Black History Month Series: Octavia’s Brood

I love Octavia Butler. It’s not a secret. I’ve talked about her writing before at the beginning of this series and when I reviewed her series Lilith’s Brood AKA Xenogenesis. I’ve also recommend her incredible Earthseed series more than any other book, plus I’ve read her seminal book Kindred and her vampire novel Fledgling. Her version of science fiction that is so rooted in her political beliefs and her experience of race is truly amazing and I can’t recommend it enough. Unsurprisingly, Octavia Butler has a lot of fans. In 2015, her work inspired a book of short stories from social justice movements titled Octavia’s Brood. I’ve been eyeing it in my local independent bookstore since it came out and finally read it.

Octavia’s Brood is a testament to a writer who wrote so movingly about the victims of prejudice and about the need for society to grow, change, and accept differences in order to survive. The editors Adrienne Maree Brown and Walidah Imarisha call the stories in the book “visionary fiction.” In creating the book they invited leaders and thinkers in social justice movements to engage in visionary thinking and to write about the futures they imagine. The results are fascinating.

There are stories full of inspiration about how listening to our past, learning from our mistakes, and letting those we’ve oppressed lead brings us to a beautiful future. And there are dark warnings about the places we will find ourselves if we let oppression continue. The types of stories in the book run the gamut from zombie to superheroes to dispatches from the future. There are angels and keepers of memory. There are monsters both human and not. There’s a story about a planet where the physically disabled have been banished and created their own haven, and about how a city fights back against gentrification. The issues covered in the book go beyond the expected racism and sexism, and into ableism, homophobia, ageism, and more. I won’t go on, but it’s a fascinating and imaginative collection.

The format of the stories is also a variety. Most are your traditional short story. A few are excerpts from published novels and a few feel like the start for a novel I’d like to read. The collection includes a couple of essays as well as one story that’s really a script. Whatever type of story you like, there’s something here for you.

Like most short story collections, I loved some of the stories and some weren’t for me. Some I found powerful and exciting, and some I didn’t really get. That goes with the territory, but what’s exciting about Octavia’s Brood is all the new terrain. Whether you love the stories or not, it’s powerful to see the futures imagined by those who work to make ours better.

Black History Month Series: Welcome

Hello cyberspace!

It’s been a long time, but I’m back with a series on Black History Month. We’ll be looking at, of course, black history. But I’m also interested into looking forward. Let’s talk about black futures, black fantasies, and black science fiction. I’ll be writing at least a review a week and hoping to hit a few authors and books off the beaten path. To get us stared, here’s a couple of recommendations from my last year of reading:

• N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy

If you’ve been hearing about these books everywhere, good. If this is your first time, welcome. The Broken Earth is an amazing fantasy trilogy consisting of The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky. Frankly, any discussion of the series will spoil the fun of figuring out the world as you go, so I recommend stopping this and reading now. But if you need more than that, read on.

The Fifth Season takes place in a place called The Stillness which is prone to massive geological disasters called Fifth Seasons which can span from a few years to generations. The entire culture of the Stillness is built around survival during Fifth Seasons. That includes their treatment of orogenes, people with the magical ability to influence and manipulate the earth. Orogenes are feared, ostracized, and virtually enslaved by a system used to control them and use their powers to keep those who persecute them safe. The story starts following three women: Damaya, Seinite, and Essun through this world and a Season that might change it all.

The series is masterful fantasy with compelling characters, relationships you want to root for, a world that’s a joy to learn about and explore, and narrative twists that are among the best I’ve ever read. It’s also an important exploration of prejudice, persecution, and how a civilization will build itself on the backs of those who are different from them. It’s a must read for fans of fantasy, strong women of color, well-executed social commentary, and great writing.

• Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler is one of the masters of science fiction. She’s known for strong women of color as protagonists, and for writing deft social commentary and part of excellent science fiction.

Possibly her best known work is Kindred, which follows a smart, independent black woman married to a white man in the then-modern era of the 1980s as she is repeatedly transported back in time to the South in the time of slavery. The book is a harrowing look at the brutality of slavery and the effect it has on the mind and soul, as well as the relationships between black women and white men.

I highly recommend her series Lilith’s Brood, which was previously known as Xenogenesis. In the books Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago, Bulter explores an alien species called the Oankali which adopts dying species into their lives and culture. The titular Lilith is a black woman who has been awoken in this culture and has to explore it, learn about it, and ultimately figure out how she will become a part of it. Finally, I’d recommend the Earthseed duo: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. These two books follow protagonist Lauren Oya Olamina through an apocalyptic world as she struggles to survive and eventually goes on to found a new faith, Earthseed. It was my first exposure to Butler’s incredible worlds and still the one I’m usually first to recommend.

I hope you’ll get started with these suggestions and join me for exploring more this month!

Revisiting The Passage

The year was 2012 and I was waiting in line to see The Avengers at midnight. Since I insisted on getting there ridiculously early (sorry guys), we had a lot of time to kill. One of my friends told me about the book he was reading. That book was The Passage by Justin Cronin and it shortly became one of my favorite books.

The pitch for the book alone got me hooked. It was the Twilight-obsessed world of 2012, and a well-written vampire novel that was getting compared to the likes of Cormac McCarthy was irresistible to me. I love a well-done monster book, and The Passage was a jackpot. Now, the third book in the trilogy comes out today, so I’ve been re-reading the series to get ready.

From the very first line, I love this book. Just look at it: “Before she became the Girl from Nowhere – the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years – she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.” Now, I don’t want to get all English major on you, but first lines are hard and that’s a really good one. The promise of the strange and epic and supernatural juxtaposed with the simple bare facts of a little girl named Amy. Sign me up to find out what happens next!

Amy is at the center of The Passage. We begin with her and the sad story of her mother (teenage pregnancy, poverty, desperation) trying her best to raise Amy. Then we begin to take a look at the rest of the world. There’s scientists on a journey through the jungle searching for something ancient (bad idea, disaster, death). There’s Special Agent Brad Wolgast visiting a death row inmate with an irresistible offer (leave death row, medical experiment, live forever). Soon it will all collide and conspire in very bad end-of-the-world kinds of ways. At the center of it all is Amy, the key to everything.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a book with that title, The Passage is all about the journey. Clocking in at 766 pages, this is not a short book. But the world building, the character development, the care and thoughtfulness with which the story gets told are why we’re here. That’s what separates this book from every other apocalyptic story on TV or in the movie theatres. Justin Cronin takes time to help you understand the depth and desires of the people involved, and the detailed horrifying consequences of their actions. Here the end of the world is not just caused by a supervillain rubbing his hands together and hatching his evil plot. Instead it’s created the way any situation in the world is created: a series of people doing the best they can in their situation, however impossible, however unwise. It’s ego, hubris, bureaucratic red tape, bad decisions, miscalculations, and lack of communication that end the world. Sounds about right.

Now all of this paints a somewhat bleak picture, but The Passage is ultimately a book about hope. The apocalypse only takes up about a third of the book, after all. Don’t get me wrong. This is a dark book with plenty of violence, gore, and a high body count. But despite it all, there’s a strong vein of hope, love, and faith running through the core of the story. There’s a huge variety of expressions of love from the familial to the dutiful to the romantic to the hopeless. The relationships are beautifully drawn and deeply felt.

Ok, let’s talk about the vampires. Lots of people are rightfully skeptical about vampires, but the monsters in this book are very well done. For the most part, the monsters are a force of nature more like traditional zombie stories than vampire books. Think of this like The Walking Dead but the undead want to eat your blood, not your brains. But at the same time, Cronin takes many of the traditional vampire tropes and puts new and interesting spins on them. He manages to be true to the spirit of vampire tradition while also creating something new, something that feels very real, and something pretty damn creepy.

I can’t even begin to list the characters in this book that have impacted me. Ok, yes I can. Alicia, Amy, Hollis, Alicia again. One of the things I appreciate about this book is fact that Cronin makes having a world of diverse voices look easy and natural. You know, because it is. He writes a great number of characters from all sorts of backgrounds who all have depth and complexity. There’s amazing female characters and characters from an array of ethnic and social backgrounds, all playing important roles in the story. It’s refreshing, it’s reassuring, and it gives me hope for the future. Much like The Passage itself.

Required Reading: The Left Hand of Darkness

As one of science fiction’s most notable female writers, Ursula K. Le Guin has been on my list for a long time. Last month I finally read her 1969 book The Left Hand of Darkness and I’m not sure it was the best place to start. A little Wikipedia has shown me that this is actually the third book in Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, which all take place in the same universe. So maybe that’s why I felt a little lost. It was like the book dumped me into a pre-existing world and expected me to understand. Because it did.

The Left Hand of Darkness takes place on the remote planet known as Winter. In a galaxy of civilized planets that form an alliance known as the Ekumen, Winter is a backwater planet that doesn’t know it has company in the universe. Genly Ai is in fact the first visitor from outer space. In his role as the first Envoy from the Ekumen, his job is to convince the locals that he actually is a space alien peacefully representing a civilization they never knew existed and then to convince them to join the alliance. It’s not exactly an easy job.

As Ms. Le Guin explains in her preface, the book is really a thought experiment about what a civilization would look like under very different conditions. As such, this isn’t a science fiction book with guns and lasers and spaceships. It’s really a speculative exploration of a world without gender. The Gethenians of Winter are not male or female. Their species has evolved in such a way that most of the time the people have no gender. Once a month or so they enter a mating state in which they can become either male or female depending on external factors. There is no stereotyping an individual based on their sex. The burden of bearing children is spread equally throughout the species. Their concepts of home, community, marriage, and personhood all look radically different from our own and it’s a fascinating thought experiment.

There are other notable concepts at play here, including an outsider trying to decipher the complicated social structures of the natives of Winter. There’s also an exploration of what makes one alien and what makes one strange. As he runs up against opposition after opposition, Genly Ai finds himself on a desperate cross-country trek through the winter wilderness with only one native for company. Alone in their tent the two of them must try to understand one another without the constraints of a society that will label one or the other of them as alien. It’s fascinating to think of trying to understand one being without any other reference points.

I really enjoyed many of the concepts and ideas in The Left Hand of Darkness, but the book also moved a little slowly for me. Maybe my life was a little too chaotic for me to focus properly, or maybe political machinations and interesting ideas aren’t quite enough to keep me turning the pages. Either way, I would recommend the Left Hand of Darkness as an interesting read, but not something that I would rush out and read today. Now which Ursula Le Guin book should I read next?

10 Cloverfield Lane: Spoiler Free and Mostly Spoilery Reviews

Here’s my spoiler-free review of 10 Cloverfield Lane: it was great, you should go see it. All three actors do a fantastic job, especially John Goodman. It’s an intimate, thrilling, engrossing little jewel of a film. Now go see it and come back.

Ok. Here’s the real “spoilers-ahead” review because that’s about all I can say without ruining something for you. Here we go. Michelle wakes up in a basement injured. The last thing she remembers is being in a car accident. She quickly finds out that she’s apparently captive in the basement of John Goodman’s bunker. Supposedly while she was unconscious the world experienced some sort of apocalypse and John Goodman has saved her life…or has he?

Michelle isn’t the only one waiting out the end of the world down here, she’s joined by local farm boy Emmett who says he fought his way in when he realized what was happening outside. The whole thing looks pretty fishy. Why can’t they call anyone? Is there really no one to call? How do you establish the real end of the world? Why does Howard (John Goodman’s character) have a bunch of belongings for a teenage girl? Was he the one who caused Michelle’s car wreak in the first place? Is he crazy, harmless, murderous, a quirky Good Samaritan, or some combination thereof? As the movie unravels, it all gets explored and exploded. Hey that was all kind of spoiler free! Don’t expect that to last!

A note about the acting in this movie: it’s all excellent. You’ll hear a lot about John Goodman in this movie because his understated performance is brilliant. Any lesser actor could have made one misstep that betrayed Howard’s motives, but at the end of the movie I was still left guessing. Clearly Howard is not a good guy, and the circumstantial evidence about his relationship with a missing teenage girl looks really bad. But what were his intentions with Michelle? We’ll never know and that’s a huge boon to the movie.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Michelle also delivers an amazing performance that will hopefully launch her into a new level in her already pretty cool career. She is so sympathetic, so smart, so subtle, and so easy to root for as she rallies all of her resources to escape and survive. By the end of the film she was so awesome the best parallel I can come up with is Sara Connor at the end of Terminator. That’s about as highly as I can praise a female sci-fi lead.

And then there’s John Gallagher Jr. as Emmett. Now I should disclose that I’ve had a giant talent crush on him since 2006 when he starred as Moritz in the Broadway musical Spring Awakening, so I find it hard to be unbiased. But he was refreshingly sincere, kind, and just so darn likable as Michelle’s ally in hell. Their moments together as they wrestle with regrets and their search for the truth are the emotional core that made me care deeply about the survival of these characters. Also did I mention he’s adorable?

10 Cloverfield Lane is a rare and lovely movie that’s completely original while somewhat associated with an existing franchise (I’ll direct you elsewhere in the internet for debates on whether or not this even takes place in the same timeline or universe as Cloverfield). It has a fascinating woman at the center of the story. And while Michelle is an incredible survivor and the threat of violence is ever-present, it’s refreshing in this era of Game Of Thrones and exploitation of sexual violence for entertainment to have a movie where threats are real and frightening, but don’t turn graphic or even materialize at all. Sometimes the scariest things out there really are the what-ifs. 10 Cloverfield Lane is in intense, gratifying, truly original work. Go see it!

The Expanse: Season One

Confession: I miss Battlestar Galactica. I’m not alone in this. So when I started seeing articles around the internets comparing Syfy’s new show The Expanse to my beloved Galatica, I jumped in on watching it with some friends. Others have written about the comparison, so I won’t belabor the point. I’ll just tell you why enjoyed this new show.

For those not in the know, The Expanse is based on the book series by James S.A. Corey. Stay tuned and I’m sure you’ll see the first book Leviathan Wakes reviewed here soon. I’m the only person in my show watching group who hasn’t read the books and that’s not a position I relish. Plus the first 10-episode season certainly left me wanting more.

The Expanse tells the story of a universe where space colonization has expanded out through the universe to cover the moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt. Through time, very different cultures have grown up on Mars and in the Belt, and tensions are riding high between Earthers, Belters, and Martians. In the midst of that tension appear two mysteries – one is the disappearance of a wealthy young woman whose father pays detective Joe Miller to find her. The other is the destruction of a ship called the Canterbury by stealth ships of unknown origin. The show follows Miller’s investigation and the surviving crew of the Cant as they both plunge deeper and deeper into the same plot that appears to involve someone trying to start an intergalactic war.

At the end of season one, I’m still not sure I have a complete grasp on what the nefarious plans at work are, but I know I want to find out. The political world of The Expanse is detailed and complex as you would expect from a series that has 5 long novels and counting as source material. It’s rich and exciting, and our guide through all the political machinations is my new favorite bad-ass: Chrisjen Avasarala. She’s strong, graceful, ruthless, takes no shit, and can wear those awesome dangly earrings that look like they’d rip my ears off.  She’s basically a really good reason to watch the show all on her own.

And she’s not the only great character in the series. Miller gets more and more compelling and spooky as the show goes on. And the surviving crew of the Canterbury are pretty awesome. I’m fairly ambivalent to their reluctant leader Jim Holden but I think that’s by design. But Texan/Indian Martian pilot Alex is a joy to watch, and I also have a hero crush on mechanic Naomi Nagata. Her fascinating leader/follower relationship with the muscle Amos makes him my favorite enforcer character since Firefly’s Jayne proclaimed “This is my very favorite gun.”

Yes indeed folks, The Expanse is a detailed show full of compelling, diverse, characters you want to root for and yell at. It takes place in a gritty, well-worn, richly imagined science fiction universe, and it’s got a plot that despite all the twists and turns so far is just getting started. You’ve only missed the first season so, jump in now. So say we all.

2015 Year in Review: Books

I don’t know why I’m surprised about this, but this year it’s become clear to me that this is a book blog. Sure, I’ve enjoyed reviewing TV shows and movies that I’m watching, but most of the posts I’ve written and most of the posts that people have responded to have been about books or comic books. Looking back at everything I’ve read this year, it’s been a great year in books. Choosing favorites is almost impossible for me, but here goes nothing.

Favorite New Book: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

I’m going to throw in here the caveat that I’m terrible at reading books in the year they are released. I’m cheap and get most of my books second hand or from the library, so a book already has to get me excited for me to read it right away. As I discussed last week, Carry On did that for me. It got me hooked with a ridiculous and exciting premise and then delivered beyond what I imagined possible.

Honorable Mentions: Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor made this category really hard. I love the podcast. I loved the book. I love everything Night Vale and want to talk about it always. Look for a review soon where I do just that. I was also impressed by The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi and The Martian by Andy Weir (which was released in 2014).

Favorite Older Book: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Lillith’s Brood, and The Windup Girl

This is totally taking the easy way out, but I read widely this year and have a hard time comparing apples, oranges, and grapes. So these are the three books in wildly different styles that all stuck with me this year. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is the spooky epic fantasy novel to beat. It’s haunting, gorgeously detailed, clever, and truly lovely. Lillith’s Brood is an amazing science fiction epic. I’m probably already cheating by lumping the three books in this trilogy into one, but they’re each a part of this giant, ambitious whole that tackles big issues like xenophobia and what makes us human. And finally The Windup Girl was a shockingly plausible speculative fiction world stocked with memorable characters on one hell of a journey.

So what do you think? What new books this year did I miss? What classics should I make sure to read next year?

2015 Year In Review: Classic Movies

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope whatever you celebrate has been wonderful. 2015 is coming to a close this week, and I’m feeling reflective. This blog has been my wild experiment of the year. I officially started it back in February (but was thinking and writing for it long before that) and have truly enjoyed working on this. This week I’ll be looking back at some of the highlights of my first year as a blogger.

I started this blog to have somewhere I could talk about my various nerd interests, and to document my efforts to catch up on the many fun, geeky things I’ve missed out on in the past. When I started this blog, movies were a big part of what I had in mind. My movie watching life was missing many of the classics, and I’ve covered a lot of ground this year. And while I’m glad I can say I’ve finally seen staples like Temple of Doom and Blade Runner, here’s my highlights from the year.

Favorite Classic Movie of the Year: Labyrinth

I watched a lot of classic movies this year, but none of them tickled me quite as much as Jim Henson’s lovely Labyrinth. I’m a sucker for Jim Henson’s sense of joy, wonderment, and the truly strange. I’m a sucker for puppets. I love how unique the film was. And seriously it’s hard to beat David Bowie in one of the strangest, creepiest, and most iconic moments of his career. And I’ve had this stuck in my head for the rest of the year:

So Bad It’s Good Movie of the Year: Dune

This was one of my first movie reviews for this blog, and it remains one of my favorites. The 1987 Dune movie by David Lynch is a true disaster of a film. It’s erratic, makes no sense, has a truly bizarre cast and some seriously weird effects, but I enjoyed every minute of it. (Although I’m guessing if I watched the 4 hour director’s cut, I might not feel the same.) I still think back and laugh about this one on a regular basis. That’s a lot more than I can say about Mad Max.

 

I feel like I should also write about my favorite new science fiction or fantasy movie that came out this year, but really with The Force Awakens still consuming my whole brain, there’s not a competition. Maybe next year.

Orphan Black Season 3: Wait, What?

If you check this blog often, you might remember I loved the first two seasons of BBC’s Orphan Black. It’s a science fiction show that follows a family of identical clones as the find each other, protect each other, and generally figure shit out and fuck shit up. So, of course, I was excited to sit down and watch season three. I’m going to go ahead and assume that if you’re reading this, you have too. So spoilers ahead Clone Club!

Ok, so is it just me, or what this whole season kind of one big WTF? It feels like the show took a sharp turn and wondered off into the weeds bit. Season two ended with the exciting revelation that there’s a whole group of boy clones out there, and season three picks up the boy clones story and runs with it. Sort of.

The Castor (boy) clones are the big focus of much of season three, but the show seems to have made some big missteps with the Castor boys. Mostly, they’re indistinguishable. There’s Mark, the former Prothethean who’s now married to poor Gracie. He’s outside the group, on the run, trying to do what’s right for his new love while not totally turning his back on his family. Cool. I’m into this. But after that I can’t tell any of the other boys apart. There’s Rudy, I think he’s the one with the scar. There were a couple of other super rapey clones, but I don’t remember their names.

But basically, I had no reason to care about any of the boy clones but Mark. And that’s fine since they all ended up dead, but it left me feeling a little like what was the point. I didn’t have a reason to get emotionally invested in that storyline, so I didn’t really care what the resolution was. The only part that really registered was Paul’s epic exit. And really that had to happen because Paul and his Russian doll of loyalties had gotten so far off the rails that the only thing to do was kill him in a blaze of glory. We were never going to actually be able to EXPLAIN all of this craziness, so this was certainly the way to go.

Also in WFT land: Allison’s entire season three plot. Allison has always been the clone who’s less involved in the major plot, but dang was this quite the digression. She wasn’t just off in her own world, she was running a damn drug ring in a plot that seems to only have existed for the Helena fucks shit up payoff. Now let’s be real, I love watching Helena do crazy shit. But it just felt a little shoehorned. And Helena already literally ate her imaginary friend who was a scorpion. So I’m ok.

Aside from Helena, Cosima is probably the fan favorite, but this season also felt a little weak for her. She went from making hot science with Delphine to being whiney and not wanting to take her medicine. Snap out of it Cosima! I don’t care about Shea and your love drama. I care about the science! When you stop doing science to whine, I rapidly loose interest in you.

Ok. I’ve just done a lot of whining. This season had a lot of strong points. Helena was flawlessly flawed, as always. Allison’s side-plot, while super random, was fun. Mrs. S got to come through with some seriously interesting backstory and action, and I’m always grateful for Mrs. S being awesome. Also, watching both Gracie and Helena rock the fish out of water comedy was a lot of fun. Finally, I think the season finale set us up to be back on track next season. I can’t wait to see what goes down with Rachel’s mom and the Neolutionists. So, when does Season 4 start?

Orphan Black, or Joining Clone Club

I go into the first season of any new television show ready to give them a while to warm up. Some of my favorite shows have first season that belie their later brilliance. It’s the Parks and Recreation effect. So I started the first episode of Orphan Black ready to give them time to earn my interest. They made it very clear that they did not need it. AT. ALL.

Immediately the show grabbed me, and after two season it hasn’t let go. Orphan Black starts with the troubled but street-wise Sarah finding a woman who looks exactly like her and then immediately seeing her commit suicide. Sarah grabs her apparent twin’s wallet and starts following the information about her deeper and deeper into a crazy rabbit-hole. Eventually she figures out that she’s a clone and she’s not alone. She’s one of many identical clones, all leading different lives, and all apparently being hunted.

The show has gotten well-deserved buzz about Tatiana Maslany, who plays each of the very different clones perfectly. You guys, I’m pretty sure Tatiana Maslany isn’t actually human. She’s got to be some kind of superhuman. I don’t know. I went to theatre school. I know some very talented people. I can be really picky if I want to. This woman is flawless. In any given episode, she’ll play as many as 6 different characters. Sometimes the characters pretend to be each other. Think about that. There’s a woman, pretending to be a fictional woman who’s pretending to be another identical but very distinct fictional woman. How do you even do that? And I seriously can’t even think about all the movie magic that has to go into all the moments where all the clones interact with each other. It hurts my head.

The show has also gotten more of that well-deserved buzz for being everything a feminist like me could want. This show is telling a huge variety of women’s stories compellingly, originally, compassionately. The show is LGBT friendly as hell. The show has a huge variety of female characters and they’re all wonderfully complex and flawed. And so many of them defy the tropes that trap that so many other “strong” female characters out there in media-land. But the show doesn’t make a big deal about it. It’s not waving the feminism in your face. It just takes it for granted that female characters are inherently interesting and complex. What an idea.

An example: one of the problems I have with Game of Thrones is that every time a woman gets threatened, it’s with rape. Beyond any problems I have with that politically, it’s also just really boring. It’s lazy. You can just hear a room full of men saying “What don’t women like? I don’t know? Rape?” But when you start from the default of respecting your female characters, you have so many more options. In two season, an incredible amount of shit has gone down and the characters have been deeply traumatized in so many ways. But rape hasn’t even really come up. As weird as it sounds, it’s refreshing to see a show that takes a unique and personalized approach to putting women through the wringer.

But anyway. The show is more than great acting and special effects tricks. It’s more than smart about gender issues. It’s also just a damn good show. The characters are compelling. I’m so invested in EVERYONE in this show. The twists and turns are incredible. It’s the kind of show where you know you can never trust anyone, get attached to anyone, or know where you stand. And it’s got a little something for everyone. It’s a science fiction show with cops, spies, crime, suburban parody, and hot science-obsessed lesbians. This show has everything.

Now I need to go watch Season 3. No spoilers please!