On Jane the Virgin and the terrible wonder of tragedy

I’ve written before about the “reality” of Jane the Virgin, which somehow always roots its soap opera shenanigans in realistic human emotion. Perhaps never have I felt that more than with the midseason finale of season three and its next-week aftermath, which kills off Jane’s still-new husband Michael and then jumps forward three years into the future. Michael’s death was shocking, yes, and well-acted, and though I cried at that episode, it was the next one that really got to me. It opens with Jane’s Alba, explaining gently but firmly, that Jane will always feel different from now on, that truly nothing will ever be the same. And yet, she says, just as firmly, Jane will once again find things to love. She’ll find beauty in her life, find a way to let the light back in. And as impossible as it seems to Jane at the time, it turns out to be true. On both counts.

The episode of Jane the Virgin that showed Michael’s death talked a lot about memories — how we form them, how we perceive them to be absolute truth thereafter, though they’re informed so much by the circumstances and the layers of years piled onto them. Some memories, the episode says, are seared into our brains as brightly as a camera flash, though the parts around them fade into the background. This, I know, is true as well.

The saddest part to me, of this new Jane reality, as well as maybe the most heartbreakingly real, is the show’s efforts to show the true weight of the trauma Jane has suffered. She is no longer nearly the same person she was when we began the journey with her, and she’s changed in a way no accidental insemination, kidnappings, and almost-deflowerings she’s experienced along the way. She’s lost Michael, the person she thought would be there with her for the rest of her life — to share her burdens, her triumphs, her milestones and frustrations — and for something as sudden as it is random. And the loss is twofold: of both Michael himself — a person with dreams and secrets and complications and unknown, untold layers — and of the Jane she was when she had him, a Jane who was complete in ways she will never be again. (Not to mention the knowledge that Mateo, young as he was, will probably never remember the man she loved and lost, who was such a big part of her life.) She has to carry, alone, the weight of every new milestone, every triumph and frustration, knowing that Michael’s life will stay frozen forever in that message on her phone, excited about buying bodega oranges, while hers continues forward, inexorably. Every moment she lives is a moment he doesn’t.

And yet. The true tragic paradox of humanity, the terrible and wondrous secret, is that our losses propel us forward, for better and for worse, for we can never know what might have been but only what is. Jane has lost her husband and her partner, and there will always be a level of guilt in forcing herself to move forward when he cannot, to let in the light and even, eventually, happiness, to realize she can still laugh and love and experience life. And (terribly, wondrously) to know that some of the things she experiences would not have come about if not for his dying: maybe even some of the most beautiful parts of her new existence. The chasm will never fill, but flowers may grow around its edges, with thorns that make you bleed and blooms that dazzle with their beauty. Jane may live the rest of her life wondering why and what if. But maybe she will also wonder at the things that have knitted together in the space between. May all of us be so lucky.

The hyper-real reality of Jane the Virgin

In case you haven’t gleaned from my previous posts, the CW is my favorite television network (and possibly the only one I regularly watch). True, I am probably a few years removed from its target demographic, but my love for its predecessor the WB, and the shows I watched at my most impressionable age — Buffy, Dawson’s Creek, Gilmore Girls — endures. I’ve gotten older and the hair and makeup has gotten more polished, but the CW still serves up a consistently solid roster of shows that can be popcorn-fluffy yet poignant, completely far-fetched (two centenarian vampire brothers feuding over a high school girl) and surprisingly relatable (a high school girl struggles to understand what her path in life should be after a tragedy).

Lately a show that’s impressed me in this regard is Jane the Virgin, the telenovela adaptation that debuted in 2014 and is now in its second season. The show’s premise is admittedly, and proudly, wacko — a 23-year-old virgin is accidentally artificially inseminated with the sperm of a multimillionaire hottie hotel magnate/cancer patient, then decides to keep and raise the baby — but in some ways, it’s one of the more realistic shows on TV. Few shows bother to even nod in the direction of “blue-collar” lifestyles anymore, especially live-action shows, preferring instead to give their characters massive apartments and vaguely defined but apparently extremely high-paying jobs. Jane isn’t immune to this problem — its title character does have a TV star father and a filthy rich baby daddy, plus an apparently endless wardrobe of adorable day dresses and wedges — but its characters do worry about money, and the trio of women at its center live in a one-bathroom house that Alba, the matriarch, has been in for many years.

Also realistic (or at least more so than most series) is how the show deals with parenthood. In this show, pregnancy is not just fodder for either complete, unreserved joy or juicy scandal (though it is both of those at various times); it’s also rightly presented as a massive, life-altering event that carries with it huge implications for both present and future. Jane has to navigate all the ways her “life plan” is derailed by a pregnancy out of her control; Xiomara, her mother, a grandmother at 39, decides firmly that after raising a child to adulthood she’s ready, finally, to focus on herself. Neither woman is villainized or lionized; they’re two sides of the same coin, examples of the choices and trade-offs that all women have to weigh. Plus, there’s the messy, stinky, frustrating reality of parenthood itself: Jane the Virgin may have some of the shiniest hair on TV, but its characters change their fair share of diapers and talk about the physical reality of motherhood (leaking milk, peeing yourself) in ways that are uncommon for a primetime show.

Similarly, it’s a peek at a family dynamic you don’t see much of on TV. Families typically mean young children; shows centered on twenty- and thirtysomethings generally all revolve around groups of friends, with parents showing up for the occasional holiday episode or guest appearance. Jane the Virgin, on the other hand, is all about family — the one you’re born into and the one you decide, at some point, to create for yourself. And the Jane family is strongly, beautifully women-centered. Jane still lives with her mother and grandmother, and while they all usually get along, occasionally long-running tensions about choices and lifestyles boil over. Three generations and two countries of cultural differences are represented, and they form the base of all the women’s conflicts even as their deep love for one another cements their bond. Their polar opposite is Rafael, who feels his family has always been deficient; his love of Jane stems largely from his view of her as the one who can give him the picture-perfect nuclear family he feels he was denied. Women run the show on Jane the Virgin — literally (it has a woman showrunner) and within the various character permutations. Even Petra and her mother, who have been pseudo-villains for most of the show, have a dynamic that, while twisted, is also rooted in the kind of deep familiarity that only family members can share.

What’s interesting about all this is that Jane the Virgin otherwise operates in an extremely heightened world. The colors of the Miami scenery pop off the screen, the plot lines often detour into magical realism, and there’s even an omniscient (or nearly so) narrator who chats directly with the audience. On a lesser show this contrast could cause tonal whiplash, but Jane the Virgin somehow manages to balance its continuous telenovela hijinks and its more grounded reality while also occasionally having the characters comment on the wackiness of it all, without taking you out of the moment. It’s an impressive balancing act, with the bonds between the characters keeping everything from tipping over into total ridiculousness. For every highly choreographed Britney Spears cameo there’s a moment of realness in which a character expresses uncertainty about her choices or fear for the future. It all adds up to a show that’s highly entertaining while also insightful about the human condition — it’s merely a bonus that those humans just happen to be ridiculously attractive.

An ode to The OC, finally available to stream after all these years

About a week ago, the CW’s streaming platform, CW Seed, started streaming every episode of The OC. Josh Schwartz’s first show aired from 2003 to 2007, and its first season still evokes wistful odes about the practical perfection of its awesome zeitgeist-seizing power and unparalleled hipness from pop culture journalists. And far be it from me to argue with them: I came to the show late, stumbling on an all-day marathon of its first season on the embarrassingly-but-accurately-named SoapNet, and was immediately seduced by its shiny, Chanel-clad wiles. I spent probably seven hours holed up in my parents’ bedroom drinking in the antics of Ryan, Seth, Marissa, and Summer, not to mention the grown-up but still wacky charms of Sandy, Kirsten, Julie, and Jimmy. Later, in college, I bought the complete box set, which I still break out on rainy days (read: when I’m bored at home and my internet is down).

I was too young (or too culturally ignorant) to be on the 90210 bandwagon during its heyday, so I don’t totally understand why The OC was considered such a revelatory reimagining of the teen soap genre. But even without that knowledge, it’s incredibly impressive that Josh Schwartz, at just 26, created such a fully realized world, with its own language, wardrobe, and (most important) soundtrack that burned through plot faster than a super-dramatic meteor streaking through the atmosphere.

Granted, some things don’t hold up very well; there are some pretty now-insensitive LGBT plots, and the characters’ utter inability to just freaking be upfront with one another starts to feel more frustrating and more like wheel spinning with each rewatch. What’s just as good today as then, though, is the rhythm of the show and of the characters’ impossibly witty dialogue. Scenes of the Cohens standing around in their gorgeous kitchen swapping quips about Yogalates over bagels and schmear made me long for a family whose sense of humor and words-per-minute powers of speech were so perfectly in sync.

Nowhere would you find the inarticulate mumblings of My So-Called Life or Freaks and Geeks (Ryan’s inability to drop the L-bomb notwithstanding); nor would you get the overstudied, tongue-twisting SAT test of a Dawson’s Creek or the Wikipedia-breakingly thick pop culture references of a Gilmore Girls. The show introduced its own terms into the lexicon (Chrismukkah and minty, anyone?), and despite all the gun-waving, face-punching, overdose-taking, embezzling drama it packed in, it for the most part remained a sunny, funny show.

It’s also interesting to see how Schwartz and co. let the characters evolve over time. As Ryan, Ben McKenzie was probably the best of the “teen” actors, but Adam Brody is the natural scene stealer, his almost-manic Seth adding much-needed zip to scenes with the more taciturn Ryan.

I would never deny you, Seth Cohen.

Kirsten and Sandy were of course one of TV’s most perfect couples, but my favorite was always Melinda Clarke’s Julie Cooper-Nichol-almost-Cooper-again, who softened over the years from a manipulative witch into a loving, game mother so believably it made her season one evilness seem mostly just like well-intentioned overprotectiveness. Mischa Barton remained a pretty terrible actress but was one of the most beautiful criers on television, and her death at the end of season three at least gave the remaining cast some poignant material to work with.

Josh Schwartz went on to make Gossip Girl, another teen-centric soap that took over the zeitgeist like a particularly invasive form of algae. You can see all its hallmarks in The OC: the bon mots, the fabulous wealth, even the onscreen relationships echoing in real life. But though GG lasted six seasons to The OC‘s four, it’s not as beloved by people still as The OC was, because it lacked the California show’s warmth and heart. There was no shortage of OMG moments, but Gossip Girl‘s characters were beautiful and nasty, power hungry and mercenary. At the core of The OC is a tight-knit family who love one another even when they don’t understand one another, who stand by each other even when things get rough. At the core of Gossip Girl is the last Birkin bag Barney’s had in stock. The OC grounds all its over-the-top drama in characters we genuinely care about (not you, Oliver), and though both series ended with a big wedding, only Summer and Seth’s brought me dangerously close to (happy) tears.

So I’ll raise my Newport Beach iced tea to you, The OC; may you live on for many Chrismukkahs to come.

UnREAL and the lies we tell ourselves about love

This is the stuff dreams are made of. Via Lifetime.

Yesterday a coworker of mine got engaged to her boyfriend. He surprised her with a ring at their moving-away party, and the women of my company spent a large part of today in throes of ecstasy over it. There were pictures of the ring, typed-out squeals of joy with so many exclamation points, and declarations that “even though I don’t believe in love, this convinced me.” Then this evening I finally watched the season finale of UnREAL, the fantastic Lifetime show whose tar-dark heart speaks directly to mine.

And those two events made for a fascinating juxtaposition: one a sincere display of love, one a show dedicated to exposing its fallacies, and both on some level peddling the same lace-and-roses fantasy. The showrunners of Everlasting, the reality dating show-within-a-show on UnREAL, traffic in all the trappings of love, ensuring that every ugly barb the contestants throw at one another is gauzily lit and gorgeous. But while Rachel and Quinn live every day steeped in cynicism, even they’re susceptible to the bullshit they create. Rachel has become so good at manipulating people that she manipulates herself into falling for the handsome, mercenary suitor. Quinn delights in sizing up and labeling each girl — whore, virgin, MILF — but when she lets her guard down she realizes she’s let herself get filed into the “long-suffering wifey” category. And the girls themselves, come hell or high drama and despite hard evidence of the falseness all around them, get sucked into the dream of — if not love, at least low-level fame. It’s astonishing.

But the real mind fuck, the genius trick the show pulls off, is working its magic on us. We are literally watching a television series about terrible people doing terrible things to others in the service of a terrible show we the viewers are supposed to scoff at — and yet UnREAL‘s showrunners manipulate us, through compelling television, into rooting for them. We root for Anna to win, we root for Quinn to be happy — hell, I even found myself rooting just a tiny bit for Rachel and Adam to end up on that beach together.

There’s a reason The Bachelor has run for 19 seasons, and it’s because we are inundated with these very specific fantasies of love and fulfillment, so constantly and so consistently, that they are impossible not to internalize. Even the most hardened cynic feels a prickle when listening to wedding vows; even the most avowedly anti-establishment badass would be touched by a proposal of undying love. “Will you marry me?” means will you join this club to which only I can grant you access? It means yes, I am willing to pledge myself to you legally, and thus you can be satisfied that the little question you always have, that question of am I good enough? am I desirable? has been answered, at least for now. I desire you, and thus you are desirable. And now that desire must manifest itself in bunting and china patterns and KitchenAid mixers that all, individually and collectively, must symbolize exactly who you are now that you’re attaching yourself to another person.

I’m not immune to this by any means. It’s all too easy to get me started on a tirade about the ickiness of the wedding industry, but I always cry at weddings and I secretly live for the Grand Romantic Gesture in movies. Thinking about someone proposing to me, about going through the steps of planning a wedding together…it feels thrilling and beautiful and, disturbingly, right. Disturbing because I have no idea how to separate what I want from what I am spoon-fed minute after hour after day. Like Rachel and like Quinn, I am seduced by the bullshit. I am told, “This is what you want,” and though I don’t want to want it, I do.

This isn’t to say that love doesn’t exist — even UnREAL has the glorious, albeit unconventional depiction of true love that is Quinn and Rachel. It’s just that in the fight against the tide of white satin and happily ever after, the deck is stacked so far against us that we can’t see the top. So even I, even the incredibly smart and deep-thinking women I work with, can’t help but give in.

Arrow’s flaw disguised as a strength: its female characters

Sometimes it’s Wednesday, and you have a sore throat, so you decide to work from home—and turns out one of your best friends lives five blocks away and is also at home for the day. So what do you do? You turn your Netflix-enabled TV to The CW’s Arrow—and promptly get hooked for the next coughcough episodes. For those of you who, like me, don’t know much about the comic-book universe, the show is based on the Green Arrow, a DC Comics superhero who was born in the 1940s as a Robin Hood riff on Batman: billionaire, troubled past, but sick archery skills and a hood instead of the cape.

Arrow has all the CW hallmarks—mediocre acting, overly dramatic entrances and exits, mind-bogglingly pretty people (seriously, Google “Stephen Amell shirtless” and just try to disagree)—but it’s extra interesting for a few reasons. For one, the production value is impressively high: Every episode packs in several hyper-speed fight sequences and at least one flashback to a Lost-esque desert island. But what I find most intriguing is the presence of several seemingly well-rounded, independently motivated female characters. There’s Moira, the mother, a stiff-upper-lip businesswoman with a complicated love life and a shady past re: her son and first husband. There’s the wannabe-rebel sister Thea, and maybe it’s just my soft spot for Willa Holland from her O.C. days, but I find she brings an appealing level of prickly vulnerability to what could be a cookie-cutter bratty teen character. There’s the tech wiz Felicity, who’s as ramblingly chatty as she is fast with a computer (and gray with her morals). And there’s Helena/the Huntress, equally complicated as Oliver but even more driven, and somehow not completely blinded by his astoundingly chiseled jaw. And there’s the dud of a character Laurel, a holier-than-thou attorney (“attorney” is shorthand here for “crusader for the disadvantaged”) who is basically the even-drippier version of Katie Holmes’s character in Batman Begins: insufferable yet still total billionaire catnip (Laurel has not one but three vying for her affections so far).

It’s refreshing because so often in comic book works, women are relegated to the sidelines, to being sidekicks, to being the ones who henpeck their mysterious men for the mundane lies they use to excuse a higher purpose. There’s plenty of that in Arrow, to be sure, a kink I hope gets ironed out further in—but it also presents what, at first glance, are women outside the usual tropes. Still, when I think about it, it becomes glaringly apparent that seven and a half episodes in, not one scene has passed the Bechdel test. Luckily the show has several more seasons to redeem itself in that regard.

 

I had nightmares about How I Met Your Mother’s finale

Really. Actual nightmares. I watched it a day late, after dutifully ignoring spoilers all day, and my reaction was still complete and unabashed hatred. I hadn’t even been watching the last season, really, though I did catch up on a few episodes on Monday. And I have no idea why I decided to ignore my usual rule of not watching series finales lest they leave me with that icky, empty sensation I always think of as the “Sunday feeling”—the feeling you get when you know it’s the end of the weekend and all the fun is over.

But this was so much worse. There are a thousand reviews out right now, written by people much more knowledgeable and eloquent and insightful than me, about why the conclusion of a nine-year-long series basically gave a giant middle finger to its fan base. But for some reason I still can’t stop going over it in my head and wishing it had been done differently—especially after having seen the beauty of what could have been in that fan-made video that absolutely nails what I wanted from the show. That’s how it should have ended. That’s what people wanted from the show: to see Ted happy, to see him get everything his over-romantic, pedantic heart yearned for for so long. It’s a comedy, for pete’s sake. Nobody wants realism, the cold splash of water over those golden-hued dreams that were the show’s, and character’s, selling point. And for those who argue that the ending was more realistic because it shows that not even love with “the one” can last forever, I say it’s so much more unrealistic to expect it to work out between two people who were together not just once but twice and realized they wanted fundamentally different things; to think that a man who let go of the woman he thought might be the love of his life over and over again because she continually left him for her career, his best friend, and a million other reasons would still believe they could be together decades and two children later—or that he’d still want her after all that; to believe any iota of Robin’s unhappiness stemmed from the fact that she wasn’t with Ted specifically rather than envy toward her friends and the nebulous, overarching fear of dying alone.

I actually can’t believe I care so much about this, but it’s such a tragic ending to a great show, simply because of how poorly conceived and executed it was. I want to go back in time and skip the real final episode, and instead just watch the fan video that brings to life what I didn’t realize I was hoping for all along. I know that life is messy, and ugly, and sad, and there are no easy answers and no real “happy endings.” That’s why we watch television shows—to escape the dullness and unfairness of real life, to give us faith (however temporarily) in things like destiny and epic love that never wavers no matter the circumstances. It’s a shallow fantasy, but a beautiful one, and one we all need from time to time. And if Ted can’t even get his happy story, in his imaginary life that’s written for him by someone else, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

How long can Scandal stay on the air?

For the past couple of years I’ve had the fun task of recapping Scandal for my day job. With the exception of the most recent episode, which I missed because I was in India (more on that to come!), I’ve seen all of it, and watched it grow along the way from a soapy, uneven procedural with ultra-predictable twists to a critical darling and one of the most buzzed-about shows on TV. I’ll confess Shonda Rhimes shows are generally not totally my cup of tea—I gave up on Grey’s Anatomy after the first season—and were I not recapping Scandal, I likely wouldn’t watch it regularly. But the show has sparked some interesting discussions about race and gender roles in Hollywood and politics, and it has a darkly humorous—and often just plain dark—tone that appeals to my cynical side. (Plus how can you not love the vindictive, wounded-animal rage of Bellamy Young’s Mellie Grant?)

I’ve started to wonder, though, about Scandal‘s staying power. Todd VanDerWerff noted at the AV Club that Scandal keeps momentum going by raising what were from the beginning very high stakes. You’re talking about the presidency, about the fate of marriages and reputations, even occasionally about life and death. But for me, those stakes have started to lose their power. Those passionate, tortured declarations of love Fitz and Olivia are so fond of making to each other? If they want to be together so badly, Fitz could just give up the presidency, which, by the way, he didn’t actually win anyway. He outed his own affair to the press, then Olivia’s team swiftly covered for her by pinning it on one of the president’s hapless staffers, who retired to a desert island (or something), and he continues to be the president with little to no real damage to his reputation. In any case, we’re talking about just four more years of all these people’s lives before all these issues will cease to be issues, so why not just throw in the towel after one term? Where do you go when in two and a half seasons the president of the United States has impregnated one staffer, who is then murdered by his chief of staff; been outed as an adulterer; smothered a Supreme Court justice to death; and abused his power to let a known criminal who is also the mother of his erstwhile lover/campaign manager go free?

Maybe the real stakes are the fate of these people’s souls. Olivia’s team will do anything for her, the more illegal the better, sometimes at great personal cost. Abby lies to her boyfriend; Huck tortures people; Harrison wears pocket squares that don’t exactly match his tie. Olivia will do anything for Fitz—except the one thing she should do, which is let him go. Mellie, for some reason, will do anything to stay in her position, sad and largely powerless as it is. She’s hooked on the drug of future potential success, of one day having in her hands the power she wants so desperately to keep herself adjacent to. Power for these people is god and devil, the thing that gives them life as it simultaneously eats away at them. But as they hurtle toward their destruction in the form of wildly twisting plot lines, it’s hard to see how long that corrosion can be stretched out. Like the late, unlamented Hostages, which I also recapped (until I finally gave up), the concept of a president and his former staffer having an affair that dooms everyone around them to endless lies and machinations seems like one with a limited shelf life. Were any normal person subjected to the emotional (and sometimes physical) torture these characters have already endured, she’d end up catatonic in a mental institution. We’ve already had one episode of Kerry Washington doing that—and beautiful as she is, I’m less than enthused about a whole season of it.

Reflections on the Johnny Arc from The OC Season 3

The Internet connection in my apartment is spotty at best, so when I was glued to the couch for two days during Sandy I started rewatching the one box set TV show I own: The OC. I skipped around, but I’m currently on season three, a.k.a. the season when Marissa goes to public school, meets a skinny, doe-eyed surfer named Johnny, and proceeds to completely ruin his life.

I forgot how tedious this plot line was, and also how ultimately sad. Marissa as a character always basically drove me crazy, but this was the season that really drove home how careless she was with people, even as she convinced herself she was being a selfless person. She knew Johnny for one semester of school—so maybe four or five months—and in the span of that time he lost his girlfriend, had his promising surfing career ruined when he got hit by a car, and then accidentally died while depressed and drunk on cheap tequila. Was all of that Marissa’s fault? Maybe not directly. But it’s hard not to think that he would have been better off never meeting her at all.

One of the more significant life lessons I learned is that sometimes people come into your life who are just not good for you. They take your time and your energy and your money if you’re really unlucky, they sap you of emotional strength, they attach themselves to you like human barnacles. And for whatever reason, it’s weirdly hard sometimes to realize just how bad they are for you. Maybe you feel sorry for them. Maybe you have a Mother Teresa complex and think you can “fix” them. Maybe they’re like my high school boyfriend, who was a jerk to everyone but nice to me, and I loved it because it made me feel special. Maybe they’re like my recent crush, whom I liked probably partly because he was practically bipolar in the way he acted toward me—sometimes he was the sweetest, and I felt like we had a real connection, and then he’d completely ignore me for weeks at a time.

I’ve known several people like that over the years. And for whatever reason, I let them be in my life for longer than I should have. Eventually I realized I had to cut ties, but not until I drove myself half nuts trying to deal with the drama. My old roommate, totally softhearted and a sucker for lost causes, recently went through something to that effect, but to a fairly extreme degree. I’m glad she finally realized what she needed to do. It’s never easy, and you might feel guilty—but at least you won’t end up falling off a cliff while blitzed on Cuervo, right?

Pop Culture Phenomena I Either Missed or Intentionally Skipped (A List)

• The Wire
• Most of The Sopranos
• Most of Lost
• Twilight
• American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, Toddlers & Tiaras, (insert name of terrible reality show here)—I did, however, watch a couple seasons of So You Think You Can Dance with my sister. We both loved it.
• 50 Shades of Grey
• Furbys
• Beanie Babies
• Saved by the Bell
• Justin Bieber
• Taylor Swift
• LOLcats for the LONGEST time and now I kind of think they’re hilarious

There are so many more, I’m sure, and the ones I didn’t totally miss I became aware of way after everyone else. I guess I’m not usually what you would call an early adapter. For the most part I’m okay with missing out on this stuff (although I do plan to watch The Wire and The Sopranos in their entirety at some point.)

Why TV Is Better Than Movies

Vulture has an interesting article today about why people seem to be turning to television over movies. Spoiler alert: It’s all about the money. Funds are limited, so execs go with the “guaranteed” success (sequels, adaptations of hugely successful books, anything that involves a muscly dude in a Spandex outfit) rather than the indie dramas. “Almost no movie makes sense on paper. If the glass is half-empty or half-full, it is always half-empty.”

So while there are no doubt just as many smart, talented, creative writers and directors with original ideas and defined visions, what we get instead is two-bit slasher films and Twilight 17: Yeah, We’re Still Emo.

TV, on the other hand, now has the opportunity to do all of the exciting, edgy, boundary-pushing things that used to define movies. I remember it was a big deal when established actors like Dustin Hoffman and Glenn Close took on roles in television shows. And when I think about the plots and characters and worlds that have been most memorable to me in the past years, they’re almost all from TV shows. I’m sure that also has to do with both my short attention span and my preference for settling in with characters and watching their arcs over time. My friend and I both love the show Happy Endings, and once we had a ten-minute conversation about how watching the show every week felt like hanging out with actual friends. Sad, but true.

What are your thoughts on TV versus movies? What characters stick out in your mind the most?