SciFi Weekend: Controversy Over Death Of Lesbian Character On The 100; Orphan Black; Daredevil; 12 Monkeys; The Americans; Put A Bird On It

The 100 Clarke Lexa Kiss

Jason Rothenberg’s decision to kill a prominent LGBT character on The 100, and the manner in which she died, has made many fans of the show upset. At the time I first watched and reviewed the show, while I expected some disappointment and protest, I had no idea how serious a matter this would be to the LGBT community. Reviewing the discussion from those who did take it very personally, along with the views of television critics such as Maureen Ryan who is quoted below, help to understand the importance of this issue. After missing the significance of this in my original review, I hope to make up for it by providing this overview today.

I will start by allowing Rothenberg to explain his viewpoint. He was interviewed by TV Insider. Here are the first few questions, with much more in the full interview:

OK, so you had to be aware of the uproar that would come from killing Lexa, right? This was something that you guys had to realize you’d be walking into.
Yes and no. First of all, I think I should start by saying that for the last two weeks, I’ve pretty much thought about nothing else except for this. It’s taken me some time to process everything, and I’ve been listening, reading everything I could. I took my voice out of it on Twitter because I didn’t want to inflame the situation, and I felt like I didn’t want to shape the conversation. I just wanted to listen and try to understand. I mean, we were a little surprised by it—obviously not that people were upset; you’re right in the sense that we kind of knew that that would happen. The story that we’re telling is a tragedy. Lexa was a meaningful character to our fans, especially LGBTQ fans, and so I knew it would be emotional, of course. What was unexpected was the level of outrage that it’s generated from some people, but I do think I have come to understand that.

We’ve seen this with shows with strong social media bases: The louder the outrage, the more disturbing it can get.
Yeah. Lexa’s death triggered real emotional trauma for some people, you know? It tapped into the real world, it tapped into their lives, and as a straight white male, I obviously didn’t anticipate how deeply it would affect certain people. I look at it now and I realize that if somebody had that kind of a reaction and then were to look back at the way I behaved on Twitter leading up to it, which was celebrating this relationship that then crushed them, I can understand why they would find that reprehensible. I hope that people understand that.

Since there is no winning on Twitter, what do you want to say to the fans now?
I would say, first of all, that it’s taken me a while to get perspective on it myself and to put myself in the position of somebody who was hurt like that. And I hope that eventually they can start to put themselves in our position and understand that we would never want to hurt anybody like that. We would never want to hurt our fans. We love them, we owe them everything, we owe them the fact that we just got a Season 4 to them. We want to take them for a ride, we don’t want to hurt them. And because we didn’t anticipate this sort of level of pain over this fictional death, we were doing what we always do on Twitter, which was celebrating work that we’re proud of. In hindsight, knowing what I know now and sort of realizing the things that I’ve realized, we should have done less of that. We should have done less buildup knowing where this was going to end up and knowing how this was going to affect people.

But it wouldn’t have changed the story you’re telling.
No, absolutely not. We would have told the same story. I stand behind the story; I just don’t think I would have gone out of my way to say ‘This is the best episode we’ve ever done!’ Nobody really anticipated that this would happen so now that we’ve seen it, the idea for me as the showrunner going forward is to learn lessons from it, you know? This is a show where characters die. That’s another reason we were so surprised..it’s a post-apocalyptic world set 100 years later in which anyone can die.

The 100 Lexa Clark

Rothenberg also posted a statement on line a few days ago. Here are some excerpts, but those interested in the controversy should read his full statement:

For many fans of The 100, the relationship between Clarke and Lexa was a positive step of inclusion. I take enormous pride in that, as I do in the fact that our show is heading into its 4th season with a bisexual lead and a very diverse cast. The honesty, integrity and vulnerability Eliza Taylor and Alycia Debnam-Carey brought to their characters served as an inspiration for many of our fans. Their relationship held greater importance than even I realized. And that very important representation was taken away by one stray bullet…

In the show-world, no one is safe, and anyone, even a beloved character, can die, at any time. My favorite shows in this genre embrace a similar sense of heightened urgency. There are several reasons why this particular episode played out the way it did: practical (an actress was leaving the show), creative (it’s a story about reincarnation) and thematic (it’s a show about survival). Despite my reasons, I still write and produce television for the real world where negative and hurtful tropes exist. And I am very sorry for not recognizing this as fully as I should have. Knowing everything I know now, Lexa’s death would have played out differently.

The 100 is a post-apocalyptic tragedy set 130 years in the future. It’s a constant life and death struggle. In our show, all relationships start with one question: ‘Can you help me survive today?’ It doesn’t matter what color you are, what gender identity you are, or whether you’re gay, bi or straight. The things that divide us as global citizens today don’t matter in this show. And that’s the beauty of science-fiction. We can make a point without preaching. We can say that race, sexuality, gender and disability should not divide us. We can elevate our thinking and take you on a helluva ride at the same time.

But I’ve been powerfully reminded that the audience takes that ride in the real world — where LGBTQ teens face repeated discrimination, often suffer from depression and commit suicide at a rate far higher than their straight peers. Where people still face discrimination because of the color of their skin. Where, in too many places, women are not given the same opportunities as men, especially LGBTQ women who face even tougher odds. And where television characters are still not fully representative of the diverse lives of our audience. Not even close.

The 100 Clarke Lexa Thirteen

Maureen Ryan wrote about What TV Can Learn From The ‘100 Mess’ at Variety and helps explain why many fans are upset. Again, these are just excerpts and the full article is worth reading.

The response of the showrunner has, outside of a few unenlightening interviews, has been disappointing. Rothenberg live-tweeted the March 10 episode of the show as if thinkpieces and damning critiques were not still being churned out. In the limited array of interviews he did in conjunction with the March 3 episode, he has given little indication that he understands the depth of the sense of betrayal or the multitude of reasonable objections to the death story line. Since March 3, it has fallen to co-executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who wrote the episode, to engage with fans in any significant and meaningful way, but his compassionate and committed response has only highlighted Rothenberg’s abdication of responsibility...

So here’s the nitty-gritty: The character who died, Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey), happened to be one of the few well-developed and complex lesbians on TV, and it’s an unfortunate but enduring TV cliche that lesbians rarely, if ever, live happily ever after. In the March 3 episode, “The 100,” which had touted its commitment to quality LGBTQ storytelling, invoked one of TV’s oldest gay cliches by killing her off mere seconds after she consummated her relationship with another woman, Clarke (Eliza Taylor).

Many fans, regardless of sexual orientation, were left shaking their heads in disbelief.

On a story and thematic level, Lexa’s death (despite being well-performed by the actors) had little resonance and almost no meaning. But all things considered, the blithe manipulation LGBTQ fans and the show’s willingness to deploy harmful cliches about gay characters remain the things that rankle most…

Adding to the sense of betrayal was the manner of Lexa’s death. She was felled by a stray bullet from an angry male servant, mere seconds after she and Clarke had sex for the first time. The servant, Titus, disapproved of Lexa’s relationship with Clarke, whom he tried to kill, but Lexa caught the bullet. This woman — the most fearsome warrior in the show’s history — didn’t die defending Clarke; she just happened to be in the bullet’s path. And by following her only moment of bliss with her lover, the Grounder queen’s death followed a time-worn and disturbing TV pattern.

Autostraddle came up with a list of more than 130 lesbian and bisexual women who have been killed off on TV shows, and it’s a damning roster. Whatever progress you think TV has made on the front of LGBTQ representation, the sheer number of dead women on the list is profoundly troubling, to say the least. If nothing else, it shows that the Bury Your Gays trope is alive and well on TV, and fictional lesbian and bisexual women in particular have a very small chance of leading long and productive lives.

Critic Nicola Choi wrote that when they spot a lesbian or bisexual woman on TV, many LGBTQ fans simply resign themselves to the fact that the character will die.

The 100 Thirteen Lexa

Dany Roth tried to explain the matter to a conservative-leaning readership at blastr:

If you’re not part of the queer community, an ally of said same, or if you were never a fan of The 100, why should you care? If we’re boiling this down to the most selfish of reasons, it is because next time it might be you. And maybe it already has been you. Forget social justice for a second (as I know many of you often try to, anyway) — think about this as simply acting in the interest of fairness…

The reason Lexa’s death was so upsetting isn’t just because her face was a recognizable one for so many queer people, it’s also because she made the LGBT community feel more visible, more relatable. And it made them feel like they were being listened to. Every time someone tweets about why Lexa matters, each time someone challenges the “Bury Your Gays” trope and demands that writers and showrunners do better, someone who hasn’t thought about any of this hears why representation in stories matters for the first time. Even in death, Lexa is making LGBT people more visible.

Orphan Black Train

There is often much to think about and discuss after an episode of Orphan Black. This was especially true in the early episodes, when we had very little understanding of what was going on. Entertainment Weekly has good news on both of these points. BBC America will be starting a show, After the Black, to discuss each episode. Plus it sounds like next season might recreate some of the mystery of the first season, including going back to when Sarah first saw Beth jump in front of the train.

Taking a tip from AMC, BBC America has announced After the Black, a companion show that will air weekly following Orphan Black.

Hosted by Innerspace’s Ajay Fry, Morgan Hoffman, and Teddy Wilson, After the Black is a 30-minute after show that will feature various cast, crew, and special guest stars chatting about the plot, twists, and theories on future episodes. Other segments will include behind-the-scene footage from the set and an exclusive first look at the following episode.

The format is very similar to AMC’s Talking Dead, which airs weekly following The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead.

The first post-game, which will air Thursday, April 14 at 11 p.m. ET following the season 4 premiere of Orphan Black, will include stars Tatiana Maslany and Kevin Hanchard.

As for the fourth season, executive producers John Fawcett and Graeme Manson revealed at WonderCon on Saturday that they’ll be going back to basics in a lot of ways by delving into a particular mystery from the pilot. “We really wanted to look at the first season this year,” Manson said. “We wanted to go back to that moment on the tracks with Beth and Sarah and go, ‘What did Sarah miss?’ There’s more story there.”

“We wanted to get that feel back, that feel of season 1 where you don’t know who the bad guy is, you don’t know who you’re speaking to,” Fawcett added. “That was the goal of season 4.”

Above is a trailer for season 4 of Orphan Black. There will also be new characters introduced:

Also this season, viewers are introduced to brand new characters that prove to be pivotal to the clones’ saga. Season 4 introduces Joel Thomas Hynes (REPUBLIC OF DOYLE) in the role of “Dizzy”, an edgy, self-reliant hacker who doesn’t conform to group mentality; Jessalyn Wanlim (Alex Cross) as Evie Cho, a powerful, seductively articulate bioengineer who believes great discoveries require casualties; Lauren Hammersley (MR. D) as Adele, a shameless, brazen, and wickedly intelligent lawyer who outwits opponents even when heavily intoxicated; and Gord Rand (Maps To The Stars) as Detective Duko, who on the surface appears to be unassuming and slightly nebbish, but has used his underlying angst to nastily claw his way to the top.

I will hold off on saying much about season 2 of Daredevil different  people are at different points with the Netflix model. Entertainment Weekly has the above interview with Charlie Cox which helps set up the season after the arrest of Wilson Fisk at the end of the first season:

“What we’ve done this year with the show is we don’t really have so much a Big Bad, but we have characters that enter Matt’s life,” Cox tells EW in a recent interview, viewable above. “They force him to look at himself and look at his actions in a way that no one else has done in the past.”

Those characters are, naturally, The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and Elektra (Elodie Yung). The first, as trailers have hinted, comes to Hell’s Kitchen with almost a similar purpose as Daredevil but with a much different modus operandi. And his methodology involves a lot more killing, which puts the entire city on edge shortly after coming to appreciate Daredevil’s work.

“It’s through Daredevil’s actions that someone like Frank Castle has been able to show up and do what he does,” Cox explains.

Yet putting a stop to The Punisher’s bloodlust isn’t the only obstacle thrown at Matt this season. Elektra, the “Greek girl” from college that Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) mentioned last season returns to New York. As portrayed by Yung, Elektra complicates Matt’s life both while he’s in and out of his crime-fighting costume, particularly when it comes to his burgeoning romance with Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll).

“… Matt is completely authentic with both characters, but that authenticity is different with each character,” Cox said, calling this love triangle “one of the most enjoyable things for me to do as an actor this season.”

12 Monkeys returns on April 18. If we didn’t have the “problem” of so much good television, including genre television, now available thanks to cable and streaming, it might be tempting to rewatch the first season to review all the twists which occurred. While some hardcore fans are doing so, many of us just do not have the time. Syfy has posted the above seven minute recap to help the rest of us to catch up. It is certainly not enough for new viewers to start watching the show, but it is helpful for those of us who watched the first season.

americans-season-4

The Americans, which very well might be the best ongoing drama now on television (separating it from shows such as Fargo which have a different story each year) is off to an excellent start for its fourth season. There is so much which can be said about the quality of the story, but I figure those who are watching understand this and those who are not will not be interested in a play by play.

Besides all the big things, the show gets the little things better than most television shows. While many shows do a terrible job of working in children and home life (such as with Brody’s daughter on previous seasons of Homeland), Paige’s teenage angst, exacerbated by learning that her parents are Russian spies, has been a huge plus in driving the plot this season. Television story lines are often driven by misunderstandings, such as Stan thinking that Philip was sleeping with his wife. While that is a standard television trope, I really appreciated it when Phillip immediately explained the situation to Elizabeth and told her about going to the EST meetings, as opposed to dragging this out and creating further misunderstandings with her–as so many television shows would have done.

Plus so many interesting characters have been developed beyond the main characters. When The Americans inevitably ends, I’m looking forward to one spinoff based upon Nina Krilova in Russia, and another (or perhaps work in into a single show) in which Stan Beeman and Oleg Burov find some reason to team up after the Cold War ends. If Napoleon Solo can team up with Russian Illya Kuryakin on The Man From UNCLE, why not Stan and Oleg?

With all the talk the last few days about the bird at the Bernie Sanders rally in Oregon, prior to his big three-state sweep yesterday, above is a clip from the episode of Portlandia which started the slogan, “Put A Bird On It.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9D_ePykoqI

To conclude by tying this in with the previous story on Daredevil, above is Rosario Dawson (Daredevil, Jessica Jones) speaking in support of Bernie Sanders.

SciFi Weekend: Hannibal; Orphan Black; iZombie Season One Finale; The Flash; The Leftovers; The Man From UNCLE

Hannibal-Season-3-Episode-2-e1434150257687

While last week’s episode of Hannibal jumped ahead and left open the fates of those left for dead in the season two finale, Primavera centered on Will and flashed back to the aftermath of the bloodbath. There was no indication on screen as to the fate of Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom but I was surprised to see Abigail walk into Will’s hospital room early in the episode. I was surprised a second time when it was revealed that Abigail was only in Will’s head, most likely representing the part of Will which still wanted to be with Hannibal.

The other key character of the episode was a police officer named Rinaldo Pazzi who had history with Hannibal. Years ago he investigated the murder of a couple who were arranged like a painting. Will explained how Hannibal operated, including how he doesn’t leave evidence– as he eats it. The climax of the episode was a search through catacombs. When Will warned Pazzi that he shouldn’t be be down there alone, with the warning that Hannibal will kill him (which will probably happen at some point), Pazzi pointed out that he had Will with him.

Will’s response summed up the episode: “You don’t know whose side I’m on.” The problem is that that Will himself doesn’t know, and if he was smart he would followed the advice he gave Pazzi and remain home with his dogs (and Alana if she survived). There was another clue as to Will’s state of mind when he said at the end of the episode, directed towards Hannibal,  “I forgive you.”

This still leaves open how each will respond when they actually meet again.

Orphan-Black-Insolvent-2

The penultimate episode of the season of Orphan Black, Insolvent Phantom Of Tomorrow, gave more answers, regardless of whether plausible. Allison’s days as a drug dealer appear to be coming to an end, but the storyline provided for an unexpected pairing of Donnie and Helena. Helena was disguised as Allison, but under the circumstances it was more useful for Donnie to have the psychopathic killer clone along. The big mistake at Pouch’s warehouse was for the drug dealers to first take Helena’s tank with her embryos, and then threaten Donny and who they believed to be Allison’s children. Helena told them, “You should not threaten babies.” She then made them pay for the threat, and then rejoin Donny with the money he had lost, and more. “I got refund, we should go now.”

Delphine again showed how terrifying she can be, threatening Shay’s life believing that she had given the information about the book to the Castor group. It really didn’t come as a surprise when it turned out that Gracie and not Shay had sold them out to please her guy-clone. Seeing Delphine hold that razor blade after Cosima phoned her about Gracie, I half expected Delphine to tell Cosima that it was too late and then proceed to kill, or at least torture Shay.  The previews revealed that Shay remains alive, although I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that there is still more to her than appears.

The biggest revelation took place in London when Kendall Malone turned out to be Sirobhan’s mother, who had absorbed a male twin in the womb s0 that she has two cell lines. She was the original cell line for Castor, but they couldn’t kill her as planned  because she also was the original cell line for Leda, having both male and female cells. Not only are Castor and Leda brother and sister as we learned earlier this season, this would also mean that Sarah along with the rest of the clones and Siobhan actually are biologically related.

If this didn’t set up enough for the season finale, Ferdinand and Topside are also back.

izombie Season one finale

Like Veronica Mars, the previous hit from Rob Thomas, iZombie was enjoyable more for its season-long arc and the characters than for the case of the week. By the season finale much has changed, including more people knowing that Liv is a Zombie. David Anders, as usual, made a fantastic villain, this time as Blaine. He had a great racket going, turning people into zombies, and then selling them brains. As opposed to the typical zombie show, the zombies on iZombie kept their human memories as long as they had a steady supply of brains to eat. Now that Blaine is no longer a zombie, will he keep his racket going? If not, where do the zombies he created get their brains, and do we  wind up with a zombie apocalypse?

Rob Thomas discussed the finale and second season with E!:

E! News: Blaine and Major have both been cured—are there going to be any complications with becoming human again?
Rob Thomas: Yeah, there will be. Ravi would not have wanted to put that cure on the market yet, and for good reason. There will be side effects. There will be fallout from that. It won’t be as easy as boom, you’re human again, go enjoy the rest of your life. Blaine will have to try to maintain his zombie world while being human so we’re going to have some fun in season two with him trying to pass as a zombie. Imagine him trying to put on white face to convince his clients that he’s still a badass who they should be afraid of.

Liv’s brother is in critical condition by the end of the finale—how is this going to shake up their family dynamic especially since Liv can’t give her blood to save him?
It will have real repercussions next year. We know that the season two opening scene is going to be a really rough scene with her family. They do not understand the decision she made and it’s kind of impossible for her to tell them.

iZombie -- "Dead Rat, Live Rat, Brown Rat, White Rat" -- Image Number: ZMB112B_0203 -- Pictured (L-R): David Anders as Blaine DeBeers, Aleks Paunovic as Julien, and Robert Buckley as Major Lilywhite -- Photo: Liane Hentscher/The CW -- © 2015 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

More in an interview at TVLine:

TVLINE | There’s not one, but at least three major cliffhangers in the finale. Was that always the plan, even before the show was renewed?
Yes. In fact, it’s been the plan for a long time. When we offered [Robert Buckley] the role of Major, he called me and said, “Listen, I just want to make sure that I’m not just going to be the boy that Liv pines for, that I’m going to have something to do,” and I pitched him the exact ending of the show. I said, “It’s going to end like Taxi Driver. You going into the zombie headquarters and mowing people down. You will have gone through this horrible journey. You will have this moment where you get to take out all these enemies.” So we were always building to that.

And probably around midseason, we had some ideas on how we wanted to reset for Season 2. We announce our big Season 2 storyline right there in the finale. Vaughan, the head of Max Rager, says, “We’re going to take out all the zombies.” So that will be a big part of Season 2, and it will make Liv and Blaine strange bedfellows. One of the things that was rough in Season 1 was we loved those two actors on screen together, but part of the season arc was Liv searching for Blaine. We couldn’t play them on screen. Next season, you’ll see a lot more of them on screen, at the same time, with a common enemy.

TVLINE | Is it safe to say that Blaine as a human, even without his zombie strength and rage, is still not a nice person and a dangerous threat to Liv and Major?
Yeah. We’re not going to make him cuddly next year. If you talked to me a few years ago, I would have thought, “Well, how in the world, after him spending Season 1 murdering homeless teenagers, could we ever believe him as anything but evil?” Then you watch Game of Thrones. Somehow, Jaime Lannister has become a sympathetic character even though he threw a young boy out a window in Episode 1. So it can be done, and maybe someday, we will attempt that. But for the immediate future, Blaine is bad.

TVLINE | Can he keep his business going as a human?
That’s going to be part of the fun of Season 2. He will need to trick his clientele. Next season, he may be passing as zombie in order to maintain the fear, which I think we’ll have fun with.

TVLINE | So instead of tanning, he’ll be putting on powder.
It’s funny you say that because we already have a scene up on our writers’ board in which we will see him getting powdered up in order to appear as a full-blooded zombie.

TVLINE | Major now knows the whole truth. What does that allow you to do that you couldn’t before with Major and his relationship with Liv?
Now that they both know, and Major knows what he’d be getting into, we’re toying with, could they try a romantic relationship in which no bodily fluids were exchanged? It’s sort of a great existential question of, could you have a romantic partner with whom the sexual limits were very, very strict? How would that go? We may explore that.

theflash_barry-new_romance

The Flash is casting a Felicity-like love interest for Barry Allen for season two. Of course we know from those future newspapers who he winds up with, assuming they are from the same timeline.

There were at least two huge scenes on The Game of Thrones last Sunday, with one of the most disturbing deaths of the series and flight on dragons. With the season finale airing tonight I will wait for that before saying more about the show.

Defiance returned on Friday with two more alien threats. Fans of the show probably enjoyed the two hour season premiere. I remain lukewarm, but see more promise this season than in the second season. Knowing the characters after two seasons did make me more interested in the events than I had been at points in the  past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bZVUU3zbXk

The HBO version of The Leftovers completed the material from the novel in its first season. The above trailer has been released for the second season which moves to a new location, with major changes in the cast. The story moves to Jarden, Texas where, unlike the rest of the world where two percent of the people vanished in a rapture-like event, nobody disappeared in Jarden. I wonder if they play Dillon, Texas in football.

The BBC adaption of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, about half way through in the UK, premiered in the US on BBC America. Reading reviews of the mini-series I found that they all agree that some aspects of the novel did not make it into the television show. The reviewers disagreed as to whether this means that important aspects of the novel were left out, or if this means that what they saw as flaws in the novel were fixed.

The Man From UNCLE will be released in theaters on August 14, 2015. The trailer is above and the synopsis, based upon the 1960’s television show, follows:

Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. centers on CIA agent Solo and KGB agent Kuryakin. Forced to put aside longstanding hostilities, the two team up on a joint mission to stop a mysterious international criminal organization, which is bent on destabilizing the fragile balance of power through the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. The duo’s only lead is the daughter of a vanished German scientist, who is the key to infiltrating the criminal organization, and they must race against time to find him and prevent a worldwide catastrophe.

Streaming video has greatly changed how many of us watch television. Netflix has dominated this market, but there are additional options including Hulu, Amazon, Yahoo! (primarily notable for carrying the sixth season of Community) and now stand alone subscriptions for HBO and Showtime. Netflix has been expanding worldwide, but they will have new competition when they move ahead with plans to expand to China. Alibaba plans to launch a Netflix-like streaming service in China. About ninety percent of its content will be paid for, either by subscription or payment for individual shows. with the remaining ten percent available for free.