Fall Television

So there's just two months until the Fall TV season starts up, and I'm telling you, I'm anxious for it to begin. Summer Television is less than enthralling when you don't have cable. I've been watching stuck watching the Bachelorette and reruns of Gossip Girl. Not exceptionally pleasant. At least, this fall promises to have some good shows going for it. There will be the return of my personal favorites: Supernatural and Vampire Diaries. Both shows ended with cliffhangers and I'm going to be very interested in what the next season brings for my favorite hunters and vampires.

I'm more excited, however, about the new shows turning up on all the channels. Last season had less than stellar new shows, so I'm still going into this season realistic and yet hopeful. For the fall, I'm most excited about Terra Nova - the show that has dinosaurs, time travel, and Steven Spielberg all rolled into one. Terra Nova could either be really, really great or really, really awful. The budget for the show is enormous, so the audience is going to have to be a pretty decent size to keep this show on the air. I have high hopes, but that's mainly just because I love anything with dinosaurs in it. Yes, this sadly includes Primeval.

Another show I'm interested in is the Ringer. I loved Buffy and am excited to see Sarah Michelle Gellar in a new show. Also, the show has Ioan Gruffudd. I've been a fan of that man since I first saw Horatio Hornblower when I was in high school. I hope his first foray into American TV turns out well for him. A bit of history, the show was passed over by CBS and then picked up by the CW for the Fall season. I'm still not sure how to take this. You see . . . I loath CBS. Their shows tend to be awful and overly dramatic. If the Ringer isn't like other CBS shows, this is good news to me. I'm hoping that CBS overlooked the show because it wasn't their style rather than because it wasn't that good. I look forward to having yet another awesome CW show to watch.

Finally, I'm intrigued by Person of Interest. This is a CBS show, but I'm going to try and watch with an open mind. Alright, the open mind thing is actually going to be really hard because the show is produced by J.J. Abrams. I used to love J.J., but now, I'm a bit disillusioned. I loved Super 8, but that hardly makes up for the awful ending of Lost or the badness of Fringe. I don't trust him when it comes to shows. There are two reasons, however, that make me willing to overlook all of this. The first is Michael Emerson. Ben from Lost is one of my favorite characters ever. I think Michael Emerson was brilliant in that role, and I can't wait to see what he chooses to do next. The second reason is that Jonathan Nolan is one of the producers. Jonathan Nolan is the little brother of Christopher and the writer of the Dark Knight and Prestige. I love the Nolan brothers and want to see what he's up to with this show. I trust him about as much as I distrust J.J. Oh yeah, and I forgot to say what this show is about. Imdb.com describes the show as centering on an ex-CIA hitman and a scientist who team up to prevent crimes before they happen. Could be interesting. Could be lame. We'll just have to wait and see.

All I say say is this: Fall 2011 is going to make for some interesting television watching.

Girl Power!

Frequently, I'm seriously annoyed by the way women are portrayed on television and in the books I'm reading. Yesterday, I finished I Am Number Four. About halfway through the book, I began to roll my eyes. The author wanted the readers to buy that the main character, John, was in truly in love with a school mate, Sarah. I did not buy for one second that what they had was love. They are fifteen for one AND, more importantly, the poor girl had no personality. She was a face and nothing more. John always called her things like "Gorgeous" and thought about how pretty she was. That was the extent of what we knew about her and it was also all apparently he cared to know too. The story is basically this: John and eight other aliens came to earth when their planet is destroyed, big bad aliens are trying to kill them, and John knows he's next. The idea behind the plot is Superman's back story for the most part. John has superpowers, etc.   John isn't a likable main character.  He's selfish and that selfishness gets those close to him hurt or killed.  He is never has to accept the consequences for his actions even when bad stuff happens and its his fault.  He's the male version of a Mary Sue.  Anyways, back to his love interest . . .  when John finally tells Sarah that he's an alien, there are no questions or "Oh my gosh!" moments. She believes him right off the bat and isn't at all weird out that he isn't human or even that he's been lying to her about everything since she met him. Oh yeah, and right before she finds out he's an alien, she manages to be stupid enough to be the only person stuck in a burning house. John, of course, has to save her. There is crying involved.

The worst moment in the book came when John and his protector are fighting it out with the bad aliens and Sarah won't stop clinging to him and crying. She cries a lot. He tries to push her off of him but she won't leave. She has to be led away by another big strong man because she doesn't even have the brains to know when to hide. At the end, the author somehow wants us to believe that this idiotic wimp would kill a bad alien. I didn't buy it. She was in hysterics when she saw them earlier and there is no way that the little woman the author created could have even stabbed an alien.  I read the book thinking the book would get better but no, it got worse.  The author made me so frustrated because whoever they are, they should have known better than to create a self-centered character like John (and present him as a hero) and a girl without any personality.  These two aren't the only things wrong with the book but they are the pair that made me want to scream when I was finished.   

Sarah was an example of a horribly weak female character, but unfortunately, she is not the exception. Last weak, I finished Mockingjay. I had been under the impression that the main character, Katniss, would be a strong woman. She kicks butt and wants to take down the government. By the third book, however, she spends all of her time being used by the resistance, sulking, and blaming herself for every thing. She never steps up to the plate. She never takes control of her own life. While reading the book, I came to the realization that any other character in the series would have been more interesting at that point. She didn't do anything. How can you write a book about a character who doesn't do anything or make any choices? Well, Suzanne Collins proved that you can, but it makes for a horrible book. 

Katniss and Sarah are just a few in the long line of weak female characters that have been saturating the media lately. After finished that horrible book in the afternoon, I was so thankful to catch the new show Nikita last night. After watching an episode of Covert Affairs this summer, I was hoping that Nikita wouldn't go the same way and bring another set of boy obsessed female spies to the TV. My hopes were rewarded. The new Nikita is along the lines of her predecessors, the original Nikita and Sydney Bristow. She kicks butt and has a mission she believes in. The show was billed as a Girl Power show and it definitely rises to that title. There are two strong female leads, Nikita herself and Alex. Both are smart and tough. Nikita is trying to take down Division, the place that turned her into an assassin and killed her fiancé Danny (shades of Alias here). She has been in hiding for a while but now is instigating a war with Alex as her ally. Alex is on the inside feeding Nikita information. She was picked up off the streets as a new recruit and is being trained to be an assassin.  Of course, Nikita trained her first and so we are given a really interesting duo. I have great hopes for this show. It doesn't fit in with the other shows in the CW line up but I'm hoping that it will stay on anyway. It promises to be an interesting show and I, for one, am thankful to see a strong woman on television again. Her appearance last night renewed my hope that there are some more writers out there who believe young women need strong female characters to encourage and empower them.