frustrating!!!)
Today in the TV meme: Day 15 - Favorite female character
Heh. One????????? This would be the hardest question yet! How to choose between the radiant Aeryn Sun and the enigmatic Dana Scully? Could I really fail to acknowledge the incomparable awesomeness of Sarah Connor? What about Sam Carter? Janet Fraiser? Susan Ivanova? Tami Taylor? Gillian Foster? CJ Cregg? I love them ALL!!!!
Yet up until about a year and a half ago, I had a clear answer to this question, and when push comes to shove, that's still my answer, albeit with some caveats: Laura Roslin, up through the end of my personal BSG canon, which is about 4.10 or 4.11.
Oh Laura!!!!!!! For most of the series, I found her to be one of the most complex, fully-realized characters--of any gender--on television. She's a single, middle-aged, childless woman, and we're not given any indication that there's anything wrong with this, that she's got anything lacking in her life because of these choices she's made. She's politically brilliant and ambitious (after all, one doesn't become Secretary of Education without ambition!), but she's thrust into a position she never sought, holding 50,000 people together, sometimes through the sheer force of her will. She can seem cold and ruthless, but her decisions are motivated by an almost unimaginable love of the fleet: she will sacrifice anything, her own soul very much included, to save her people. She has a complicated relationship with faith. She has a complicated relationship with her own body, which spends most of the series trying to betray her. She loves people and saves them and betrays them. She's a dictator. She can be blinded by hate. She gets the giggles. She's a walking paradox, so carefully rendered and so human.
And, well, we won't talk about what happened in the end, when so much of what made her one of the most sophisticated characters I'd ever seen, someone whose motivations were complex but also tremendously consistent, got dismantled, and she joined several of the other names above on my List of Beloved Female Characters who got Screwed in the End.
But for most of 3 1/2 seasons, Laura Roslin fascinated me, challenged me, terrified me, and generally blew my mind, and even though I'm still really bitter about 4.5, she's still my favorite television character, period.
In case you're not familiar with chaila43's vid Echoes, may I recommend it? This is my Laura.
And there does not yet seem to be official word of this, but rumor has it that Lie to Me will also be renewed (despite not having aired the rest of season 2 yet), and this makes me even happier. Especially because they're losing the show-runner who seems to have been primarily responsible for some of the changes in season 2 that I wasn't so wild about. Let's hope whoever replaces him will restore some of the Gillian-being-awesome-ness ensemble-y goodness of season 1. I like Cal, but I did not sign up for The Cal Show.
(An aside: I have finally lived in Canada long enough that spelling has become a conscious decision. Favourite or favorite? Neither is instinctive anymore, neither looks right, and I feel like my choices in spelling have identity implications. Am I feeling more American today or more Canadian? I find this very frustrating!!!)
Today in the TV meme: Day 15 - Favorite female character
Heh. One????????? This would be the hardest question yet! How to choose between the radiant Aeryn Sun and the enigmatic Dana Scully? Could I really fail to acknowledge the incomparable awesomeness of Sarah Connor? What about Sam Carter? Janet Fraiser? Susan Ivanova? Tami Taylor? Gillian Foster? CJ Cregg? I love them ALL!!!!
Yet up until about a year and a half ago, I had a clear answer to this question, and when push comes to shove, that's still my answer, albeit with some caveats: Laura Roslin, up through the end of my personal BSG canon, which is about 4.10 or 4.11.
Oh Laura!!!!!!! For most of the series, I found her to be one of the most complex, fully-realized characters--of any gender--on television. She's a single, middle-aged, childless woman, and we're not given any indication that there's anything wrong with this, that she's got anything lacking in her life because of these choices she's made. She's politically brilliant and ambitious (after all, one doesn't become Secretary of Education without ambition!), but she's thrust into a position she never sought, holding 50,000 people together, sometimes through the sheer force of her will. She can seem cold and ruthless, but her decisions are motivated by an almost unimaginable love of the fleet: she will sacrifice anything, her own soul very much included, to save her people. She has a complicated relationship with faith. She has a complicated relationship with her own body, which spends most of the series trying to betray her. She loves people and saves them and betrays them. She's a dictator. She can be blinded by hate. She gets the giggles. She's a walking paradox, so carefully rendered and so human.
And, well, we won't talk about what happened in the end, when so much of what made her one of the most sophisticated characters I'd ever seen, someone whose motivations were complex but also tremendously consistent, got dismantled, and she joined several of the other names above on my List of Beloved Female Characters who got Screwed in the End.
But for most of 3 1/2 seasons, Laura Roslin fascinated me, challenged me, terrified me, and generally blew my mind, and even though I'm still really bitter about 4.5, she's still my favorite television character, period.
In case you're not familiar with chaila43's vid Echoes, may I recommend it? This is my Laura.