How To Get Your TV Fix This Summer (Without Watching True Blood

A thoughtfully funny priest, a bumbling spy and a downright Biblical clash of Kings provide a great antidote to vampires and werewolves.

Clockwise from top left: Jay Harrington and Portia de Rossi in Better Off Ted; Chris Egan in Kings; Jude Wright and Darren Boyd in Spy; and Tom Hollander in Rev.

With May sweeps a distant memory and early-summer series like Game of Thrones already finished, summer TV epitomizes Minow's famous "vast wasteland." Although many cable networks are starting to challenge traditional scheduling, the current television landscape consists mostly of reruns, reality series and True Blood. Even Doctor Who, normally a godsend for those of us who prefer quality programming to baking on the beach (not everyone tans, and not all of us enjoy slathering on SPF 1500 and donning a hat just so we can watch other people brown) has taken an extended hiatus, and won't be returning until an unspecified date in the fall.

Luckily, we live in an age of streaming video and HD laptop displays, which means that a world of TV is sitting at our fingertips, waiting for us to dispel the summer doldrums and dive right in. If you find yourself with some extra time between barbecues and beach parties, these five series are well worth your time and energy (and, in some cases, the cost of an Amazon Prime subscription).

Spy

Who should watch: Anyone who misses the covert ops shenanigans of Archer and adores Community's genre parodies.

Available on: Hulu

Hulu has become a great source of less-known British television, and Spy is one of the streaming service's best offerings. The show's protagonist, Tim (Darren Boyd), is a middle-aged loser working in an electronics store and fighting for the love (and custody rights) of his precocious, witheringly critical son Marcus (Jude Wright) when he stumbles into the wrong civil service exam and ends up as an MI6 agent. Spy combines the best elements of several shows - the set-up is pure Chuck, the portrayal of MI6 is right out of the Archer playbook, and later episodes have Marcus starring in parodies of gangster movies and Westerns that could have teleported in from Community - but the show makes them its own. Spy features a great cast of supporting characters (I'm a particular fan of Mathew Baynton's Chris), but the whole enterprise is anchored by the prickly, hilarious, often cruel and occasionally sweet relationship between Tim and Marcus, whose odd couple banter is like nothing else on TV.

TV Pundits, Slut Shaming and Community

Britta Perry is a sexual being, and she will not be shamed for it. And if you
try, she will shoot you in the face. Source.

Rush Limbaugh's stunningly offensive remarks to Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke have launched a thousand debates about sexism and slut shaming. (I'm not going to provide a link; if you haven't heard about this incident by now, you are clearly living under a rock without internet, and you therefore can't be reading this blog.) The conservative radio host's personal attack on Fluke - whose crime, apparently, was testifying before a senate committee about how birth control can, in some cases, be a medical necessity - was appalling and indefensible. And it wasn't an isolated incident; Kirsten Powers over at The Daily Beast wrote an excellent piece that contained far too many examples of slut-shaming by television personalities on the liberal side as well as the conservative side, and on tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart eviscerated Limbaugh and the conservatives who refuse to take him to task for his actions.

The thing is, though, that denunciations of the very deserving Limbaugh don't actually deal with the issue of slut shaming in our culture. Most people aren't Limbaugh or Bill Maher or Rick Santorum (offenders mentioned by Powers and Stewart, respectively). They're not stupid enough to come out and say that any woman who has sex is a slut. If you consume enough popular culture, however (which I do), you start to realize that implicit slut shaming is depressingly common.

I want to sing karaoke with Joel McHale!

Photo courtesy of tumblr.com.

Was Jeff and Dean Pelton's (sorry... Craig's) karaoke duet to Seal's "Kiss From a Rose" on Thursday night's Community the best musical moment in the history of television? Yes. It obviously was. Not only do you have Joel McHale and Jim Rash singing their hearts out to a slice of pure pop cheese (one from a Batman movie, no less), but the scene also featured Troy and Abed playing with shadow puppets, Britta and Shirley slowly realizing that the hitchhiker they've picked up might be a serial killer, and Chevy Chase hallucinating. It can't be topped.

That doesn't mean, however, that other shows haven't given it their all. So, in honor of the magic that was Jeff and the Dean's "Kiss," here are some of the best musical moments that preceded it. (And no, there will be nothing on here from Glee.)

30 Rock, Midnight Train to Georgia

There are a lot of fantastic musical moments to choose from when it comes to Tina Fey's weirdest brainchild: Tracy's novelty single "Werewolf Barmitzvah," Jenna's number-one-in-Israel hit "Muffin Top" and pretty much anything involving Cheyenne Jackson's Danny. The best one, however, is the rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia," which features the entire cast narrating Kenneth's (ultimately failed) return to his hometown of Stone Mountain. The kicker, however, comes after the number ends, when guest star Gladys Knight emerges from her dressing room to shut everyone up. (I apologize for the lack of video; NBC has been cracking down on copyright recently.)

Arrested Development, Afternoon Delight


Glee tried to pull the old misinterpretation-of-the-song trick last season, but all the cool people know that the late, great AD did it first, and did it better. First Michael and Maeby, and then Lindsay and George-Michael, decided to duet on Starland Vocal Band's ode to daytime lovin', not realizing the lyrical content of the song was far from the wholesome, innocent message implied by the melody. In classic Bluth family fashion, hilarity and horror ensued, and it was glorious.

Scrubs, Safety Dance

Scrubs has featured a number of great musical moments over the years, from Ted's band's performances to the musical episode, but I have a soft spot for Turk's rendition of Safety Dance. He only sings a few bars, but the song is at once unexpected and perfect for the moment, and Donald Faison's delivery is phenomenal.

Battlestar Galactica, All Along the Watchtower

As the fourth season went on, the use of Dylan's classic tune as a plot point began to grow wearying and nonsensical. There were too many instances of forcing song lyrics into the dialogue (hint: no one has ever used the phrase "There must be some kind of way out of here" in casual conversation) and too many random coincidences (apparently the chord structure spells out the coordinates to Earth? I don't even know any more). But it can't be denied that the moment when Saul Tigh, Chief Tyrol, Anders and Tory Foster all gave in to the music echoing in their heads and realized what they were was shocking in the best way. Not to mention the final scene of Season 3, where the song plays over a gorgeous visual of the camera zooming out from Lee Adama's bewildered face, racing into space, and closing in on Earth.

Lost, Unnamed Scottish Drinking Song


Lost was not a show that was generally known for cheerful moments, which was one of the reasons it was so awesome to see Desmond and Charlie, after a night of heavy drinking with Hurley, singing Scottish drinking songs on the beach in "Flashes Before Your Eyes". Of course, it would soon turn sour (as these things invariably do), but the moment lasted long enough to offer a respite to both the characters and the audience. (Sorry for the lack of video; apparently I was the only person who found this scene charming.)

How not to end a TV Series

Matthew Fox as Jack in the final shot of the Lost finale. Photo courtesy of ew.com.

The AV Club just ran a very interesting article that dealt with the problems inherent in sustaining the momentum of fantasy series like A Song of Ice and Fire and The Wheel of Time, as well as the tricky proposition of ending such a series. The article is a response both to fan criticism of the glacis pace at which George R.R. Martin is producing ASOIAF and Neil Gaiman's reaction to that criticism, which came in the form of an essay called "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch."

The situation in which Martin currently finds himself is one familiar to many authors and fans of long-running fantasy series. It also happens to be extremely relevant to fans of serialized, mythology-heavy TV shows with unsatisfying ending, like Battlestar Galactica (which I just finished watching) and Lost (the finale of which I can finally talk about without vomiting from rage). There are a number of parallels between these two shows and various literary fantasy series, and I think these parallels can help explain why the finales of Lost and BSG were so explosively bad.

One of the problems that author Zack Handler brings up in the AV club piece is the issue of a series ending up much longer than originally planned because of a writer's tendency to "get lost inside his work." This was a huge issue at various points during Lost's run, most notably during the pointless Hydra station arc in season three and "Stranger in a Strange Land," a.k.a. that episode where Bai Ling gives Jack his tattoos and the audience takes a nap.

These particular irrelevancies remind me of So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, the fourth book in Douglas Adams' other wise fantastic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. The book isn't as bad as "Stranger in a Strange Land," but it is just as pointless. Most of the characters we've come to adore - Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android - are completely absent, and in their place we get Arthur and his new girlfriend Fenchurch having sex on the wing of an airplane. The one or two relevant facts we learn could have been introduced in the next book, perhaps at the moment when we learn that, between the two volumes, Fenchurch has died, rendering So Long even more pointless than it already appeared.

The previous problem was not necessarily the fault of the Lost writers - at that point in the series' run the show had no end date, so Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were actually trying to stall the plot. Lost's biggest problem was the finale, which Cuse and Lindelof can blame on no one but themselves (just as Ron Moore is solely responsible for the clusterfuck that was the BSG finale). The flaws of these two finales are eerily similar, and they boil down to two fundamental issues: an attempt by the writers to wrap up every individual character arc at the expense of the larger issues, and a solution to the show's ongoing mysteries that throws the complexity of the series out the window in favor of a sudden descent into religion-fueled, pseudo-philosophical mysticism.

I should probably mention here that I don't have a problem with the religious aspects of these shows, which were present from the beginning. I do, however, have a problem with grafting a simplified religious ending onto a complex, multifaceted TV series and pretending that it explains everything. In particular, both finales contained an ultimate message of faith trumping science and reason. I've talked about BSG's anti-intellectual streak before, but it bears repeating that the ultimate "faith is good, science is bad" conclusion is a disservice to the four seasons that BSG spent exploring the complexities of faith, the dangers of dogmatism and the horrors of conflict driven by religion, instead replacing these issues with an inane warning to be afraid of dancing robots.

The Lost finale did exactly the same thing a year later, which I can only explain using the following imaginary conversation:

LINDELOF: Hey Carlton, did you check out that BSG finale?

CUSE: Yeah! I loved how they discarded the complexity of the whole series and boiled everything down to a simple pro-faith, anti-technology message!

LINDELOF: I know! We should totally do the same thing.

CUSE: Awesome idea! And while we're at it, let's ruin Jacob's evocative cork metaphor by putting a literal fucking cork in the island!

LINDELOF: We are going to win so many awards for this.

What I'm trying to say here is that Cuse and Lindelof resolved one of the most interesting conflicts on the show - the tension between science and faith, as personified by Jack and Locke - by giving Jack a religious conversion, just as BSG did with Gaius Baltar. This not only cheapened six seasons of rich dialogue about the nature of science and faith, it spat in the face of viewers who feel science to be useful and who, for whatever reason, don't happen to be among the faithful.

I wouldn't have had such a problem with the religious aspects of these finales, however, if they had actually helped to explain the shows' larger mysteries. Instead, the writers ignored the mysteries in favor of resolving every character's arc. I'm certainly not saying they should have completely ignored the character arcs - it was nice to see Sawyer and Juliet's sideways-world reunion and Helo and Athena's happy new life with Hera - but all the focus on these arcs meant there was no time to answer the many other questions raised over the series' runs. I for one would have liked to find out more about the Island's electromagnetic properties, or the importance of the Opera House beyond having Gaius and Caprica carry Hera all of three feet into the CIC.

Admittedly, it was always going to be absurd to expect the writers to answer every question and please every fan. Hell, even the final book of the classic fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia suffered from the same problems discussed above. Narnia is actually worse in some ways, particularly the fashion in which C.S. Lewis condemns Susan because she was a teenage girl interested in - god forbid! - boys and makeup. (If you haven't thought through the implications Susan's fate before, I highly recommend Gaiman's short story "The Problem of Susan," although you probably shouldn't read it if you don't want to hate Lewis). Ending a mythologically complex series is hard, and very few people have ever managed to do it successfully. I'm still angry about the resolution of Lost, but I can understand the kind of pressure Cuse and Lindelof were under. I just wish they had worried less about placating the fans, and more about crafting an ending as groundbreaking as the series that led to it.

In conclusion: pray for Fringe, because trust me, they're going to need it.

Why Gaius Baltar is the real hero of Battlestar Galactica (and why that's not always a good thing)

James Callis as Gaius Baltar in "Dirty Hands." Photo courtesy of tvguide.com.

Two years after the final episode of Battlestar Galactica, I finally got around to watching the critically acclaimed SciFi (now Syfy) series, and I have to admit that it was great. The writing and acting were uniformly excellent, the issues were explored with a bracing realism and ambiguity, and the men were good looking. I plan on writing more about BSG in the future (and yes, I'll be offer my opinion on the... uninspiring finale), but for now I want to talk about my favorite character, Gaius Baltar, and why he's the real hero of the show (as well as, as the title says, why his heroic character arc isn't necessarily a good thing).

I know that some of you are probably cursing me for my blasphemy in arguing that Baltar is the hero, rather than Admiral Adama or Starbuck or Athena, and I'm prepared for your angry comments. All I ask is that you hear me out first. I understand that Baltar is not what one would generally call "heroic" - "cowardly" and "self-involved" are all adjectives that apply better - and I'm not trying to devalue the other characters. However, based on his all-too-human personality traits, his ultimate character arc, and a masterful performance by James Callis, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Baltar is, when you really get down to it, the hero of the entire series.

One of the major questions raised during BSG's run was the issue of what it really means to be human, and no one illustrates humanity at its best and worst quite like Gaius Baltar. His character, with an instinct that valued self-preservation above all and an ability to manipulate in order to get what he wanted, could be the absolute worst kind of humanity. But he also had moments of incredible insight and clear-sightedness, of unbounded love and devotion, of pain caused by others' lack of faith in him, that crystallized the best of what it means to be human. Baltar was always, undeniably human, more so than the steadfast Bill Adama, the morally unshakeable Lee, or even the heroic-but-tormented Starbuck. They were all exceptional people, with exceptional strength, while it was Baltar's conviction that he was exceptional that lay at the heart of his cowardice.

One of my favorite episodes of BSG is "Dirty Hands," an episode that came towards the end of season three, during the run-up to Baltar's trial. The episode really belongs to Chief Tyrol, and details the struggle between his labor-union idealism and the pragmatic realities of the Fleet; however, Aaron Douglas allows the episode to be stolen out from under him by Baltar, specifically by the mesmerizing speech that Gaius delivers to Tyrol from his jail cell. In the scene, Baltar lays out the class inequality that plagues the fleet, likening relationship between the high-ranking military and the crew (as well as the elite civilian officials to the working class) to a feudalistic society in which jobs are inherited rather then earned by merit. Baltar, himself the son of a farmer from Aerilon, describes the way in which he renounced his heritage and changed his accent in order to be accepted in a higher, Caprican society, likening the calcified hierarchy of the twelve colonies to the current rigid class system aboard the fleet.

Callis' work in this scene is absolutely magnificent; he grabs the audiences' attention and refuses to let it go, making a series of tricky emotional, intellectual and linguistic variations seem natural and unforced, while also ensuring that the audience knows that Gaius is putting on a show. This is a moment in which Baltar is completely in control and, more importantly, completely right. It is one of the moments in which Baltar's total clarity on the issue at hand reminds the viewer why he was considered the smartest man in the twelve colonies and managed to get himself elected president, and makes us forget about all the times we completely despised his weakness.

That weakness, however, comes back in full force during his trial, during which the craven self-preservation that characterized Baltar comes back in full force. The real accomplishment of the trial is that it makes sure that the viewer is rooting for a not-guilty verdict even as Gaius demonstrates the many reasons that people hate him so much. I have never loved Lee Adama as much as I did when he argued for Baltar's defense, because he took the words right out of my mouth. Baltar had been chosen as a scapegoat because he was arrogant, because he was weak, because people just didn't like him very much. The people needed someone to blame, and they chose the most cowardly among him because nobody cared about Gaius Baltar's well-being. The thing is, his cowardice and arrogance didn't make him guilty; they made him human. As Laura Roslin learned from the priest Elosha during her delirium on the Cylon basestar, she needed to save Baltar's life because he was the worst of humanity, and if the worst of humanity can't be saved, then humanity itself doesn't deserve to survive.

Since Baltar basically represents humanity on the series, it isn't all that surprising that his character arc is ultimately the most heroic (and most problematic, but I'll get to that later) of any of the characters. After four seasons spent in cowardice and denial, Baltar finally makes a selfless decision: choosing to stay on the Galactica in order to help rescue Hera. There had been hints of this kind of courage in his character before, most notably when he intially refused to sign the notorious "death list" presented to him by the Cylons on New Caprica, but it wasn't until "Daybreak: Part II" that Baltar really became a hero. And he was rewarded for it. Caprica Six finally loved him because of the pride his decision inspired in her, Hera was safe, and he was ultimately allowed to settle on Earth, rest, and start a farm with the bleach-blond love of his life. (Although really, how long can that haircolor last without the conveniences of modern technology? But that's a problem for another post.)

Now, I love Gaius Baltar. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. He's my favorite character on the entire series (well, second favorite: Head Baltar is my favorite), and I was really pleased that he got his moment of redemption and his happy ending with Caprica Six, who is also completely fantastic. However, I don't  think that his ultimate hero status is a good thing, and that's because of the arc that gets him there. The arc of Gaius Baltar takes him from an atheistic man of science to a deeply religious (and yes, I do think his religious conversion is genuine in the end, even if it doesn't start out that way) man who is willing to forgo technology and take up a simple life of farming on Earth.

The problem with this character arc is that it betrays the pervasive anti-intellectualism that runs through Battlestar Galactica. This anti-intellectualism is personified in Gaius Baltar, the brilliant scientist whose arrogance and absolute certainty that the world works according to his rules literally leads to the genocide that opens the series. The fact that Baltar, along with the rest of the fleet, is only redeemed when he gives up on science and goes back to being a simple farmer is a clear example of the distrust of intelligence and technology that is reiterated in the most obvious terms in that frakking ridiculous present-day coda. (Also, the fact that I just used the word "frakking" in a blog post makes me die inside.)

As Jacob over at Television Without Pity says in his recap of the finale, "courage, not intelligence, is what earns you love, and the right to exist." The message of the show is that, to paraphrase the talented Jacob again, forward progress ultimately leads to the kind of decadence (drunken debauchery, etc.) that characterized Caprican society. The fact that Gaius Baltar, the man whose mind cured Laura Roslin's cancer, saw the class structure on the fleet for what it was, built a machine to detect Cylons for fuck's sake (ah yes... that's more like it, much better than "frak") can only be redeemed when he lets go of his intellect and returns to his farming roots is a dangerous message. The war between humans and Cylons didn't happen just because the Cylons were invented; it happened because they were treated as something less than human, just as Gaius Baltar, the worst of humanity, so often was. The problem isn't the technology, it's the people who use it.

Anti-intellectualism is certainly not an issue unique to BSG; Lost also displayed a persistent anti-intellectual streak over the course of its final season, and indeed throughout much of its run. The problem seems bigger on BSG though, largely because, unlike Lost, it's not a series that generally paints things in such absolute terms. By simplifying all the beautiful complexity of this issue into a simply dichotomy in which technology is bad and simplicity is good is anti-intellectual rhetoric at its worst, the show eschews the realistic shades of grey that characterize so many of its debates in favor of a stark, black and white explanation. I expected better than that from this show, and that's why, despite my love of Gaius Baltar, I wish that he wasn't the ultimate hero. I wish that he had gone down swinging, fighting for the science to which he had devoted his life. That's the heroic stand I wanted to see.

How To Fix "True Blood" and "Torchwood"

Two of these things are awesome, and one is not. I'll let you guess which is which. Photo courtesy of ology.com

I've been complaining a lot about True Blood and Torchwood: Miracle Day recently. This is partly because there's nothing else on and I have to write about something, and partly because neither show is... well, good. Torchwood is probably more offensively bad, but that's largely due to the heightened expectations created by Children of Earth. Season 3 of True Blood didn't leave me with much hope, so there was less distance to fall.

However, I'm a television believer; I'm not going to completely write off a show because of a bad season or two (unless that show is Glee, which I've just about given up on). So, in the spirit of constructive criticism, I'm going to offer three suggestions to improve these shows, along with examples of shows that get it right. Listen up, Alan Ball and Russell T. Davies, and maybe think about implementing these next season.

1. Plot balance is hard to achieve, but that doesn't mean it's unimportant.

True Blood and Miracle Day lie of the opposite end of the plot balance spectrum; the former is overplotted to the point of chaos, while almost nothing happens on the latter. True Blood needs to make any given plot point last for more than one scene, while Torchwood needs to lose the episodes that don't advance the plot, like last week's "The Middle Men."

Who does it right: The Vampire Diaries

Unlike Miracle Day, The Vampire Diaries is driven by an unstoppable forward momentum that is constantly driving the action. However, she show also knows when a plot point is worthy of playing out over several episodes. The backstory of the sun and moon curse was one of these plot points, unlike Eric's amnesia storyline on True Blood, which is rapidly squandering all the enthusiasm I used to have for it.

2. Trim the fat.

Both these shows have characters and storylines that are boring, annoying, and distracting to the point where they stop the action dead every time they appear. True Blood suffers every time Tara, Debbie and Alcide or the Hotshot werepanthers take center-stage, while Torchwood's Esther Drummond sucks the life from the screen with every appearance. Get rid of them and viewers won't feel the need to channel surf every time they pop up.

Who does it right: Game of Thrones

For a show with a huge number of characters to keep track of, there are none that fail to command attention during their time in the spotlight. There was no point during Game of Thrones' first season when I found myself wishing that a scene would hurry up and end so I could get back to the "good" characters. I certainly can't say the same for either True Blood or Torchwood.

3. Give the show some stakes.

True Blood's biggest problem is that viewers have been trained never to worry about any of the characters, because any dangerous situation will invaribly resolved in the next scene. Torchwood's problem is that the very premise of "Miracle Day" gets rid of death. Vera's demise two episodes ago should have solved this problem by demonstrating that people can, in fact, still die, but the stakes were no higher in the last episode than they had been before. Even Jack's mortality has done nothing to create danger, since his storyline hasn't involved any injuries worse than a papercut since he was poisoned in the second episode. Ironic, since this is the same show that shocked viewers by killing Ianto Jones in Children of Earth.

Who does it right: Battlestar Galactica

The first season may have ended with Bill Adama shot, not beheaded (it's not like the show was written by George R.R. Martin), but the threat of death has been pervasive since the beginning. Opening a show with the near-extinction of humanity will do that. The many deaths that followed only reinforced the sense that anyone could die at any moment, particularly if that character had spent the episode finding happiness and redemption. I have five more episodes to watch, and I'm willing to bet that at least half the original cast bites it before the end, even if all that's left of humanity manages to hang on. The constant threat that the human race will be lost to the universe forever; now, those are some serious stakes.

Do we really need fewer "strong female characters" on TV?



The strong women of Battlestar Galactica: from left, Lucy Lawless, Grace Park, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer. Photo courtesy of thefollowspot.com

Those of you who are more in-tune with the cultural zeitgeist than I am have probably already heard about Carina Chocano's NYT Magazine article, "A Plague of Strong Female Characters." In her piece, Chocano complains about the prevalence of the "strong female character" cropping up in various films, describing the "strong female character" as "one of those shorthand memes that has leached into the cultural groundwater and spawned all kinds of cinematic cliches." The author then goes on to list the different cliches this archetype supposedly encompasses, which ranges from "alpha professionals whose laserlike focus on career advancement has turned them into grim, celibate automatons" to "gloomy ninjas with commitment issues." It appears that, to Chocano, every single female character who appears in a film these days is a stereotyped "strong female character," with the possible exception of a few manic pixie dream girls.

Chocano admits at one point in the article that it isn't the idea of the "strong female character" that bothers her, it's the set of characteristics that has come to be associated with the term; in her words, "tough, cold, taciturn and prone to scowling and not saying goodbye when they hang up the phone." This sort of archetype is one that has become irritatingly prevalent on TV and in film (Chocano talks mainly about film, but since this blog is about TV the small screen is where I'll be focusing my attentions), particularly in recent years. The Kyra Sedgewick vehicle The Closer kick-started the trend of stereotypical "strong female characters" on television, and was quickly followed by a number of copycat shows such as In Plain Sight and Saving Grace. Each of these shows feature a tough-talking, no-nonsense female crime fighter of some variety, one who is unwilling to form close emotional bonds and who spurns love, but who is given some sort of weakness in order to humanize them.

I'm certainly not defending these shows, as I personally find their portrayal of women who actually have the potential to be interesting (and are played by talented actresses) depressingly one-note and obviously written by men. However, I think that, by including so many different types of characters in her umbrella description of "strong female characters" and refusing to acknowledge the exceptions - the women who resemble her descriptions, but who are actually fascinatingly complex, fully-drawn creatures - Chocano undermines her own argument. Lumping Sigourney Weaver's Ripley from Alien in with Katherine Heigl's character from The Ugly Truth (or, really, any Katherine Heigl character) is an example of generalization gone awry; in her irritation at strong female characters, she throws the baby out with the bathwater.

There are many, many exceptions to Chocano's archetype. She claims that these types of "strong female characters" are impossible to relate to as a woman, because they are too unlike us. Chocano uses Kristen Wiig's character in Bridesmaids as an example, saying that women "don't relate to her despite the fact she is weak, we relate to her because she is weak." This may be true - after all, most women are flawed, are occasionally neurotic, and sometimes lose control of their lives. I know I do. However, that doesn't mean that I, as a woman, want to relate to this type of character. Seeing my own flaws on-screen, blown up for comedic effect, isn't necessarily an uplifting experience. I watch 30 Rock because it is funny and smart, not because I identify (all that often, anyway) with Tina Fey's Liz Lemon, who is so fixated on motherhood that she steals a baby, and so unorganized that she occasionally wears a Duane Reade bag as underwear.

In my opinion, some of the most interesting characters in television are the women of Battlestar Galactica. These women - in particular Tricia Helfer's Caprica Six, Grace Park's Sharon Agathon, Katee Sackhoff's Kara "Starbuck" Thrace and Mary McDonnell's Laura Roslin - are all fully drawn characters, women are strong but also flawed (realistically flawed, not given some arbitrary flaw in order to make them relatable), women who can kick ass one minute and break down the next in a completely realistic way.

I find Starbuck to be the single most fascinating woman on a show full of strong women (no disrespect meant to McDonnell, Park and Helfer fans, because they're fantastic too). I've only watched two seasons and one episode of the show, since I finally decided to start watching a month ago and I have to work, and in the time Starbuck's character has evolved from a spitfire viper pilot with a messy personal life to a woman - not a girl, a fully realized woman - who will fight tooth and nail for her family, her friends and her people. At the beginning of the series Starbuck was a fighter, but she fought because she couldn't think of anything else. By the midpoint of season two, however, she has found love with Anders, fighting the cylons on Caprica, and her new, less rash and impulsive persona is summed up by Helo when he tells her, "now you have something to live for."

Starbuck also has wonderful, joyful moments that contrast deeply with Chocano's description of a strong female character who is "tough, cold, terse, taciturn." Starbuck's face grows joyful both in the cockpit of her viper and when she's sparring, verbally and physically, with Anders on Caprica, and her joy is infectious. Starbuck may be a natural fighter, but she isn't a constantly serious one, and her fighting instincts go beyond her job, causing her to fight for those she cares about. Her character is certainly identifiable - her tendency to hop into bed in search of some sort of connection while still resisting commitment, her quick temper, her occasional reliance on alcohol to keep going in the worst of circumstances - but her strength is that she gets past these flaws. Starbuck is both identifiable and aspirational; unlike the neurotic messes that Chocano identifies with because they resemble the way she is now, Starbuck starts out the way many of us are now, and then shows us that we can transcend those flaws and better ourselves.

Starbuck is far from the only complex, strong woman on television - as I pointed out before, she makes up only a small contingent of the strong women on Battlestar Galactica. Regular readers of this blog will know that two of my favorite characters in all of television are Game of Thrones' Daenerys Targaryen and The Vampire Diaries' Elena Gilbert. Neither of these women really fit into Chocano's definition of "strong female characters," but to me they are two of the strongest women on television. I find Daenerys fascinating because of her transformation from frightened chattel to powerful, fireproof Dragon. I also like the way that the writers keep her from seeming too perfect by having the character walk a fine line between brave and ruthless. Her execution of the witch who she blames for Drogo and her son's deaths in the finale was sad and more than a little chilling; watching the normally kind-hearted Dany calmly tell the women that she would scream as the flames engulfed her caused the viewer to pause momentarily and question their support of the character. Only for a moment though, because when she emerged, naked and powerful and with three dragons, from the ashes of her husband's funeral pyre, it was impossible not to stand in awe of the Khaleesi.

Elena Gilbert is a very different type of strong woman from both Starbuck and Daenerys. Her strength lies in the fact that she is a normal teenage girl who has managed to stay herself and stay grounded through both her romance with Stefan and a string of tragedies that would have brought most people to their knees. One of my favorite moments in the second season was a quiet one, in which Elena contemplated the possibility of becoming a vampire after Damon had fed her his blood to "save" her. After several scenes of conversation between Elena and Stefan she finally, tearfully but with fearsome inner strength, told Stefan that she didn't want to become a vampire. Compare Elena to Twilight's Bella Swan, who begs to become a vampire because she can't stand the thought of growing old while Edward remains young forever. Elena, secure in herself and her identity, is willing - is determined - to put aside something that could let her be with Stefan forever in order to stay true to who she is.

Both Elena and Daenerys are strong female characters who don't follow Chocano's archetype, and Starbuck is a tough woman who follows the archetype while transcending it. These women are all identifiable, but not as our current selves (or at least as my current self; you could very well be a stronger, more stable, more courageous person than I am). Instead, their identifiable qualities make their strength all the more impressive, while also making their courage, stability and strength seem reachable. If I wanted to watch a show about women like me - and plenty of people seem to want that - I could watch Grey's Anatomy and see myself in the whiny, bed-hopping basket cases that populate that show. I don't want that. I want to see myself as the badass viper pilot, or the center that holds together a group of supernatural beings. I want to see myself as the Dragon.