Weekly Show

07
February, 2012November 8, 2012

Tuning in to SciFi TV #179

Water Cooler
New contest – 2 winners can select any single season of Chuck on DVD
– Answer the poll: What job on a genre show would you like?
– Our new Community podcast – The Study Group has launched
– Tuner Minute: Blinded by Rage. Join in the forum discussion here.

Back Porch
0:43:05 – Fringe 4.11 Making Angels
0:56:46 – The Fades Episode 1.03
1:05:25 – Once Upon A Time 1.11 Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

You can listen to the episode now by using the ‘Play’ button below or follow the break for detailed Show Notes.

Show Notes and Links

Quick Reviews
Sat 1/28
– The Fades Episode 1.03
– Syfy Original Movie Swamp Volcano
Sun 1/29
– Once Upon A Time 1.11 Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
– Lost Girl 2.15 Table for Fae
Mon 1/30
– Alcatraz 1.04 Cal Sweeney
– Being Human US 2.03 All Out of Blood
Thu 2/2
– The Big Bang Theory 5.15 The Friendship Contraction
– The Vampire Diaries 3.13 Bringing Out the Dead
Fri 2/3
– Fringe 4.11 Making Angels
– Grimm 1.10 Organ Grinder
– Supernatural 7.13 The Slice Girls
– Merlin 4.05 His Father’s Son

Listener feedback and voicemail
True Blood Season 5 Teaser Trailer
Game of Thrones Season 2 Trailer
Being Human Series Four Interview
Chuck: The Fifth And Final Season Blu Ray May 8th
NBC orders Revolution from JJ Abrams and Eric Kripke
ABC Orders 2 Genre-ish Show Pilots
CW casts its Green Arrow
CW orders Abrams’ pilot for The Selection
Fringe fans miss Peter’s Peacoat
Fringe Fans Ask Questions to the Crew
Fringe crew discusses the Astrid-centric episode
Fringe bumped off the scheduled 3 Fridays in March
NBC’s Awake coming to Thursdays in March
Early Review of The River

Episode #179 hosted by Wendy Hembrock, Brent Barrett and Kevin Bachelder. Recorded on 2/4/12. Edited by Brent Barrett.

Share your feedback by contacting us at 206-202-4182, or on Skype to TuningInToSciFiTV. Follow us on Twitter @TuningIntoSciFi or find us on Facebook.

Theme song graciously provided by Beatnik Turtle.

Promo for The Weird Show podcast.

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Wendy

One thought on “Tuning in to SciFi TV #179”

Purgatori says:

February 8, 2012 at 12:45 am

I just wanted to provide a little feedback on this week’s Tuner Minute.

Let’s start with the confession up-front: I think that I would probably have to be classified as almost a “rage-a-holic” when it comes to tv shows (and movies). While I generally consider myself to be a pretty rational personal, I have some very unstable emotional ‘fault-lines’ that once triggered, can really sour my opinion of a particular show — even to the point of coming to hate it.

One thing that gets me a lot in shows are racial stereotypes. This isn’t nearly as much of a problem as it used to be, but every now and then, I still find myself shocked when a show introduces a character who is little more than a borderline-offensive cliche. When that happens, it pretty much invalidates the show for me, and the chances of me persisting with it are virtually nil. Not only that, but I’ll probably go out of my way to warn other people off the show.

Another source of trouble that crops up way more frequently concerns female characters. Just as in real-life, I take more readily to women than men. It’s not that I hate all men, or like all women, but that I gravitate towards femininity, and am repelled by masculinity. Television tends to cater to the predominant attitudes and values of the culture that produces it, and so the male characters (and the actors cast to play them) fall on the more masculine end of the spectrum. As such, I rarely find myself reacting positively to any of the male characters (especially the ones we’re “meant” to like), and HATE when they are paired up with any of the many female characters I do like.

Game of Thrones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Fringe are all shows I love immensely, but I’ve had problems getting through all three of them. Every time Game of Thrones cut to the Daenerys/Drogo scenes, I would seriously contemplate ditching the show then and there. Fringe almost lost me in the first season due to the guy Olivia was paired with. Buffy — perhaps my all-time favorite show, with my all-time favorite actress (Sarah Michelle Gellar) — I cannot even re-watch because seeing the lead character paired up with the likes of Angel and Riley (was that his name? I can scarcely remember) is simply too much for me to bear.

On a related note, I cannot endure a show where all the female characters are passive and weak, and rely upon the male characters to save them from peril. Like racial stereotyping, this isn’t nearly as prevalent as it once was, but it still crops up every now and then. If not for Arya Stark, and the promise of her coming into her own as a warrior who doesn’t depend on the sanction or protection of men, then I don’t know I could have kept going with Game of Thrones. And Once Upon a Time, with its “I didn’t need a man, but now I totally do” depiction of Snow White sent my rage-o-meter into overdrive, and I couldn’t watch the show anymore after that.

I’m also guilty of loving shows up until a finale (either season or series) just “goes off the rails,” as I would put it. So count me among the detractors of the Lost and Battlestar Galactica finales, because there is absolutely no way I could go back and watch those series with the knowledge that the final answer supplied for every question raised over the course of each show was “god did it.” That answer does not satisfy me in real life, and it definitely doesn’t cut it in entertainment, either.

If I were to try to find identify some kind of pattern in the things that tend to inspire rage-quitting behavior on my part when it comes to TV, I guess it would come down to the shows contradicting my values in some major way, and/or feeling like they’re insulting my intelligence (such as it is :p ).

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