trinityvixen | (no subject)

I stayed up way too late when I was already tired last night to finish both discs I got from Netflix.

I'm almost finished with the second season of The 4400, and man, it got a lot better. And, strangely, worse at the same time. The better part is the fact that the show layers its reveals really well. Things shown in earlier episodes come back to haunt later ones. Characters reappear who weren't in immediately previous episodes, which gives it a bit of real-world feel (there are always plenty of people in the drama of our lives that we don't see every day or even all that often). It's a nice break and refresher when you get tired of what you got and tired of them just introducing new characters who won't survive to be in the next episode.

I think, in that way, The 4400 one-ups The X-Files, to which it owes a lot, thematically. The X-Files did build stuff up over time, but the reveals were fairly obvious. The 4400 walks the line of reveals closer to the way LOST did in its first season--in other words, it's not ridiculously complex (yet) nor melodramatic and ominous. I look forward to finishing it. I'm going to go see when I can queue up the third season, if it's available.

Okay, if not for the fact that Alanna is a nice character touch, I'd hate what they did here. In fact, I do hate what they've done. It's complete sexist bullshit, and it really mocks the character this enforced relationship is supposed to be building up. I liked Tom Baldwin, the not-all-together single dad. It's different, something you don't get a lot of on TV (single moms, yes, single dads, let alone fallible ones? No), and I don't like the way it was done. He's a good guy at heart, and I like that he still makes mistakes, that he gets swept up in things and loses (rightly) his wife and alienates (rightly) his son, even as he loves (or, in the case of the former, loved) both. That's fairly human, it's a flaw that pains him but that he cannot really change either, and I like that. I like the concession that Tom has to make it on his own the best he can because his best still doesn't make time for family dinners and intimate conversations with a wife. Throwing a woman at him to be his support, to make him into the family guy, make him happy et al? Just weakens the character, insults his ability to get things done on his own (which, after a few mistakes, he does to his credit), and makes me mad (especially as it implies that the human mind and soul cannot weather a spiritual crisis on a individual basis, which is utter bullshit).

It's also incredibly insulting to poor Alanna--you have no agency except to fall in love and support a man. She literally does not exist in the show as a person. She is a crutch for Her Man. He may love her, she may love him, that's all well and good. But really, the future wants her to be his woman, so, therefore, clearly, they can't choose otherwise. Remember Alanna's life without Tom? No, of course not, it's unimportant. Her crippling loss of her own family is insignificant. She should--and is made to-- just be happy that she gets another man to have her and a new son to replace her useless, dead one. This is sort of what bugged me about Lily's pregnancy, too, and I'm glad they've rectified that shallow trope of a parents replacing one lost child with another by having Lily talk to her daughter from before she was abducted. Alanna, on the other hand, her life before Tom is irrelevant, as are the lives of all women before they meet the man to whom they belong. She's an endearing person, but she's being written as an archetype, and a none-too-flattering one at that.

And while the future was at it, why no mate for Scouris? Maybe that's coming up, but I can't help but notice that all she got out of the 4400 was a daughter, and if Alanna's story isn't a bunch of sexist, patriarchal crap, then hers and Scouris' together certainly are. It holds up the two stereotypical gender roles for women: wife and mother. That Scouris is a good agent, able to do the tough stuff is not important--being Maia's mother is. That Alanna can create alternate worlds with a thought (into which, she could pull every 4400 and figure out what they do that's so friggin important but she won't because it was just a parlor trick to make her and Tom fall in love) is secondary to her need to accomodate Tom's emotional problems and fill his love void. Yes, yes, Scouris can be genuinely happy with Maia, and I believe she is, but she was sorta fooled into assuming the role. I note that there have been no other similar examples of 4400s being forced on men (Lily has Isabelle on her, too, so that's two).

Point is this: if having someone at your side is so important for Tom's character, how about making he and his partner trust each other more? They both have the clearance and the expectation they'll be dealing with any crap that comes down from the 4400 fiasco, so why not give the two people who need to know shit a psychic weekend retreat? I don't mean make them fall in love either. Just make them partners. They're friendly enough when defending mutual interests, but they keep too many things from each other for there to be any trust there. That's where the show isn't following the lesson of early X-Files well enough. You can't be partners and make a difference if you don't trust each other (and you can be partners and still disagree). Get Scouris in on the whole problem with Tom's son, and you've got a team to take on the end of the world. Throwing Alanna around will only destablize the center.

In other news,

feiran was subjected to some Smallville last night and scared the crap out of me with the face she made when I said Green Arrow was hot. She agreed, in a scary, scary way. That said, I still like him. I like the look of arrogance and disgust and dismissal he has when Lois came to see him. He's going to be a prick, and an entitled one at that (so, basically, Lex without a conscience, which, I SWEAR, makes sense in my head even though it looks stupid to say). Plus, hey, another trim guy with his shirt off. I don't mind that at all, especially since Tom Welling hasn't lost his in a while (prompting me to be catty and say he's probably gotten too fat to look good without a shirt on any more). Go go green vigilante!