TeeVee

Avatar: The Legend of Korra 1.8-1.10: Aside from rolling my eyes a lot at the romantic subplots (not your strong point, guys, seriously) I liked these episodes.

( spoilers )

The Borgias 2.8-2.10: So, at this point, they're basically referencing a history book every once in a while for some cooler bits to throw in, then mshing things up any which wayt hey want otherwise, aren't they? Despite a rocky start, this season ended up pretty fun, though a step down from the first season. It also has an unfortunate tendency to randomly forget some of the more interesting supporting characters exist. (Though, given what happened when they remembered Ursula, that may not be such a bad thing. Also, I think I somewhat like Micheletto now, despite disliking him a lot in the first season.) I'm looking forward to season 3, though not as much as I was to season 2. As a side note, I rewatched Willow a week or so ago and every time something bad happened or Vannozza was annoyed by something, I was all "But Sorsha, don't you still have that serrated sword in your closet? you should use it!")

Continuum 1.1-1.4: Canadian scifi show about a cop from the future (Rachel Nichols) who accidentally travels back to present day with a group of terrorists and works with local cops to find and stop them. The dialogue in the future is hilariously bad (and the show sadly doesn't have the budget to do what it wants to in the future parts) but it's thankfully somewhat better in the present, and the "fish out of water" elements manage to avoid the usual secondhand embarassment. OTOH, while the show does better than certain other Canadian genre shows (*cough*Lost Girl ILU, but...*cough*) in including a number of POC in its regular cast, the bulk of them are part of the terrorist group. (The terrorist include Tony Amendola and Lexa Doig, both of whom were criminally underused the first couple of episodes, but who are getting more to do in the 3rd and 4th episodes.) It's a bit too straight-up procedural-like at times, but pretty fun despite it's flaws, especially if you happen to like Rachel Nichols, though I'm not sure how long they can keep the plot going without some revamping.

Scandal Season 1: Political drama about a team who solves the problems of (mostly) politicians and public figures before they become legal problems. It was described to me as Leverage, but with politics instead of cons and a more central ongoing plot, a comparison that (while largely accurate) amuses me because my first thought while watching was "Wait, isn't this the girl Parker was jealous of in that one episode?" The first season is only seven episodes, and is pretty fun. While I'm a bit iffy about some things that happen in the last episode, my only big issue is a subplot with the main character, Olivia Pope's, love life. We apparently aren't allowed to have strong, competent, professional women who are great at what they do and in charge of things without their having illicit affairs with married men who have more power than they do. Sigh. But I love how it assumes that no one will find it remotely unusual to have a competent and powerful black woman as the lead and the way it isn't apologetic at all about passing the Bechdel test multiple times an episode and often forgetting to give men anything to do but be bossed around or pwned by Olivia. After Olivia, my favorite character is probably the First Lady. (Not that I"d want to cross her in real life.) I eagerly anticipate season 2.

New shows need to start up now, because Korra is the only one of these still airing, and it only has a couple episodes left in the season.