I saw your mention of the show not passing the Bechdel test, and I hope you do write that post!
I mean, the short version (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers) is that it's this show with one of the first female executive producers, with a really kick-ass main female character who gets to have a lot of talent and wear a lot of hats, but also have weaknesses and history and things which make her dimensional. And...that's kinda it. 90% of the times Helen interacts with anyone, it's a man. Her past doesn't appear to involve women in any way - we know her father used her mother's birthday as his favorite password, indicating he loved her, but that's all we know about her mother. Most of the other Sanctuary heads, and all the ones we actually see beyond video conference screens, are male. The few times Helen talks about old friends or meeting up with someone, it's almost always a man. We get a handful of one-shot female characters, some of whom are interesting, throughout the show, but almost none of them last more than an episode, and a large percentage end up either evil or dead or both. Yes, there's Ashley (and Helen-Ashley develops into one of my favorite ever onscreen mother-daughter relationships (you really don't get many of those on tv)) and later Kate as main characters, but you see Helen interacting with the men much more often, with the other women involved in the opposite storyline.
Mostly it drives me crazy that the show gets some things So Very Right and in other ways fails spectacularly. I'm also consistently praying for an episode with flashbacks to Helen totally bonding with Amelia Earhart. Just because.
Yeah. Fandom in general will tolerate a lot if there are two white men it finds attractive who interact for at least a few minutes. *ahem* Not that I'm cynical. Or occasionally guilty.
I guess, as my fannish gears have been shifting into more of a preference for ensemble casts and multiple character relationships within the same show.
Huh, in that case Sanctuary *might* grow to work for you. Maybe. It's certainly designed around that concept, and increasingly good at it.
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I mean, the short version (trying to be vague to avoid spoilers) is that it's this show with one of the first female executive producers, with a really kick-ass main female character who gets to have a lot of talent and wear a lot of hats, but also have weaknesses and history and things which make her dimensional. And...that's kinda it. 90% of the times Helen interacts with anyone, it's a man. Her past doesn't appear to involve women in any way - we know her father used her mother's birthday as his favorite password, indicating he loved her, but that's all we know about her mother. Most of the other Sanctuary heads, and all the ones we actually see beyond video conference screens, are male. The few times Helen talks about old friends or meeting up with someone, it's almost always a man. We get a handful of one-shot female characters, some of whom are interesting, throughout the show, but almost none of them last more than an episode, and a large percentage end up either evil or dead or both. Yes, there's Ashley (and Helen-Ashley develops into one of my favorite ever onscreen mother-daughter relationships (you really don't get many of those on tv)) and later Kate as main characters, but you see Helen interacting with the men much more often, with the other women involved in the opposite storyline.
Mostly it drives me crazy that the show gets some things So Very Right and in other ways fails spectacularly. I'm also consistently praying for an episode with flashbacks to Helen totally bonding with Amelia Earhart. Just because.
Yeah. Fandom in general will tolerate a lot if there are two white men it finds attractive who interact for at least a few minutes. *ahem* Not that I'm cynical. Or occasionally guilty.
I guess, as my fannish gears have been shifting into more of a preference for ensemble casts and multiple character relationships within the same show.
Huh, in that case Sanctuary *might* grow to work for you. Maybe. It's certainly designed around that concept, and increasingly good at it.