My Top 10: TV Heroes

It's been a while since I last did a Top Ten list, and everyone loves lists, so I figured I'd focus on the best of the best on TV. We all love a good hero and we know the basic short list for All Time Heroes (Batman, Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, etc.). The list of movie heroes is long, varied, well-worn territory, so I'd like to salute my favorite lesser-known TV heroes and heroines. I'm defining a hero through the use of a hypothetical scenario. If the there was some sort of doomsday scenario and the world was in jeopardy, who would I want if I could pick a team of ten people to help avert disaster? Okay, not all of them are heroes in the epic, world-saving sense, but I would want every one of them on my side when I'm in a bad spot. And I'm admitting right now that I am clumping together some related people when they are absolutely necessary as a team. What can I say? My list, my rules.

10. Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of "Buffy." I find it to be one of the most overrated shows out there. One of the reasons I have a hard time watching it is because of the fact that I don't like any of the characters. Any except Giles, that is (and Spike). I've only gotten four seasons into the show so my love of Giles is based solely on them, but from what I've seen he's the only person on that show who can get anything done. Buffy can kick ass but she's not very bright, Xander's a useless dork, Willow's smart but weak, Anya is a bitchy third wheel, and Angel was a moody miserable stalker who didn't become interesting until he got his own show. Giles, on the other hand, is brilliant and can kick ass if he needs to. The introduction of Wesley improved his image, but I liked him from the beginning. If the world was in jeopardy from supernatural forces, Giles would figure out what was behind it and how to stop it.

9. Malcolm Reynolds (Nathon Fillion) from "Firefly"

This spot would go to River Tam, but she got to be awesome in basically only one episode in "Firefly." "Serenity" is where she shined and if this was a movie heroes list she'd definitely place. But Mal is the hero of "Firefly" that I would want around when the shit hits the fan or any scary monsters are around going "grrr, argh." Okay, he wasn't exactly a hero in the strictest sense of the word, but he was a damn good leader of his little outfit and he did the right thing when making tough decisions.

8. Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) from "Veronica Mars"

Some of my heroes aren't action stars, but they still fit my definition of hero. Anytime someone has screwed you over, Veronica is able to get to the bottom of it - and look great doing it. But more than just super sexy eye candy, she's clever and she knows how to work her appearance to her advantage. While someone like Giles could solve problems with his book smarts, Veronica would fill out the team with her street smarts. She's the kind of girl who could get a criminal to confess without him even realizing it. She's kind of ninja-like in that way.

7. Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) from "Burn Notice"

He's sort of the male version of Veronica, but with much more experience in the professional world of espionage. He's also got that whole MacGyver thing going on which would totally help in my hypothetical doomsday scenario. He also has an ability unlike anyone else on this list to assume false identities for his jobs and that earns him a spot on this list.

6. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth) from "Lie to Me"
He's a human lie detector. What more is there to say? Lightman keeps a strong commitment to finding the truth and looking at a situation rationally. Sure, Dr. House can declare that "everybody lies," but Lightman can tell you who specifically is doing the lying and what about. He backs up his natural skill with years of scientific experience and study, so you can trust him to save the day when your ass is on the line. His expertise with interrogation would stop us from needing a Jack Bauer character to come along and torture an answer out of someone.

5. Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) from "Fringe"

I've raved about Olivia for some time now, so of course she earns a top spot on this list. She's another take-charge lady with nerves of steel who can travel through universes just to help someone she cares about. She can face the strangest of the strange with a level head and still serve justice. I absolutely love her and would have to enlist her in my team of fictional superheroes. (Super referring to their awesomeness, not their comic book based powers.)

4. Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) from "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"

This might seem strange to put her so high on the list, as she wasn't my personal female hero like Olivia, but she had a lot more to deal with than Olivia did. In a world full of deadly machines, she was truly the unstoppable force to be reckoned with. She combined top-notch combat skills with fierce maternal instincts and I'm sure even the FOX execs who cancelled her show would agree that she would be ideal to have by your side when the world is in peril.

3. The Winchester clan (Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins) from "Supernatural"

This is the start of "my list, my rules" because I am counting the next two as package deals. Sam and Dean Winchester with the help of Castiel are quite the team. Sure, they started the apocalypse, but they also managed to stop it, sort of. The self-sacrificing goes beyond what they do for each other and extends to what they sacrifice to help other people. When Dean lives a Twilight Zone version of his life if he wasn't a hunter, he cannot accept a life where others died because he wasn't around to rescue them. Sam agrees that their lifestyle "is unfair, and it hurts like hell, but it's worth it." Castiel rebels against the corrupt establishment in Heaven to try and save the Earth and gives up everything he had to do it. It's a shame the Heaven in the "Supernatural" universe is in such disarray because if anyone deserves it, it's these three heroes.

2. The Torchwood team (Naoko Mori, Gareth David-Lloyd, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, John Barrowman) from "Torchwood"

Talk about more self-sacrifice in the line of duty. Three out of the original five team members died and Captain Jack Harkness had to sacrifice his grandson to stop a horrifying alien threat. Jack is a dashing hero who can't even die which makes him an incomparable hero. He's smarter and much more responsible than he seems and he picks loyal team members. An immortal ex-Time Agent, a cop, a doctor, a computer genius, and the tea boy who was so much more made one powerful group of heroes. Which is why it's that much more painful that the show insists on killing them off! (Oh, and you're pretty much ensured crisis sex with this horny bunch).

1. The Doctor (David Tennant or Christopher Eccleston) from "Doctor Who"

This is no shocker. The Doctor saves the universe every season and does it without firing a gun or throwing a punch. He'll take care of those damn Daleks every time they come back, he'll stop the Cybermen whenever they reappear, and he'll even burn his own planet out of existence to stop a threatening race bent on genocide. River Song put it best, when she commented that "now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives."

"Supernatural" - Hammer of the Gods

I meant to write this post sooner, but 1) I got distracted, busy weekend, it happens, and 2) I spent a lot of time on Wikipedia looking up things for this episode. Why couldn't this episode have been the 100th? Not that the 100th episode was bad, not at all, but it wasn't quite as mindblowing as I'd hoped it would be. It had some fantastic Castiel moments; I really missed him during last week's episode, but then again, I can't see how they would have worked him into that story. He better come back soon enough that we get a lot of him before the season ends. Partly because I love him and partly because I want to know what the hell happened to him. Anywho, this post is on the 101st episode, and boy was it a doozy. Rather than writing an epic essay on the "Supernatural" episode like I used to do on my other blog, I'll make a more user-friendly list of general comments about the episode/things I liked/things I didn't like.

1. The fact that this episode was set in Muncie, Indiana. Even the "Supernatural" writers know that Muncie is so in the middle of nowhere that they can host a pagan gods convention at a hotel and it won't make headlines.


2. The name of the hotel: The Elysian Fields. I openly admit, although I am really interested in mythology, my knowledge of classical mythology is lacking. But that's what Wikipedia is for. At least I know the show well enough by now to know that they didn't name the hotel something weird for no reason whatsoever. So, according to Wikipedia, the Elysian Fields were the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous in a level of the Underworld. Take away what you will from that. I love when they add details like that.
   
   
3. The Season 1 flavor plus the Season 5 mythology. It was kind of like "The Monster at the End of This Book" in that way, how it started out like a classic monster-of-the-week episode and ended up being a pivotal episode for the mythos.
   
   
4. The return of other world religions. They already established the existence of pagan gods in the "Supernatural" universe all the way back in Season 1's "Scarecrow" episode and they could have easily abandoned this with the rise of all the Judeo-Christian mythology the past two seasons. But instead, they addressed the issue and made it into an interesting conflict - what if all religions had some veracity? "Supernatural" treats it this way. Rather than picking and choosing what supernatural beings and beliefes they want to accept as true, they accept them all and bring that to the forefront. It certainly seemed like they were abandoning others in favor of Christianity so I am thrilled to see this turn of events. Also, it gives the brothers Winchester possible allies to fight Lucifer/stop the apocalypse.
   
   
5. So, the other powers involved - Ganesh (a Hindu deity), Baldur (a Norse god), Odin (another Norse god), Kali (a Hindu goddess), Baron Samedi (a Haitian Voodoo spirit, not just a James Bond villain), Mercury (a Roman deity), and Zao Shen (a Chinese god). It was fun to see their perspective. It was unfortunate to see them get mostly killed off, but I hope Kali comes back and has a significant part in helping them. Especially now that Gabriel (masquerading as Loki, a Norse god) is dead as well. Maybe a little revenge on behalf of her ex?
   
   
6. Now I'm really curious how the heirarchy of deities works in this world. Is the Judeo-Christian God really above the others? Is Lucifer so much more powerful than them because he's above them? Or are there higher level gods among the pagans who haven't gotten involved because they don't realize how big the threat is or they don't want to get involved.
   
   
7. RIP Trickster/Gabriel/Loki. I don't know if they had it all planned out when he was first introduced (it's farfetched, but I wouldn't be completely surprised), but the twist of making the Trickster the archangel Gabriel was one of my favorite "Supernatural" twists. And it adds another level to the brother vs. brother, brother vs. father dynamic the show has going. I think he's been a fascinating character and he's provided us with some great episodes. (Without him, we wouldn't have the deliciously meta episode "Changing Channels"). It was great to see him finally stand up to Lucifer and pick a side - humans. It seems like the best angels are the ones who actually give a damn about human beings. Unfortunately they're also the ones who suffer the worst fates - Anna, Castiel, Gabriel. But Gabriel admitted it in the end - humans are flawed, but they try to better and they try to forgive. That's something that I would imagine to be refreshing after dealing with arrogant angels and demons your whole existence.
   
   
8. Lucifer finally raining down some hell. I've been waiting for him to kick some ass since he came on the scene, but mostly he's just been relegated to speechifying, as people like to put it. We all take for granted he's a major threat, since it's the freaking devil, but we haven't actually seen him be a real danger until this episode. Mark Pellegrino is great as Lucifer. (I am totally for a "Lost"/"Supernatural" crossover since Pellegrino is Jacob on "Lost" and the Man in Black, Titus Welliver, also guest starred as the horseman War on "Supernatural. How great would that be? Sideways "Lost" is the near-apocalyptic world! The Island is plugging that hole and keeping the darkness at bay, it's really Lucifer's cage! It fits so perfectly it's creepy! But I digress...)
   
   
9. That Ghostfacers thing. I literally yelled at the television with that, because at first I thought it was part of the show and then I realized that it was a commercial just tacked onto the episode.
   
   
10. I'm really curious to know what the writers' religious/spiritual beliefs are. It's completely their private business, and it's not like their personal views have anything to do with anything, it's just a fictional television show, but I'm curious nonetheless.
    
    
11. Lucifer was freed from a cage, so they're going to try and put him back. I don't know why I didn't think of that before. Just when I thought the show was floundering a little, dragging out the apocalypse scenario aimlessly because they don't have a big enough budget to really show the apocalypse, they put the show back on track and bring some focus to the plot. I really should know by now not to doubt the writers. They know what they're doing.
    
    
12. Dean taking a stand and trying to work with the pagan gods. It was great to see him focus again and it really was the best idea to try and make some powerful allies. (And on a shallow note, Jensen was looking good in this episode.)
    
    
13. I really really did not need to see that Pestilence scene at the end. Especially right before eating dinner. They're clearly having some fun though with these horsemen. It makes me wonder what craziness Death will be.

I loved loved loved this episode. There wasn't a single dead spot. I was captivated every moment, and that's not something that often happens for me. (And it gave me my favorite new line, "Don't mock my world turtle.")