The Sunday Salon: Bookish Fall Television 2013

Because I didn’t know how network television worked until 2005 (shows come on every week? What dark magic was this?) and thus developed a taste for long-form narratives very late in my development, my television watching habits are pretty scant compared to my peers. And they look downright minimalistic compared to the tumblrinas. (A tumblrina is anyone on tumblr who makes me feel old.) This past television season marked the first time I ever had appointment television shows—Elementary, Once Upon a Time (I should probably review the second season soon, eh?), and Saturday Night Live. And, as another first, I’m actually making decisions about what shows I should pick up come next fall. There’s a few bookish options, and I’d like to share those with you today, in order of ascending ridiculousness…

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
ABC

Man, how many times can you flash the Marvel logo in three minutes? Disney knows how to brand. In an interesting extension of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, S.H.I.E.L.D. gets its very own show, focusing on a group of agents doing the work that’s not big enough to require the Avengers themselves. And one of those agents is Phil Coulson, who “died” in The Avengers, because remember, if you scream loud enough, your media producers will hear you. It reminds me a bit of Heroes, the first show I ever started watching live, but I’ve got bigger and better hopes for this: being able to explore the Marvel universe at ground level will be very interesting. I also wonder how it’ll play into the movies.

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
ABC

The Once Upon a Time crew takes their special blend of nineties fantasy, sloppy plots, and wonderful character development to Wonderland, bringing us a swashbuckling Alice struggling against the forces of the Red Queen and a institution of dudes telling her what to do in order to save her genie love. Sebastian Stan returns as the Mad Hatter. I didn’t know I needed something like this, but I do. I love Once Upon a Time dearly, but I’m interested to see what’ll happen in a piece with a protagonist, rather than an ensemble. (It does look like there’ll be plenty of fairyback, as the fans call the flashbacks in the main show.) Plus, Sophie Lowe looks engaging, her genie boyfriend looks suitably dreamy, and I reacted very well to Michael Socha as the Knave of Hearts. And I’ve been promised more Barbara Hershey as Cora, which is all I ever want in life.

Dracula
NBC

Jonathan Rhys Meyers tackles the meaty (bloody?) role of Dracula in this show’s vision of Victorian London. The trailer is a little murky, but, essentially, Dracula is taking revenge on the other vampires but then gets sidetracked when he meets Mina Murray, who may be the reincarnation of his lost love. I think that plot point is taken from the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula, but I’ll let that slide—I find it interesting, plus it’ll give an emotional anchor to what is, presumably, a very bloody quest for vengeance. One of the odder additions to the fall line-up, but we don’t really have a primetime Victorian show on at the moment, so you get a pass, Dracula. Be good or delightfully bad. Those are your two choices.

Sleepy Hollow
FOX

This, however, can only be delightfully bad. Genevieve Valentine has a wonderful write-up, but, essentially, it’s National Treasure, Charmed, and Law & Order all rolled into one confusing package. Tying “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” into the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Interesting! Throwing an update, a surprisingly diverse cast, bad jokes, witches, and murder mysteries into the mix? It can only be the side of Kurtzmann and Orci that wrote Transformers. I look forward to seeing Nicole Behrie be one hundred percent over the supernatural crap that starts tormenting the town and Tom Mison be affably confused by the modern world. Of course, there’s only one question left: how is Nicolas Cage not in this show?

It’s finally June! I always love having a nice new month on my calendar to cover with plans and scheduled posts. This week, I went to see The Great Gatsby, and I read The Black Count, Openly Straight, The Times of the Eighties, The Bloody Chamber, Cinnamon and Gunpowder, Decades, The History of Caliph Vathek… yeah, it was a great reading week, and I hope to keep this pace up to create the bucket of scheduled posts I need to have for July and August. Then again, I also got my assignments for that time period, so… well, we’ll see.

This week’s links:

• Looking for some queer fantasy without having to guess around vague wordings in blurbs? Check out GLBT Fantasy Fiction Resources, which has reading lists, reviews, essays, and more.
• If you haven’t read Kameron Hurley’s wonderful “‘We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative” yet, do yourself a favor.
• There’s going to be a Queers Dig Time Lords! Yay!
  • In less happy Doctor Who meta, Doctor and Race is getting attacked for calling Doctor Who racist, because remember, you can either love something and all its faults or hate it, and calmly discussing race in a series that big means you hate it (and also you suck). Ugh. This is why we can’t have nice things.
• Here’s a transcript of Joss Whedon’s commencement speech to the 2013 class of Wesleyan, his alma mater.
• Serious Eats’ Leandra Palermo visited General Mills; this installment of her coverage includes the General Mill archives. Calling all library and archivist nerds!
• Here’s Hugh Jackman telling the story of how he selected dream careers as a child. They were all food-based.
• Severus Snape was a Nice Guy. tumblr calmly elaborates on my hatred for him.
• The always fabulous Jess at Jess’s (Somewhat) Grown-Up Type Blog covers her experience at this year’s WisCon, the feminist science fiction convention. I’m going to go someday.
• This post at Grantland about Rob Lowe in Behind the Candelabra is worth it for its opening line: “Some posts you write for yourself, to free you of the hungry mind-goblins gnawing at your gray matter, the ones whose spell you can’t break until you ask somebody else for help.” I feel you, man.
• This major spoiler for Justice League of America means that I am just going to take my Wonder Woman comics and go home, because DC’s track record with women in the new 52 is just… I don’t have to take this. 
  
• Obviously, Funny or Die’s “Just The Two of Us” is meant to be funny, juxtaposing Will Smith’s serious acting career with his much lighter-hearted Big Willie musical persona, but because “Just The Two of Us” is about Smith’s children and After Earth is essentially a gift to jumpstart Jaden Smith’s career, it’s kind of sweet.
• tumblr user bossanovabyss breaks down what makes Steven Moffat’s writing in Doctor Who misogynistic.
• Tamara Winfrey Harris at Bitch examines Beyoncé’s role as a highly visible and powerful feminist, ending by reminding us that if we started counting out everybody that didn’t adhere to the party line one hundred percent of the time, we would have nobody left.
• Aja Romano says that we’re seeing the beginnings of the commercialization of fan culture. Part of this comes from younger members of fandom being wholly unaware of the people who came before them, which is such a horrifying thought that I want to clutch Boldly Writing to my chest for an hour.

Are you going to watch any of these fine programs come next fall? What are your favorite bookish television shows?