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Epic Girl!crush Picspam of Doom that I started, like... a month ago... is finally finished! ...Sort of. Well. Finished in a me definition of the word, where I spent way too long working on it; started getting picky over everything; somehow picked up two new fandoms in the meantime; felt compelled to add more and more; felt guilty over stuff being left out; finally said ENOUGH ALREADY, SELF -- CLOSURE!! So I limited it to television girl!crushes. From shows currently airing -- or that would be airing if they weren't on hiatus. Or if they hadn't been off the air for years, and that I'm only now catching up with. Except for, well, the one that's already aired and I've already caught up with, finally, but am not ready to let go of. Ahhhh this is why I can never get anything done.
A few of the reasons why I love my TV...
Usually I'm a fan of saving the best for last, but I decided rather to open with Lucy Griffiths, as she was what prompted this endeavor in the first place. Just when I thought I had finally put all of my angst about that episode behind me, I had an inexplicable resurgence of Robin Hood brain babble (which, uh, I am still sort of working out. See above re: my inability to finish projects) -- and of course my love for the show is tied directly to Lady Marian.
Her indomitable virtues of cunning, cleverness, compassion, and, uh, total hotness overwhelm even the worst hairstyles of insanity and some truly tragic costuming choices.
But you know, sometimes I wish that she'd maybe be a smidge less impossibly adorable, awesome, gorgeous, etc. etc. -- because 1) HOW DOES SHE DO IT?? My brain fails to comprehend and 2) then maybe I wouldn't find it so deeply, emotionally distressing to deal with her continued absence from the small screen. Luuuuucy don't abandon us forever!
Next up we have yet another unfortunate victim of my recent tendency to jinx all of my favourite TV gals into getting killed off of their shows -- Dr. Amber Volakis of House, MD.
Words coming back to bit me in the ass: "Oh, pleeeease bring her back on the show! I don't care where/why/how/etc., it just needs to happen!!" Maybe I should have put in a tiny disclaimer about, y'know, not bringing her back just to cause me more emotional turmoil, BUT WHATEVER. At least Anne Dudek rocked the face off of the finale (seriously. If you didn't cry, it's time to get your tear ducts oiled, Mr Robot Man. And if you didn't go ZOMG HOT at subconscious!House/Amber, check to see if you are STILL ALIVE. And if you didn't feel hollow/anguished/peaceful/pissed off/gloomy/dreamy/thwarted/saddddd at the Heavenly Intercity Transit... well, that's kind of a lot to feel all at once, so I don't blame you. I realize now that I never actually posted a response to the finale, and, well... yeah. I still kind of feel like House and Wilson at the end of the episode -- are there words to say how crappy I feel about it? No. Siiigh. And, man, this is getting too talky for a picspam!).
You can still catch Anne Dudek in a handful of other shows -- some of which I actually watch, shocker! -- so let's hope I don't doom her into leaving those yet. Although I seem to have already cast my curse over Detective Lucinda Barry on Psych, the fate of Mad Men's Francine Hanson looks good for now... perhaps happy times job-wise finally coinciding with happy news IRL-wise because OMG PREGNANT AND SHE LOOKS SO HAPPY (DID I SAY THAT ALREADY??) AND AMAZING??!?!!
Anne acts in three of the shows featured in this post, so I'll use her as a starting point to go through them one at a time. I was first introduced to her on Psych as Lassiter's junior detective-slash-girlfriend (ha, perhaps why I love Miss Dudek so much? She gets to sleep with all of my TV boyfriends, SHE THEREFORE MUST BE AWESOME), only to have her swiftly swept aside for a younger, bouncier, blonder replacement. So technically, I should hate Detective Juliet O'Hara on principle, as a symbol of everything wrong with media portrayal and audience expectation of the modern working woman, buuut. Well. It's not like she personally fired Anne Dudek or anything. And she's smart and cute and funny, occasionally a little green but learning, some Mary Sue-ish tendencies but endearingly quirky. Verdict: Maggie Lawson is just too darned nice to hate. Go ahead, try. I dare you.
...You couldn't make it, could you? I bet it was the ChapStick (fictional characters take note -- this is an instant means of endearing yourself to me. It worked for Rodney McKay, it worked for Jules, and it can work for you, too!).
The next show on which I caught Anne was House, MD, the one that made me fall for her something fierce. And, hey, once again it features a female character I really wanted to hate for her sake, too. Only, well, I did actually succeed there for a while. I don't think I so much hated Thirteen as I did resent her, because from the moment she was introduced you just knew there was no way she wasn't going to get hired and, man, way to blow half the fun of the competition, you know? I enjoyed her character during the initial stages of the Amber/Thirteen rivalry, but once it became apparent that it would end in an either-or situation, not both when it came to hiring -- the claws came out against Thirteen. ETERNAL HATRED AUUUGHHHH!!! ...Except not, because just a few episodes later she finally started to grow on me. I think it's because, once she was actually hired, the writers decided they could do something with her, instead of just have her hang about as Enigmatic Mysterious Hottie (psst -- not nearly intriguing as it sounds!).
Even though I feel comfortable saying that I like Thirteen now, I don't find her character to be all that crushable -- BUT OH MY GOD OLIVIA WILDE IS HOT LIKE BURNING.
I sort of feel the same way about Dr. Allison Cameron and Jennifer Morrison -- okay-ish on the character, but dfsjklasdf;jaf gorgeous about the actress.
(Also? How sad is it that I started to get a little sad going through my JMo photos and finding that I still have all her In Style Weddings scans saved? :( :( I swear I never get upset about celebrity couples, I don't know what's wrong with me.)
Lisa Cuddy -- once again, ambivalent! I think she can kick a lot of ass and be a strong authority figure when she needs to be, but I'm always a little eeeshy by the show's tendency to play up House/Cuddy in a way that makes her seem inept at her job -- good relationship when it's playful and challenging, bad when it's demeaning. But, well, extra awesome points for Lisa's endless supply of perfect "BITCH PLZ" faces.
Finally, Mad Men, Anne's current show. Although it's the kind of drama where it's hard to even like any of the characters, don't bother telling me that you can watch it without falling in love with Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway because I will instantly know that you are full of lies.
The thing is, I really didn't get the appeal of her YoSaffBridge on Firefly; but I don't know if the difference here is purely a costume kink, because the 60s did not exactly produce a lot of my favourite looks... Ah, I guess I will just have to accept her insane levels of awesome without being able to justify my sudden turnaround.
Now onto the scifi portion of our evening! Okay, so I kind of lied when I said Lucy was the sole impetus for this post; my other biiiig motivator was Nana Visitor as Major Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. How sad am I to finally be through with the show?? D: D: D: (Well, I think I might still have a few scattered episodes to go back and watch; after going through every single episode summary I think there are three I still haven't seen that must have fallen through the cracks of SpikeTV's scheduling somewhere, but for all intents and purposes I've run through the entire show history. WITHDRAWAL IMMINENT OH NOES) Kira is probably my all time favourite female Trek character. I think her arc throughout the show strikes the perfect balance between loyalty to self, a real core understanding of who she is and what she believes -- and openness to change, a flexibility to learn and grow from those around her. I know I already quoted this bit after watching the series finale, but I completely agree with Nana's articulation of her character's journey: "She has come full circle, but going full circle, she's explored all the degrees all the way around the circle, so she's pretty much in the same place, but not the same person at all. There's a depth and an understanding, and an experience that only going the whole way around the trip gives you." She's always uniquely her, but in a way always changing... and somebody please stop me before I break out in a rousing chorus of Meredith Brooks' "Bitch."
So she suffered from the occasional bad hairstyle, but that's what alternate reality/holosuite episodes are for! "Badda-bing, Badda-bang" = SO SO SO GOOD. (Okay, maybe I like the 60s more than I thought. :P)
Recurring DS9 ladies of awesome:
Keiko O'Brien (who makes me feel bad for shipping Bashir/O'Brien... but not bad enough to stop, apparently :P), Kasidy Yates (who is the best kind of love interest for getting to be more than a love interest and have her own episode arcs, yay), Grilka (because Quark has excellent taste in women XD), and, okay, I cheated with the Mirror!verse characters, whatever.
I debated including Terry Farrell as Jadzia... she reminds me too much of my oldest sister to be a part of my crush list, but she's gorgeous and smart and just a teeny bit wacky (hmm, again like my sister!), sooo she's an Honourary Cool TV Chick Who I Don't Really Perv Over But Do Love Mightily Just the Same.
This, folks, is my Dax of choice: Ezri, as played by the delightfully wee and cute Nicole de Boer!
Once more I find myself doing a total 180° on a character -- I remember disliking Ezri when I caught my first few snippets of DS9 a few summers ago, but when I sat down to watch S7 properly this year I absolutely fell in love. Okay, so she's kind of the worst counselor ever (seriously, how many times does she give advice along the lines of, "We should just let this play out and see where it goes"? TOO MANY TIMES, THAT'S HOW MANY. It's her panacea for serial killers, PTSD sufferers, emotionally unstable family members... and it seems to end in death a smidge too often to be a practicable solution.) But... whatever. Who said TV crushes had to make sense?
Because Nicole will be guest starring in an upcoming episode, up next is Stargate: Atlantis. ...I'm sure you can guess where this is headed.
Rather than explaining my love for Teyla Emmagen, I think what we have here is another instance of -- seriously? If you don't find her attractive? I... cannot come up with any other common ground.
(I will at least concede that Teyla's wigs are usually varying levels of horrible, but does anybody know of a good place to find shots of Rachel Luttrell out of character? The internets, they are failing me. D:)
Now that I've started in on SG-1 as well, of course I have to include that ubiquitous 'gateverse gal, Dr. (Captain, Colonel, etc., depending on which series I'm watching) Samantha Carter.
Yeah, yeah, I know I've already said this for a lot of the women on here, but WOW I was SO SURE I was going to hate Sam. Like, ZERO doubt in my mind. THE ULTIMATE CANON MARY SUE, IS THERE NOTHING SHE CAN'T DO? Starting out with SGA, I already hated her because, seiously, how can you talk up a character so much who isn't even on the damn show? As soon as Amanda Tapping started popping up to guest in episodes, I was just gooo awayyyy get off my show *flaps hands in the direction of Milky Way, OUT OF ATLANTIS*. I absolutely dreaded starting season four because, seriously, I don't need you mucking with my team dynamic, Sam!
And then, when faced with the prospect of full time Carter... I just couldn't do it. The ultimate in Sue technology, perhaps -- a character I am physically incapable of hating? It's like what JFlan says here: even if you try to foment some sort of conflict, you just... what. No. It will not take. And now with SG-1, I've gone from not hating to actively loving her. SO YOUNG, SO PLAGUED BY FLOPPY NINETIES HAIR.
Other SG-1 honourable mention: Teryl Rothery as Dr. Janet Fraiser. I can't say I've seen enough of the show to come up with some thorough, concrete explanation for why I like her, buuut basically she's awesome. And I was probably predisposed because she's yet another Psych/Stargate crossover actress.
Finally, The Middleman! As with Jadzia, I have a hard time finding Natalie Morales crushable because she reminds me ssssoooo much of my other sister (so if you're ever trying to picture my family -- Jadzia Dax, Wendy Watson, me, and I guess I have to find a fictional doppleganger for my little brother). She's currently one of my favourite TV girls of the moment, though, so I couldn't bear to leave her off.
And Brit Morgan as Lacey Thornfield! She's grown on me quite a lot throughout the course of the show; at the start she bore too close a resemblance to so many obnoxious art students it has been my misfortune to encounter thanks to my choice of undergraduate institution; but there's a real sweetness and innocence about her character that's downright charming, and I really love her relationship with DubDub.
...And you know, I was all ready to wrap this up when I realized that I hadn't included anybody from Lost. Which, uh... my relationship with that show and its characters is. Well? Complicated. ??? I don't know how to explain it. Like, I love them all beyond reason, but don't think of them in crush terms because they're almost too real? Like, I mean, in the sense that I think about people in real life -- a lot of TV crushes are because, you know, you get to see the hidden squishy side of this character or feel like you get to know them better than anybody because you're invited into all aspects of their lives, etc. -- that sense of security that you know and understand a character. But on Lost I don't want to feel that way; I want to have my mind blown in the face of unexpected insanity on a weekly basis; but I guess that means the sacrifice of comfortable, reliable TV crushes. But, I mean... I still love them...? I dunno. IT MAKES SENSE IN MY HEAD. But, well, yeah, I felt bad about leaving them off, so here you go!
OH YES I PUT ANA LUCIA ON THERE. WHAT NOW. (See? This is what I mean about "complicated" feelings.) Here's some fascinating insight into my private life, too -- Penny and I have THE SAME EXACT YELLOW WATER PITCHER! True story, it's sitting in my fridge right now.
A few of the reasons why I love my TV...
Usually I'm a fan of saving the best for last, but I decided rather to open with Lucy Griffiths, as she was what prompted this endeavor in the first place. Just when I thought I had finally put all of my angst about that episode behind me, I had an inexplicable resurgence of Robin Hood brain babble (which, uh, I am still sort of working out. See above re: my inability to finish projects) -- and of course my love for the show is tied directly to Lady Marian.
Her indomitable virtues of cunning, cleverness, compassion, and, uh, total hotness overwhelm even the worst hairstyles of insanity and some truly tragic costuming choices.
But you know, sometimes I wish that she'd maybe be a smidge less impossibly adorable, awesome, gorgeous, etc. etc. -- because 1) HOW DOES SHE DO IT?? My brain fails to comprehend and 2) then maybe I wouldn't find it so deeply, emotionally distressing to deal with her continued absence from the small screen. Luuuuucy don't abandon us forever!
Next up we have yet another unfortunate victim of my recent tendency to jinx all of my favourite TV gals into getting killed off of their shows -- Dr. Amber Volakis of House, MD.
Words coming back to bit me in the ass: "Oh, pleeeease bring her back on the show! I don't care where/why/how/etc., it just needs to happen!!" Maybe I should have put in a tiny disclaimer about, y'know, not bringing her back just to cause me more emotional turmoil, BUT WHATEVER. At least Anne Dudek rocked the face off of the finale (seriously. If you didn't cry, it's time to get your tear ducts oiled, Mr Robot Man. And if you didn't go ZOMG HOT at subconscious!House/Amber, check to see if you are STILL ALIVE. And if you didn't feel hollow/anguished/peaceful/pissed off/gloomy/dreamy/thwarted/saddddd at the Heavenly Intercity Transit... well, that's kind of a lot to feel all at once, so I don't blame you. I realize now that I never actually posted a response to the finale, and, well... yeah. I still kind of feel like House and Wilson at the end of the episode -- are there words to say how crappy I feel about it? No. Siiigh. And, man, this is getting too talky for a picspam!).
You can still catch Anne Dudek in a handful of other shows -- some of which I actually watch, shocker! -- so let's hope I don't doom her into leaving those yet. Although I seem to have already cast my curse over Detective Lucinda Barry on Psych, the fate of Mad Men's Francine Hanson looks good for now... perhaps happy times job-wise finally coinciding with happy news IRL-wise because OMG PREGNANT AND SHE LOOKS SO HAPPY (DID I SAY THAT ALREADY??) AND AMAZING??!?!!
Anne acts in three of the shows featured in this post, so I'll use her as a starting point to go through them one at a time. I was first introduced to her on Psych as Lassiter's junior detective-slash-girlfriend (ha, perhaps why I love Miss Dudek so much? She gets to sleep with all of my TV boyfriends, SHE THEREFORE MUST BE AWESOME), only to have her swiftly swept aside for a younger, bouncier, blonder replacement. So technically, I should hate Detective Juliet O'Hara on principle, as a symbol of everything wrong with media portrayal and audience expectation of the modern working woman, buuut. Well. It's not like she personally fired Anne Dudek or anything. And she's smart and cute and funny, occasionally a little green but learning, some Mary Sue-ish tendencies but endearingly quirky. Verdict: Maggie Lawson is just too darned nice to hate. Go ahead, try. I dare you.
...You couldn't make it, could you? I bet it was the ChapStick (fictional characters take note -- this is an instant means of endearing yourself to me. It worked for Rodney McKay, it worked for Jules, and it can work for you, too!).
The next show on which I caught Anne was House, MD, the one that made me fall for her something fierce. And, hey, once again it features a female character I really wanted to hate for her sake, too. Only, well, I did actually succeed there for a while. I don't think I so much hated Thirteen as I did resent her, because from the moment she was introduced you just knew there was no way she wasn't going to get hired and, man, way to blow half the fun of the competition, you know? I enjoyed her character during the initial stages of the Amber/Thirteen rivalry, but once it became apparent that it would end in an either-or situation, not both when it came to hiring -- the claws came out against Thirteen. ETERNAL HATRED AUUUGHHHH!!! ...Except not, because just a few episodes later she finally started to grow on me. I think it's because, once she was actually hired, the writers decided they could do something with her, instead of just have her hang about as Enigmatic Mysterious Hottie (psst -- not nearly intriguing as it sounds!).
Even though I feel comfortable saying that I like Thirteen now, I don't find her character to be all that crushable -- BUT OH MY GOD OLIVIA WILDE IS HOT LIKE BURNING.
I sort of feel the same way about Dr. Allison Cameron and Jennifer Morrison -- okay-ish on the character, but dfsjklasdf;jaf gorgeous about the actress.
(Also? How sad is it that I started to get a little sad going through my JMo photos and finding that I still have all her In Style Weddings scans saved? :( :( I swear I never get upset about celebrity couples, I don't know what's wrong with me.)
Lisa Cuddy -- once again, ambivalent! I think she can kick a lot of ass and be a strong authority figure when she needs to be, but I'm always a little eeeshy by the show's tendency to play up House/Cuddy in a way that makes her seem inept at her job -- good relationship when it's playful and challenging, bad when it's demeaning. But, well, extra awesome points for Lisa's endless supply of perfect "BITCH PLZ" faces.
Finally, Mad Men, Anne's current show. Although it's the kind of drama where it's hard to even like any of the characters, don't bother telling me that you can watch it without falling in love with Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway because I will instantly know that you are full of lies.
The thing is, I really didn't get the appeal of her YoSaffBridge on Firefly; but I don't know if the difference here is purely a costume kink, because the 60s did not exactly produce a lot of my favourite looks... Ah, I guess I will just have to accept her insane levels of awesome without being able to justify my sudden turnaround.
Now onto the scifi portion of our evening! Okay, so I kind of lied when I said Lucy was the sole impetus for this post; my other biiiig motivator was Nana Visitor as Major Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. How sad am I to finally be through with the show?? D: D: D: (Well, I think I might still have a few scattered episodes to go back and watch; after going through every single episode summary I think there are three I still haven't seen that must have fallen through the cracks of SpikeTV's scheduling somewhere, but for all intents and purposes I've run through the entire show history. WITHDRAWAL IMMINENT OH NOES) Kira is probably my all time favourite female Trek character. I think her arc throughout the show strikes the perfect balance between loyalty to self, a real core understanding of who she is and what she believes -- and openness to change, a flexibility to learn and grow from those around her. I know I already quoted this bit after watching the series finale, but I completely agree with Nana's articulation of her character's journey: "She has come full circle, but going full circle, she's explored all the degrees all the way around the circle, so she's pretty much in the same place, but not the same person at all. There's a depth and an understanding, and an experience that only going the whole way around the trip gives you." She's always uniquely her, but in a way always changing... and somebody please stop me before I break out in a rousing chorus of Meredith Brooks' "Bitch."
So she suffered from the occasional bad hairstyle, but that's what alternate reality/holosuite episodes are for! "Badda-bing, Badda-bang" = SO SO SO GOOD. (Okay, maybe I like the 60s more than I thought. :P)
Recurring DS9 ladies of awesome:
Keiko O'Brien (who makes me feel bad for shipping Bashir/O'Brien... but not bad enough to stop, apparently :P), Kasidy Yates (who is the best kind of love interest for getting to be more than a love interest and have her own episode arcs, yay), Grilka (because Quark has excellent taste in women XD), and, okay, I cheated with the Mirror!verse characters, whatever.
I debated including Terry Farrell as Jadzia... she reminds me too much of my oldest sister to be a part of my crush list, but she's gorgeous and smart and just a teeny bit wacky (hmm, again like my sister!), sooo she's an Honourary Cool TV Chick Who I Don't Really Perv Over But Do Love Mightily Just the Same.
This, folks, is my Dax of choice: Ezri, as played by the delightfully wee and cute Nicole de Boer!
Once more I find myself doing a total 180° on a character -- I remember disliking Ezri when I caught my first few snippets of DS9 a few summers ago, but when I sat down to watch S7 properly this year I absolutely fell in love. Okay, so she's kind of the worst counselor ever (seriously, how many times does she give advice along the lines of, "We should just let this play out and see where it goes"? TOO MANY TIMES, THAT'S HOW MANY. It's her panacea for serial killers, PTSD sufferers, emotionally unstable family members... and it seems to end in death a smidge too often to be a practicable solution.) But... whatever. Who said TV crushes had to make sense?
Because Nicole will be guest starring in an upcoming episode, up next is Stargate: Atlantis. ...I'm sure you can guess where this is headed.
Rather than explaining my love for Teyla Emmagen, I think what we have here is another instance of -- seriously? If you don't find her attractive? I... cannot come up with any other common ground.
(I will at least concede that Teyla's wigs are usually varying levels of horrible, but does anybody know of a good place to find shots of Rachel Luttrell out of character? The internets, they are failing me. D:)
Now that I've started in on SG-1 as well, of course I have to include that ubiquitous 'gateverse gal, Dr. (Captain, Colonel, etc., depending on which series I'm watching) Samantha Carter.
Yeah, yeah, I know I've already said this for a lot of the women on here, but WOW I was SO SURE I was going to hate Sam. Like, ZERO doubt in my mind. THE ULTIMATE CANON MARY SUE, IS THERE NOTHING SHE CAN'T DO? Starting out with SGA, I already hated her because, seiously, how can you talk up a character so much who isn't even on the damn show? As soon as Amanda Tapping started popping up to guest in episodes, I was just gooo awayyyy get off my show *flaps hands in the direction of Milky Way, OUT OF ATLANTIS*. I absolutely dreaded starting season four because, seriously, I don't need you mucking with my team dynamic, Sam!
And then, when faced with the prospect of full time Carter... I just couldn't do it. The ultimate in Sue technology, perhaps -- a character I am physically incapable of hating? It's like what JFlan says here: even if you try to foment some sort of conflict, you just... what. No. It will not take. And now with SG-1, I've gone from not hating to actively loving her. SO YOUNG, SO PLAGUED BY FLOPPY NINETIES HAIR.
Other SG-1 honourable mention: Teryl Rothery as Dr. Janet Fraiser. I can't say I've seen enough of the show to come up with some thorough, concrete explanation for why I like her, buuut basically she's awesome. And I was probably predisposed because she's yet another Psych/Stargate crossover actress.
Finally, The Middleman! As with Jadzia, I have a hard time finding Natalie Morales crushable because she reminds me ssssoooo much of my other sister (so if you're ever trying to picture my family -- Jadzia Dax, Wendy Watson, me, and I guess I have to find a fictional doppleganger for my little brother). She's currently one of my favourite TV girls of the moment, though, so I couldn't bear to leave her off.
And Brit Morgan as Lacey Thornfield! She's grown on me quite a lot throughout the course of the show; at the start she bore too close a resemblance to so many obnoxious art students it has been my misfortune to encounter thanks to my choice of undergraduate institution; but there's a real sweetness and innocence about her character that's downright charming, and I really love her relationship with DubDub.
...And you know, I was all ready to wrap this up when I realized that I hadn't included anybody from Lost. Which, uh... my relationship with that show and its characters is. Well? Complicated. ??? I don't know how to explain it. Like, I love them all beyond reason, but don't think of them in crush terms because they're almost too real? Like, I mean, in the sense that I think about people in real life -- a lot of TV crushes are because, you know, you get to see the hidden squishy side of this character or feel like you get to know them better than anybody because you're invited into all aspects of their lives, etc. -- that sense of security that you know and understand a character. But on Lost I don't want to feel that way; I want to have my mind blown in the face of unexpected insanity on a weekly basis; but I guess that means the sacrifice of comfortable, reliable TV crushes. But, I mean... I still love them...? I dunno. IT MAKES SENSE IN MY HEAD. But, well, yeah, I felt bad about leaving them off, so here you go!
OH YES I PUT ANA LUCIA ON THERE. WHAT NOW. (See? This is what I mean about "complicated" feelings.) Here's some fascinating insight into my private life, too -- Penny and I have THE SAME EXACT YELLOW WATER PITCHER! True story, it's sitting in my fridge right now.