What Is Bea Watching This Television Season?

...Because I know you were all wondering. It's the question on everyone's (no one's) minds! Believe it or not, I don't feel like I watch a lot of television. I despise having shows meted out to me on a weekly basis and then pulled for months at a time. IT ANNOYS ME A LOT. I really prefer to mainline a show on DVD, but then I miss out on discussing it with with everyone else and reading reviews and articles, etc.

Returning Shows

• The Walking Dead. Dude. Zombies. Come on. I agree with everyone else who says that season one had an pretty awesome pilot and then the rest...kinda...sucked? It was very uneven. There were parts that were cool (the zombie attack on the camp, the showdown at the CDC) and parts that sucked (Um. The rest), but I was still curious enough to pop in for season two. It's better that the first season. I know that seems like faint praise, but it really is better. Some of the existing problems from season one are still around, like the pacing issues (Either kill Sophia off or fucking find her. LIKE, YESTERDAY), they still don't really know how to handle the Lori/Shane/Rick triangle (Lori and Shane need to come clean - they aren't really at fault, they truly thought Rick was dead and who could blame them - and then they have a threeway relationship. Shit. It's the zombie apocalypse. Have a threeway. Who cares?), and I still don't feel like they've really found their own internal logic and rules for their particular zombie apocalypse. They sure don't treat it like a biological contagion, what with everyone unconcernedly getting zombie goo on them all the time, but it's clearly communicable through bites, so what the fuck? SO. ANYWAY. The Walking Dead: better than last season, for real. The Shane twist was pretty great and I'm hoping it gets that character (who has potential and I like the actor) out of that rut (PUN SO INTENDED) that he's been in. The show needs to figure out some cool shit to do with Glenn, and either do something with Andrea or kill her off. While she's got a point re: Dale's paternalism, her incessant whinging about it drives me crazy. (The show, in general, kind of doesn't know what do with women. Are there any women on that writing staff? If not, fucking hire some.) Of course, I also watch The Talking Dead, because I love Chris Hardwick.
  
• Criminal Minds. I slacked off last season because the firing of 66.6666667% of the female cast members REALLY pissed me off. And apparently it pissed everyone else off because, OH LOOK! They brought Emily and JJ back because the most important thing about this show is the chemistry of the cast! Imagine that! So, I'm back. Spencer Reid is still pretty.
• Sons of Anarchy. Oh God, I hated the Ireland story last season SO MUCH. I, um, didn't watch the last three or so episodes because it was so painfully annoying. It's better this season. (Sensing a theme? Heh.)
• Community. I'm not a regular watcher. I pop in from time to time, mostly to see if Joel McHale will take his shirt off or if a piano will fall on Chevy Chase. ...What?

New (To Me) Shows

• Parks & Recreation. Oh, this is such a gem of a show, you guys. I love it! It's so...good-natured. Every time I wait for it to get awkward and cringe-inducing (like The Office), it almost never does! I love all the characters SO much. Leslie Knope! Is there another character like her on television? AND I LOVE RON SWANSON. RON. I AM DARK-HAIRED AND NOT-ENTIRELY-UNATTRACTIVE AND CAN PREPARE YOU BREAKFAST FOODS!!! MARRY ME.

New Shows

• Homeland. This is a really, really great show. Damian Lewis and Claire Danes are AMAZING in their roles and the supporting cast is awesome too. I like how unflinching and harsh it is. I love that I'm never entirely sure what's going on, who I can believe, if I can ever accept what I see in flashbacks. So. Great.
  
• American Horror Story. It's...just..so...INCREDIBLY BATSHIT B-A-N-A-N-A-S INDULGENTLY CRAZY. And I love that about it. I know a lot of people were put off by the pilot (and I don't entirely blame them) but I was strangely flattered by how over-the-top it was. "Aw, show! You really want me to like you! It's like a first date and you've brought flowers AND candy AND perfume! Aww. You've thrown dead babies, adultery, bare asses, a guy in a shiny gimp suit, Dead!Fake!Weasley twins, and Jessica Lange acting like she's a lost Tennessee Williams heroine. You get another episode!" I love Lange, Connie Britton, Taissa Farmiga and the kid who plays Tate. It's not...good, but BOY, is it entertaining. Do I think it's going to crash and burn? Probably. But it sure is fun while it lasts.
  
• Revenge. I do really like Revenge but it's up against about a million other things. I usually catch up with it on Hulu. It's everything that Ringer SHOULD be, but isn't: super-fun and soapy and trashy.
  

Shows That I Have Broken Up With

• Glee. I would probably keep watching Glee if they ONLY sang and danced. I realized that I found every character (Except for Kurt and Blaine) hugely annoying anytime they actually spoke.
• Supernatural. This was awhile ago, but ugh. I just got sick of its bullshit.
  
• True Blood. The show that I want it to be is not the show that it is. And the show that it is isn't one I'm really very interested in watching.
• Dexter. I still really like this show, I just got too far behind (I missed all of last season). Maybe I'll catch up on DVD.
  
• Ringer. I only lasted two episodes. Sorry, Sarah Michelle Gellar. I love you, but I kind of hated this show.
  

Shows I Intend To Keep Watching

• The Wire. SOMEDAY, YOU GUYS. I have to get through seasons four and five.
• Fringe. I tried to jump into season four, not having watched season three. And. Um. No. Not possible. I'm DVRing season four to watch after I grab the last season on DVD.
• Sherlock. WHEN WILL I GET MORE? I neeeed it, you guys.
  
• Game of Thrones. Though the second season should be called A Clash of Kings. /pedant
• Breaking Bad. I'm hoping to use the year's hiatus before the final season to catch up on the whole thing.
  
• Mad Men. Whenever it comes back.
  

What are you watching this season? What are you NOT watching?

An Open Letter To Certain Male Geeks

Greetings, geeks! My name is Bea. I'm (as of last week-ish) 32 years old. I'm a college graduate. I work in social services. I bake. I knit. I read (a lot). I vote Democrat. I occasionally sparkle. I enjoy the works of Jane Austen, thunderstorms, the Oxford comma, and the laughter of children.

Oh, I'm also a geek. I've been a geek since I was a tiny little girl and I had a Dune coloring book. This Dune coloring book, actually. I also had a glow-in-the-dark He-Man sword when I was itty-bitty that I had to take in the bathroom to watch glow because I was never awake when it was dark outside. Because I was four. Later, I was a huge She-Ra fan and literally subscribed to her newsletter. I loved Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, The V miniseries (both of them!), Legend, The Dark Crystal, The NeverEnding Story, Dune (the Lynch version, NEVER the Sci-Fi version, though that was much later), Labyrinth, and Conan the Barbarian. The 80s were fun, weren't they?

I was a gamer girl in the late 80s and early 90s. Look. You think it's tough being a gamer girl now? (It is, I'm sure.) Try it then. I was LITERALLY the only girl I knew who played video games. Ever. I don't play anymore but I can still fuck you up at Super Mario Bros. 1-3. My parents took me and my brother to a Nintendo Convention in Valley Forge, PA as a birthday gift. I'm guessing it was 1990 or 1991. Whatever year Super Mario Bros. 3 came out. I remember because I smoked some dude at a demo of the game. He clearly wasn't expecting that from a little girl. It was AWESOME.

I've watched The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Space: Above and Beyond, VR-5, Harsh Realm, Dead at 21, Love and Curses, Forever Knight, Beauty and the Beast, Dark Shadows (the old 60s soap AND the early 90s remake), Mystery Science Theater 3000, Twin Peaks, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Farscape, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Heroes, Roar, Dark Angel, Supernatural, Fringe, Roswell, Alias, Earth 2, Dark Skies, Millennium, Kindred: The Embraced, and SeaQuest DSV.

I've read Heinlein and Herbert. I've read all the Lord of the Rings books. I own the extended editions of all the movies AND the Trivial Pursuit game.

Sorsha and I have a zombie apocalypse plan and seriously. It's awesome. It's getting better by the day.

I read comic books. I go to cons. Got my picture taken with Michael Berryman. I saw The Dark Knight in the theater four times. I have the Iron Man Mr. Potato Head, Tony Starch sitting on top of my television. I have a Matchbox-sized replica of the Metallicar on my desk. My mousepad features a kingly Aragorn. I'm currently knitting a Gryffindor scarf.

As you can see from the above exhaustive list, I will watch/read/consume ANYTHING sci-fi/horror/fantasy-related. Regardless of quality as you can also see from the above list. Heh. I can authoritatively nerd out on a variety of subjects. And I do. Often. And I do all of these things despite the INCREDIBLE HANDICAP OF A PAIR OF BREASTS. SHOCKING, RIGHT?!

But seriously, you guys. (And not ALL geek guys, of course.) Can you please stop acting like you own the field of geekery all on your own? Aren't we past this? Seriously? Are we really still OMG STUNNED when a woman enjoys nerdy pursuits? I don't do these things because my boyfriend reads comics and I want him to like me.

For example, I listen to The Nerdist podcast every week. Twice a week if it's on twice. I love it. It's awesome. It's my favorite podcast. I love Chris Hardwick. He's hilarious. But Chris. Dude. I AM NOT THE ONLY WOMAN WHO LISTENS TO YOUR SHOW. THERE ARE FEMALE GEEKS. IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN, YOU'RE DATING ONE. So why do you keep making comments about how no women listen to your show or how your nerdiness is losing you female viewers. Um. We do and it's not. KNOCK IT OFF. My ovaries do not "dry up" when James Gunn and Jonah Ray get into a nerd fight over whether or not 28 Days Later qualifies as a zombie film. That was AWESOME. (My opinion: it does count as a zombie movie.)

I was listening today to a review of the Game of Thrones miniseries. (3 days, you guys!!!!) And the reviewer made a comment about it possibly being a turn-off for women because it's all male-dominated, bloody and full of ultra-violence. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Because Dany and Arya and Catelyn and Sansa are just standing around, looking pretty. (Well, ok, Sansa is.) Because women can't stand watching male characters. (If we felt that way, we wouldn't watch anything, ever.) Because women don't like to watch dudes with swords fuck shit up. Especially because women don't enjoy a complex, well-told story. Mmm-hmmm.

Oh for Christ's sake, Terrance Zdunich: YES. GIRLS DO READ COMIC BOOKS. I even bought your creepy comic book about cockroaches.

I guess I'm mostly just tired of being told I don't exist.

ETA: This. Thanks, Sorsha. WHATEVER.

Television Review: "Fringe," Season One

I've been sick all week. Missed three days of work because my doctor put me out due to "an upper respiratory infection and possible strep." WebMD said that I may have anthrax. AWESOME, RIGHT? Anyway, I felt like doody and had a lot of time on my hands.

Luckily, my boss Snowflower had just lent me her season one DVD of Fringe. I'd tried watching Fringe when the pilot originally aired and I didn't care for it and I haaaated the second episode so much that I gave up and never watched it again. (The second episode featured icky violence against women and notably, one of the few things I full-stop cannot watch: violence against a pregnant woman. Out like shout.) Also, I kept thinking, "You know, I saw this show the FIRST time, when they called it The X-Files" and that show broke my heart. In short, Fringe just didn't "take." But I am notoriously finicky about television shows. Catch me in the wrong mood and try to show me The Wire and I might tell it to piss off. Catch me in the RIGHT mood and I'll love the show and probably yell at you for not telling me about it sooner.

It's very difficult being me, ok?

ANYWAY. All my favorite geeks watch this show and I don't really HAVE a favorite show right now. At least, not until A Game of Thrones airs. THEN IT'S ON, BABIES.

**Possible spoilers through the beginning of season 2 of Fringe**

So, for three days, I sat/laid in bed watching the entire first season, only getting up to make more tea and change DVDs. (Makers of the Fringe DVD sets: put more episodes per disc. Two episodes per disc is BULLSHIT.) I still didn't like the pilot all that much and I liberally fast-forwarded through the bits of episode two I didn't like. I'm perusing through the episode guide trying to see the episode that really GOT me. Because I liked it enough to keep watching (Though, really, I had nothing better to do) but wasn't really WILD about. I liked the characters, particularly Walter and Astrid but, you know. Whatever. And it was episodes ten and eleven, "Safe" and "Bound." The one where the guy gets stuck through a wall while trying to rob a bank and the one where Olivia is kidnapped by mad scientists and IS TOTALLY AWESOME AND KICKS FUCKING ASS. Ahem. Excuse me.

So, yeah. That took awhile. But the second half of the season is WAY better than the first. Once they get started on their whole mytharc and the characters really take shape, it ROCKS. And all the actors are great. John Noble (I remember him mostly as the drive-mad-by-Sauron King Denethor from The Return of the King) is SO awesome as Walter, a loopy yet brilliant scientist loosed from a mental institution to help the FBI. I love Walter very, very much. Jonathan Jackson is surprisingly good as Peter Bishop, Walter's underachieving genius rascal son. I, sadly, remember him from Dawson's Creek. Don't look at me like that. I was in college in the late 90s. We all watched that shit. He's much better here, I promise. And Astrid! Astrid is so great and sometimes I think she deserves better coworkers (They're always abandoning her and leaving her to Walter-sit!), but then I wouldn't have the delight of her many WTF faces. And I love those.

Olivia Dunham, you guys. I wasn't sure about her at first, but I LOVE HER. She is so badass. Tough and smart and warm and just AWESOME. There's a storyline where this asshole from Homeland Security who Olivia had previously put away for rape is trying to shut down the Fringe Division (They did a great job casting this character. I hated his face INSTANTLY). And he's trying to be all looming and intimidating and she's just looking at him like, "Whatev." And then I said aloud, "Dude. You will NEVER break her." And then I realized I must be in love with her. Heh. Plus, she has REALLY great hair. No, really. Look how pretty.

And Lance Reddick! From The Wire! LOVE that guy! Daniels was one of my favorites on that show! (And Kima and Lester!) I was dubious about Broyles at first because he's kind of a jerk, but he turns that around. He has such a great voice. He should narrate things. Also? He should take his shirt off more often. I know, I know, he's a serious actor. He's excellent. But Lance also has a smokin' hot body under those trench coats. I know this from The Wire, OK. So my integrity is in place. (Sort of.) I tried to find you a picture, Dear Readers, but alas. I turned up shirtless pictures of Gerard Butler and that politician who just resigned for taking camera phone pictures of himself.

I like Kirk Acevedo and I liked him as Charlie but I thought his character was sort of superfluous, so I wasn't surprised that he was killed off. Though the manner in which he was offed surprised me. I thought it would be a whole huge drama with him dying in Olivia's arms or something, not secretly killed and incinerated by a shape-shifter. I was sorry to see him go, but that was pretty awesome.

And I loooooove Nina Sharp. I don't trust her at ALL, but I find her delightfully cagey and I love her robot arm. And I'm obsessed with finding The Observer in every episode. This website was helpful in enabling me. I really like Michael Cerveris; I saw him a few years ago in Sweeney Todd and he was GREAT. I'm always weirdly proprietary with actors I've seen in plays. Heh.

I DON'T like the storyline with Olivia's sister and niece. BORING. Also, it never works out well for the heroine's sister, ok? Just ask Melissa Scully, Nadia Santos, Maddy Ferguson (Ok, she was a cousin. An IDENTICAL cousin, though), and Beth March. Just, no. I like the actress who plays Rachel, Ari Graynor. She's hilarious in general, though toned down on Fringe. I adore her in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. (P.S. If you ever wanted to know what I was like in high school and college - and of course you do! - watch this movie. I was totally Norah. Mame pointed this out to me and made me watch it and wow.)

The finale! OMG! Leonard Nimoy! Alternate worlds! David Robert Jones! Craziness!

So, you know, Fringe. Good stuff! Instead of being an X-Files rip-off, it's more like a cross between Alias and The X-Files, with most of the good things of both and less of the bad. I've been supplied with season two and I've started DVRing season three so I can catch up.