Well, I have to admit, I broke up with a lot of shows this year.

First to go was Sarah Connor Chronicles, then Ugly Betty and Chuck, and now I’m pretty sure I’m divorcing Bones. Under the cut – my year in TV.

Last night, Stark and I caught a marathon of the Terminator movies, and I was reminded yet again of all the reasons why the series made no sense in the context of the far superior films. I love Lena, I do, but I just didn’t buy her as Sarah Connor. This was probably less her fault than the fault of the network, who seemed to be set on turning the show from Badass Romp Through Time In Order to Save the Future into John Connor Is Mean To His Mother. I think the reason Sarah Connor hit such a nerve in people in T2 was because, well, that chick was batshit INSANE. Yes, she was right that there were robots coming to destroy us all, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t just a little bit off her rocker from dealing with it. She was strong, she saw everything in black and white, and she was extremely violent and absolutely adamant in her pursuit of a different future. The TV show presented us with a mostly sad suburban mama bear who let her kid walk all over her and seemed pretty well adjusted for a woman with such a traumatic past. Sarah Connor did not sit around, moist eyed in her kitchen, comfortable in California suburbia. No. Sarah Connor would grab enough guns to supply the US Army from her Mexican arms dealer, steal a truck, and blow up an entire city if it meant an end to SkyNet.

And John wasn’t some whiny kid who “just wanted to be normal.” He was a brat who skipped school, ripped off ATMs, and loved his mother. The TV show presented an irritating jerk who, for some bizarre reason, wanted to go to school, and spent his entire day making his mother miserable. The Original Sarah was cold and calculating and The Original John was tasked with tempering her anger with reason. New John just seemed to enjoy insulting New Sarah and purposely disobeying her, even though each an every time he did, they were nearly killed by Terminators. You would think that, at this point, after a decade on the run, he would have grown a brain.


Hmm… I don’t remember why I specifically broke up with Ugly Betty beyond the fact that EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE was a rehash of the “Betty promises her family she’ll do something, work gets in the way, hijinks ensue, her family is momentarily disappointed but Betty comes through at the last minute, loving lesson about familial loyalty is learned… only to be relearned next episode when the same thing is repeated YET AGAIN.” Throw in a bit of homophobia and sexism and the departure of Alexis Meade, and not even the amazingness that is Judith Light and The Mark & Amanda Show could keep me watching. Also, Thursday was already overbooked for TV, and this really made a lot of room in the schedule.

Chuck… well, Chuck got boring. Just like Ugly Betty, Chuck recycled the same plot over and over. “Some random spy plot leads to Sarah having to do her job, Chuck gets jealous. Chuck breaks up with Sarah, then gets jealous. Sarah lives her life, CHUCK GETS JEALOUS AND MICHELLE GETS BORED.” Oh, and I was completely sick of the storylines involving the creepy pervs that work at the Buy More. Between Chuck and Bones, it was like this was the year of Sexual Harassment Is Funny. In fact, probably the only show that didn’t offend me at least once this year was Pushing Daisies which got canceled. Sigh.


Oh dear, where to begin with Bones? Well, I think the shark was jumped with the reveal over the identity of Gorgonzola, a decision that no one on the writing staff seemed to be able to stick to or deal with in any way that made any sense. Then Hodgins and Angela broke up for no apparent reason and it’s really gone down hill from there. There were some fun episodes at the beginning of the season, and I do like Sweets, but it’s just been so offensive that I have had to stop watching because it was putting me in such a rage.

Let’s see, there was Angela’s five second lesbianism that went nowhere (not even a kiss!) and that led Hodgins down a path of offensive sexism that he has not yet returned from.

Then, there is the new Muslim character, who seems to appear only so that the entire staff can make racist comments basically implying Muslims are barbarians, and who Hodgins routinely calls a terrorist, to which the Muslim character responded “Why are you saying these things? Do you hate Muslims?” to which Hodgins said “Yes.” Hello, discrimination lawsuit!! Who is writing this stuff?

Finally, a few episodes ago there was the HOT HOT HOT visiting Japanese scientist. The Not!Funny joke of that episode was that the Hot Japanese Scientist was androgynous, being a member of some Japanese group that purposely disguises their sex as part of their belief system. A fact that was explained repeatedly by Sweets. And instead of accepting this and, y’know, appreciating this person’s work as a scientist, the whole cast (minus Brennan, who doesn’t participate in the racist/sexist/transphobic hijinks because, y’know, she’s so weird and socially awkward) spent the whole episode trying to figure out “What *IT* was,” and basically sexually harassed “It” for an hour with stares and gropes and pointed questions.

My problem with the whole season has been that Brennan and Sweets usually do serve to criticize the racist/sexist/homophobic behavior, but they are mocked by the rest of the “normal” cast for basically being freak-os who don’t live in the “real world.” Oh, it’s been painful to watch at points. PAINFUL. I have always loved Bones more than Criminal Minds, but not anymore. At least Criminal Minds doesn’t make me tear my hair out at regular intervals.


30 Rock reached new heights this season. Hmm… I need 30 Rock icons. The highlight was the El Generalissimo storyline. Alec Baldwin playing against himself as a gay Mexican telenovela villain? I didn’t see that one coming. I think the show has really benefited from dropping most of the Liz Lemon Is Sad And Lonely storylines and going more for the Liz Lemon Was Secretly A TERRIBLE Bully In High School storylines. Oh, and Kenneth. And Tracy. And Jenna. And Dot Com and Griz and wheeeee!

I think The Office also improved this year after a problematic past few seasons. I will be very happy to never see another Jan Is An Abusive Rapist, Isn’t It Funny? plot ever again. This year brought Holly, Michael’s soulmate in bad jokes. This finale’s “Slumdunder Milflinaire” skit cracked me up. Especially when Holly would pretend to torture Michael. Hee! I think the show really benefited from dropping the double length episodes, which always took the jokes a bit too far.

Parks & Recreation has also been picking up speed for me. It started out, and I was like “Well, it’s alright, but I dunno…” but the finale, with poor, beleaguered Amy Poehler out on a date with an 80 year old man, was hilarious. What I like about P&R, besides the fact that it actually stars two women who get to be funny and interact with each other, is that the Amy Poehler character isn’t like Michael on The Office, she’s more aware, smarter, and her biggest fault seems to be caring passionately about her job in a world where no one else gives a shit. Also, unlike The Office, where mostly everyone is at least vaguely competent in comparison to Michael, on P&R, the rest of the Parks Department workers aren’t any better at their jobs than Amy Poehler, so that’s a nice change. I’m willing to give it another go next season.

Southland has also been a great addition to my TV lineup. I love the cast, I love the cinematography, I love the scripts, and I even love the opening credits (they’re good enough for HBO!). Yup. I love it. I even love that guy from the OC, who I thought would be a deal breaker (THAT’S A DEAL BREAKER!) for me. He’s hot! And his gay cop buddy with the back problem just makes my heart weak. Awww. Regina King is hot, but my one problem with the show is that she never gets to interact with the shows only other female cast member, who doesn’t really get anything to do. More Chickie next season and I will be happy!

The following video perfectly encapsulates my problem with every show this season except for Fringe.

Fringe is like The X-Files on crack. It replaces the low budget bureaucratic government conspiracy of the Nineties with the billion dollar multinational corporation conspiracy that is perfect for right now. Plus, people turning into evil porcupines and fang filled mouths swallowing hearts and solar powered cows. And the cast is excellent! Walter! WALTER! Alvarez and his puppy dog eyes and Broils and his no nonsense bossly good looks. With a minor misstep of that creepy Internal Affairs guy going after Olivia (finally, a butch cop Olivia that I can love again), this season has been excellent. They even got rid of that stupid Internal Affairs guy in a very satisfying way.

But the best part of Fringe is Anna Torv. Oh. My. God. I have never been so hot for a blonde before. She is just a perfect blend of butch cop, intelligent investigator, sexy husky voiced woman, and loving sister. And they have been dressing her so well on this show. No blue eyeshadow (Oliska!) or pink frilly shirts (Catherine!) or totally impractical shoes and big, product filled hair (any other woman on TV!). I am so jealous of her wardrobe. She just has the perfect suits (not frumpy K-Mart stuff like season 1 Scully, but not ludicrously high fashion Gucci suits like season 7 Scully), plain, black, with perfectly fitted dress shirts in a nice blue or grey or white (::drool::). And she always has the button undone maybe one more hole than can be considered professional, but it gives you just a hint… of hot sex. Oh my god, Anna Torv, with your deep voice and your beautiful hands… you are my new TV girlfriend.

This weekend I wrote up my first post for Shameless. Y’all are free to head on over and leave comments so that we can trick my new editor into thinking I am really, really popular.

What follows under the cut is the unedited version of my post. I have a problem with being concise and have a hard time letting go of my long held belief that longwindedness is the soul of wit. So this is the much longer version that didn’t make it to print.

The Case of the Amazing Invisible Homosexual on Reality TV

I have recently been sucked into the vortex that is the So You Think You Can Dance franchise. The newest entry, So You Think You Can Dance Canada premiered a few weeks ago, and it’s mostly been a fun time, although I have the same issues with it that I have had with the American version. Among them, there is the mystery I like to call “The Case of the Amazing Invisible Homosexual.” In the SYTYCD franchise, this mystery reveals itself in two ways. First of all, despite the number of gay male dancers that have appeared on the show, none of them are ever referred to explicitly as such. Not that I’m asking for it to be made into a big deal that there are gay men in the arts, but it would be nice if, instead of cutting to their moms in the audience, just once the cameras could show their happy boyfriends celebrating. It would also be nice if the show wasn’t so rigid in its gender stereotypes and heteronormativity. Male dancers who stray too far from the show’s idea of maleness are regularly told to “butch it up” and act more like “men,” not, it is implied, like prancing, delicate women.

This is a common issue in reality TV. I first noticed it on season 5 of America’s Next Top Model, when a contestant on the show, Kim Stolz, an out lesbian, was often berated for being too butch or too manly or for not being girly enough. Wearing a designer women’s polo shirt and sporting a short hair style was apparently enough to rile up the judges’ ideas about femininity. And this was coming out of the mouths of two men, J. Manuel and J. Alexander, who have decided that they know what it is to be womanly. In an interview with The Advocate, Kim Stolz discussed this treatment:

As far as Miss J., I like him, but he was the first and the harshest to criticize my gender-identity expression. And that really confused me. Because of all people, I think he should be the one to understand. I thought perhaps he felt like, “It’s so easy for me to be feminine, why can’t she be?” I guess I could see where he was coming from, but that was really offensive to me, that he would constantly harp on my gender. After a while, it was like, enough is enough. At one point, you’re telling me to be myself, then you’re telling me to be someone else. If I did that to you, Miss J., you’d have a hard time with that.

That was 2005. This is 2008 and things have not changed one bit. If the male dancers on SYTYCD are expected to play along with the show’s concept of manliness, then the opposite is true of the female contestants on American Gladiators. Once again, I don’t think North Americans would be particularly scandalized to find out that their are shhhh… lesbians in the worlds of professional sports, the armed forces, or law enforcement, the professions from which a good number of gladiators originate, but apparently the producers have decided that everyone on the show is straight, and not just straight, but a particularly staid Fifties sitcom version of straight, y’know, when women were women and men were men. Maybe because the show’s content is so intensely homoerotic (hell, that’s the only reason I’m watching), the networks felt it best to force the text into subtext by forcing a Susy Q. Homemaker storyline onto all the women and a Manly McJones narrative onto all the men. When one of the male contestants strays too far from the show’s male ideal, he is treated with a mixture of condescension and revulsion. “Wow, Bob,” the show’s announcers spit out, “he’s a dancer! Have you ever seen a dancer take on a gladiator? Who would have thought a dancer would be able to best our gladiators” as if the words “male dancer” carried the same meaning as “weak, limp-wristed, lady-man.”

And when it comes to the female contestants, the only women the show spends any time on are aggressively heterosexual, aggressively post-feminist ladies. The type of women who give squealingly enthusiastic interviews in which they extol the virtues of their husbands and their children and how they certainly could never have climbed a wall made of rope without the help of a good fine man. The contestants wave from the arena and the camera lovingly pans over their happy smiling nuclear family. Women who don’t meet this feminine ideal are shunted to the sidelines. They are interviewed about their job or their parents and never mention any relationship that does not meet the show’s “family friendly” standards. I find it strange to think that no one on that show has EVER even mentioned their same-sex partners as their inspiration. Do they give the interviews which are then never aired, or does the show operate on a strict don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy?

What I would like to see on this coming Fall season on reality TV is one or two same sex partners actually identified in the audience, a few less male judges deciding what it is to be a woman, and maybe just once, an interview in which a gay man or woman is allowed to say “Hey, I dedicated this dance/run through The Eliminator/walk down the runway to my partner.”