Reviews by Kyle Ellis

Joss Whedon’s [Link removed - login to see] is one of my all-time-favorite shows. I discovered it in 2008, long after it was canceled and long after the feature film [Link removed - login to see] was released. I knew nothing about the TV show, but felt compelled to watch it for some reason. The pilot was OK, but it really didn’t capture my interest until Captain Malcolm Reynolds opened the mysterious box that one of his new passengers, Simon Tam, brought onboard his ship. Inside was River Tam, played by Summer Glau, Simon’s younger sister.

Why did he keep her in the box? Why was the Alliance after her? As the show unfolded and many other storylines were introduced, River’s story was one of my favorites. In fact, my favorite episode of the series is “Objects in Space,” where the bounty hunter Jubal Early captures the ship. River shined in this episode as we began to learn more about her special skills.

It wasn’t until Serenity that we got to see River in action, taking down an entire bar full of people, that we finally got a glimpse of why the Alliance wanted her so badly. We may not have gotten much of the Firefly ‘verse, but we’ll always have River kicking ass against an entire room full of Reavers. – Rudie

If there’s one female [Link removed - login to see] character that I think is ultimately even more badass than Starbuck, it’s Laura Roslin. Sure, Starbuck could waste her in a fight, but Roslin’s too smart to let it get to that — she’d have figured out a way to outsmart Starbuck before she landed a punch. Roslin, who is Secretary of Education in the pilot, ends up being president of… well, pretty much of the entire surviving human race after the Cylon attacks on the 12 colonies result in the deaths of everyone ahead of her in the line of succession. When she takes the position, it’s clear she’s in over her head, but under the circumstances, who wouldn’t be? She deals with her presidency — as well as the terminal breast cancer she’s fighting — with miraculous competence, both cold and compassionate as each situation dictates. She even orders Adama around a bit, until he decides that she’s awesome and that he agrees with her about pretty much everything — that is, until she becomes religious.

Some people didn’t like the plotline involving Roslin taking the psychotropic chamala extract for her cancer and then having visions and hallucinations that jived with the ancient prophecies, but I loved it. Roslin is exceedingly rational, so when she starts to waver from that, believing that she may be the dying figure that will lead her people to their new homeland, the dramatic tension ratchets up off the charts — especially when her visions fuel a mission that ends in multiple deaths. Roslin, like Starbuck, possesses a dichotomy that deepens as the show progresses, vacillating between hard and soft, practical and spiritual.

One of my favorite scenes is when she orders the Cylon Leoben to be put out the airlock after Starbuck spends an entire day torturing him for information. She promises Leoben safety if he tells her the truth; he does, and she has him killed anyway. Even Starbuck can’t believe it, but Roslin sums up her decision, and her character, perfectly:

During the time I’ve allowed him to remain alive and captive on this ship, he has caused our entire fleet to spread out, defenseless. He puts insidious ideas in our minds, more lethal than any warhead. He creates fear. But you’re right, he is a machine and you don’t keep a deadly machine around when it kills your people and threatens your future, you get rid of it.

Damn straight, Roslin! Roslin for president in 2016! – Joelle

While many of the females on this list always seemed destined for greatness within the context of their stories, there is nothing about Sarah Manning’s life that appeared to be headed in the same direction as justice. Our entry point into [Link removed - login to see] is a lawless deviant struggling through a point in her life where her close proximity to drugs and criminal activity has kept her away from her daughter for a year’s time, and she is in need of a quick money fix. And in front of a speeding train steps Beth Childs…

This unlocks the door to a conspiracy-filled world populated by her clone sisters, a potentially evil corporation run by a smooth-talking mad scientist, and religious fanatics who believe that the science behind cloning is evil. Through the brilliant acting of Tatiana Maslany, we see Sarah step outside her comfort zone to pose as a cop and fool the most inefficient police force on TV, as well as impersonating her suburbanite clone Alison to fool an entire dinner party’s worth of possible spies, in a season that sees her character turn from a duplicitous thief to an eager detective driven by mysteries with outrageous implications. And she’s got a temper that’s as dark as her sense of humor. We can only imagine her heroine status will rise exponentially when season two airs next month. – Nick

From the opening of [Link removed - login to see] pilot episode, we knew a character like Turanga Leela was going to be interesting to watch. She was the pilot of the Planet Express Spaceship and future wife of the series’ lead Philip J. Fry. She’s one of the more likable and sympathetic
characters on the animated series, but she’s never afraid to fight. Actually, she’s usually the first to throw a punch or a dropkick before anyone else begins to act. Leela is the apex of badass on Futurama, and no one else is her physical equal. Throughout Futurama’s series run, we got to see Leela develop from a know-it-all and protective pilot to a true leader of the entire Planet Express Company.

One of my favorite episodes is “Less than Hero,” where Fry, Leela, and Bender discover Dr. FlimFlam’s Miracle Cream, which gives them all superpowers. Leela is at the center of the episode, trying to balance her life as a normal and a mutant. It’s one of the more touching episodes of Futurama, but as “Clobberella” Leela also gets to beat up the bad guys and saves the city from the team’s nemesis the Zookeeper. – Rudie

Ivanova was well known for her bleak Russian cynicism, but that cynicism was well earned. She lost her telepath mother early on after the suppressive drugs mandated by Psi-Corps drove her to suicide. She lost her brother during the Earth-Minbari War, a tragedy that spurred her to join Earthforce in his honor. As second in command of Babylon 5, she was forced to face off against her own people in a bloody civil war, one that came right after an even bloodier interstellar war between two ancient forces who primarily viewed humanity and the younger races as pawns in a millennia-old game of “Nuh uh!” And let’s not even venture near the subject of her love life, because oy.

Nevertheless, Ivanova soldiered through it all, growing from a dedicated but cold young officer into a seasoned badass capable not only of delivering the line “I am death incarnate…God sent me” without a hint of irony, but of backing it up with ruthless, decisive action. In a show that included many fascinating, dynamic female characters — Delenn and Lyta spring to mind — Ivanova has always been my favorite simply because she was so relatable. Thrown again and again into events of calamitous import, with the literal fate of the galaxy at stake, she is forever bemoaning her impending doom…but that never stops her from doing what needs to be done. For all that wry Russian wit, she never gives up, and she never gives in.

And like most of [Link removed - login to see] characters, she winds up in a very different place than she began, rising to the rank of General in Earthforce before taking over leadership of the Anla’shok at the request of Delenn. Even though actress Claudia Christian departed the show at the end of the fourth season, I’ve always loved that it’s Ivanova who delivers the final lines of the series, which sum up the theme of Babylon 5 in a nutshell:

Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope. That there could always be new beginnings…even for people like us.

Appearance: [Link removed - login to see] series (2012-2015)

Creator: Suzanne Collins

Performer: Jennifer Lawrence

Defining moment: Volunteering for the nightmarish Hunger Games when her younger sister's name is read out, in order to save the kind-hearted Prim from the same awful fate.

Fascinating fact: ‘Katniss' is a plant also known as an ‘arrowhead'. Symbolism!

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Few realms on television have been as male-dominated as law enforcement, and the women who do manage to penetrate the boys’ club, even in this supposedly enlightened era, still have to deal with a heaping pile of shit along the way. One of my favorites is Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) from Fox’s gone-too-soon sci-fi procedural [Link removed - login to see], who not only navigated this treacherous realm, but did it without taking shit off of anyone — not superiors, not monsters, not even alternate versions of herself.

That alone is serious business, but when you take into account the kinds of chaotic, crazy adventure Liv and her team dealt with, her gets that much more awesome. They face off with all manner of nasty creatures, jump from one universe to another and back with impunity, and manage to save multiple realities from complete and total destruction. And she gets to hang out with a legitimate [Link removed - login to see]. Sure, Walter may be the reason why multiple planes of reality are crumbling to pieces, but that’s the kind of thing that mad scientists are supposed to do, right? If you can deal with that kind of madness day in, day out, for five seasons, including a jaunt to the future, all without batting an eye, you are definitely not someone to be trifled with. – Brent