Tag Archives: The Handmaid’s Tale

Science Fiction and Fantasy Shows I’m Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers! I hope you all have a table full of delicious things to eat and plenty of kindred spirits to share this meal with. Today’s post will be something short and sweet.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how happy I am to see the science fiction and fantasy genres doing so well, especially on the small screen. There have been times when these genres haven’t gotten as much attention from mainstream audiences as they’re currently receiving. I’m so glad to see the audiences for them growing.

Today I’m going to be talking about why I am thankful for certain science fiction and fantasy shows that I’ve been watching this year. I’d love to see your lists, too.

The picture on the left reminded me of how I feel when I read these genres. The right storyteller can paint such a vivid picture of the world they’re imagining that I forget it’s fiction.

It somehow feels more like exploring a new planet, timeline, or era then reading about a character having those adventures. Even speaking as an author myself who knows the tricks of the trade, this is a magical process every single time it happens.

The Orville

I love the cheerful, uplifting, and hopeful themes on this program about a group of space adventurers. While they aren’t set in the same universe, it reminds me of Star Trek in the very best way possible. Given certain things that have happened in the world over the last few years, we need this optimism now more than ever.

The Good Place

Death and the afterlife definitely aren’t the first things I think of when I’m in the mood for a comedy, but somehow the writers of this show have figured out a way to make serious and controversial topics fodder for jokes. I especially love the fact that the non-humans characters on this show have found so many ways to surprise the audience and defy almost everyone’s expectations of what happens to someone after they die.

The Handmaid’s Tale

I’ve blogged a lot about this series here already, but I can’t help but to include it in this week’s list. Everyone involved in the serialization of this story has done a very good job so far of translating something that was written in and about the 1980s to the social climate of 2018. When I watch season three next year, I think I’ll follow up each episode with something lighthearted since the subject matter of the first two seasons could get pretty dark at times.

Still, it’s something I hope will continue to air for years to come. There is a lot of ground to cover yet with the characters in this world.

Star Trek: Discovery

How could I possibly leave this show off of the list? I was so excited a few years ago when I first heard that the Star Trek franchise was finally come back to television. While the first season didn’t meet all of my expectations, I was intrigued by the differences between the culture of this ship and, say, how a similar episode would have been written if Captain Picard or Captain Sisko had been in charge instead.

It’s going to be so interesting to see where the writers go from here. I’m grateful to have another opportunity to explore this universe, and I’m hoping that the second season will be fantastic.

What science fiction and fantasy shows are you thankful for?

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18 Science Fiction and Fantasy Shows I Can’t Wait to See in 2018-2019

Last year I blogged about the fourteen science fiction and fantasy series I was looking forward to watching during the 2017-2018 season. Wow, that was a lot of shows! Somehow I managed to continue watching almost all of them, though.

Today I’m talking about the shows I’m currently watching or will be watching during the 2018-2019 TV season. Once again, I’ll be sharing the release dates and a short explanation of why I’m interested in each one. This list looks like a long one, but many of these series will be finished long before the ones at the bottom of the list are aired. I love the fact that shows are staggered like that these days.

Also, I am a few seasons behind some of the items on this list. So expect to see them reappear in future updates on what I’m watching unless I suddenly stop watching a lot of current programs for some reason.

Disenchantment

Season 1 premiered this August. I’m currently watching it.

Calling all fans of Futurama! The creators of that series have something new for you.

Disenchantment was about a princess who befriended an elf and a demon and proceeded to have all kinds of PG-13 related adventures with them. Yes, this is an animated program. No, it’s not suitable for kids. There’s everything from sex to violence to substance abuse in this tale, so send the small, impressionable humans to bed before you watch it.

 

The Good Place 

Season 3 premiere: September 27.

So much of the stuff I want to say about this program would give away major spoilers for anyone who hasn’t watched the first two seasons yet. Needless to say, the characters have continued to explore the afterlife and learn just how complicated things can get when the line between heaven and hell becomes so blurry.

I would not recommend watching this to anyone who is easily offended or who has strong opinions about what, if anything, happens to people after they die. While the tone of it is tongue-in-cheek and friendly, this is something that will work better for viewers who are easygoing on this topic.

The Man in the High Castle

Season 3 premiere: October 5

If history had been a little different, the Axis powers could have won World War II. This series takes a look at what life would be like in the country formerly known as the United States this had happened. Germany and Japan split the U.S. up into sections in this universe, and everyone who wasn’t a Christian Aryan was in terrible danger.

I should warn all of you that this show can get very dark at times. It’s not something that anyone should watch if they’re easily triggered by references to Holocaust-like events.

Black Lightning

Season 2 premiere: October 9

Black Lightning has been changing my opinion of the superhero genre for the better thanks to everything that was going on in the main character’s life. I adored the complexity of his personality and life. He had to deal with everything from chasing down bad guys to repairing his relationship with his wife in the first season. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to him and his family next.

The Orville

Season 2 premiere: December 30

I adored season one of this program. While it was originally written to be a lighthearted parody of the Star Trek universe, it felt much more like a Star Trek show than Discovery has so far. This isn’t a diss, either. I’m enjoying Discovery, but it doesn’t have the optimism about the future that I’d expect from this universe.

Luckily, The Orville picked up that slack beautifully in its first season. The characters dealt with some serious issues, but there was always a lighthearted undercurrent to their conflicts that reassured me that better days were coming for everyone in that universe. The world needs more material like this, especially now.

Timeless

Movie premiere: late 2018

Technically, the last TV season of this show ended this past spring. There is a two-hour movie about the characters in it coming at the end of this year, though, so I’m including it on this list. I’m glad the fans are going to have a proper goodbye for it. The time travel in this story was really well done. I especially liked the fact that the characters who weren’t white men acknowledged how difficult certain eras would be for them to visit due to the prejudices and laws of those times.  hoping there will be plenty of that in the sendoff.

 

Star Trek: Discovery

Season 2 premiere: January 2019

Despite my comments above, I actually did enjoy the first season of Discovery. There was a huge plot twist in it that I didn’t see coming ahead of time. I can’t say anything else about that without giving away spoilers, but I am looking forward to seeing where this series goes next and if it begins to feel more friendly and hopeful like other Star Trek tales.  (Although I am hoping that the second season will flesh out the secondary characters. So far, only the main characters have gotten attention from the storyline).

Roswell, New Mexico

Season 1 premiere: April 29, 2019

This is a reboot of Roswell, a science fiction show about aliens living on Earth in the early 2000s that I liked quite a bit back in the day.

Like the reboot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’d prefer to see this universe revisited in its current form. This doesn’t stop me from feeling excited at revisiting this universe in whatever form it will take.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Season 3 premiere: April 2019

Anyone who has followed this blog over the past few years already knows how much I adore The Handmaid’s Tale, so I won’t repeat myself.

Needless to say, I’m already counting down the weeks until season 3 is here.

Castle Rock

Season 2 premiere: 2019. I have yet to begin season 1, but plan to start it soon.

Two words for you: Stephen King. Every time a TV show comes out that is based on something he wrote, my ears perk up. This was no exception to that rule.

Lucifer

Season 4 premiere: 2019

First this show was cancelled, and now it’s somehow coming back for another season.

All I know is that I have a huge crush on Lucifer. Yes, he’s (sort of) the Lucifer you’d expect someone with that name to be. That is, he is the devil in this universe, but he’s not evil. Children love him, and he only harms people who have already hurt innocent folks. Everyone else is pretty safe around him unless they happened to be horribly annoyed by shameless flirting.

The Magicians

Season 4 premiere: 2019

I have four words for you: Harry Potter for adults. While this isn’t set in the Potterverse, the characters in it do attend a school for magic and end up having all sorts of unauthorized adventures when their professors aren’t looking.

It took me a couple of tries to get into the first season, but now I can’t get enough of this series.

Cloak & Dagger

Season 2 premiere: 2019

Not only are there two superheroes in this story, their powers complement each other perfectly.

I’m also watching this one with the hope that when a romance develops between the main characters, their racial differences won’t be a source of conflict for the plot in any way. One of the beautiful things about living in Toronto is seeing interracial couples living their ordinary lives together without it being a big deal. While I know this definitely isn’t true for every community (or even in every single Torontonian household, to be honest), I think it’s high time for screenwriters to stop assuming that every interracial relationship is fraught with conflicts over race and culture.

That is such an old-fashioned and unhelpful way of perceiving the world, especially if you’re on the outside looking in at someone else’s relationship.

Glitch

Season 3 premiere: 2019

Some of the characters in this show were people who came back to life from the dead without being zombies, vampires, or ghosts. One moment they were corpses, and the next they’d come to life.

I can’t say much else about the premise without giving away massive spoilers, but I’ve loved the character and plot development so far. It’s going to be pretty interesting to see what happens now that more and more townsfolk have realized that some of their new neighbours are actually people who lived there decades and even a few centuries ago.

 

Stranger Things

Season 3 premiere: mid-2019

The first two seasons of this show were filled with stuff that happened in the 1980s but would be frowned upon today. For example, smoking was ubiquitous, and children weren’t supervised well back then.

This isn’t the only reason why I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to the town of Hawkins, Indiana, but it is one of them.

Luke Cage

Season 3 premiere: late 2019 (tentatively)

So, it turns out that I might like superhero shows more than I thought I did. When I first began working on this post, I hadn’t fully realized how many different superhero shows I watch.

One of the coolest things about Luke Cage was how close he was to various members of his community. Some of my favourite scenes so far have showed him talking to his neighbours and trying to figure out how to improve all of their lives. The social justice aspect of the storyline is what originally pulled me in and what has kept me coming back for more.

Black Mirror

Season 5 premiere: unknown, but I’m hoping it will show up in 2019.

The only episode I’ve seen so far from this series was 4.1, “USS Callister.” It was about a massive multiplayer online game populated by sentient digital clones who were treated very poorly by the man who created them. When the clones realized that the world they’re living in isn’t real, they had to try to decide how or if to escape their circumstances.

I was so impressed by the storytelling and writing quality that I’ve added Black Mirror to my to-watch list. I’m hoping to catch up on as many of the other episodes during the winter of 2018-2019 as possible.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (no photo available yet for this one).

Season 1 of the rebooted premiere: unknown, but I’m hoping it will show up in 2019.

To be honest, I don’t know if Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be rebooted in 2019 or come out at some point after that. Either way, I’ll be curious to see how this universe is reimagined for a new generation.

What science fiction and fantasy shows will you be watching between now and next summer?

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A Spoiler-Free Review of Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale

Those of you who have been following me on Twitter these past few months have no doubt noticed my occasional tweets about the latest episode of The Handmaid’s Tale. This year I decided to combine all of my thoughts on this show into one long post instead of blogging about each episode individually.

The cast of characters for this show is large. As you scroll through my review, you’ll see photos and names of most of them. I did leave out some minor characters in order to avoid giving away spoilers for later developments in this season, but I included nearly everyone who appeared at least semi-regularly in the plot.

There was only one exception for the spoiler-free rule, and it is something I’ll briefly mention in the section underneath Commander Waterford’s picture. I felt the need to include that sentence because the storyline does involve some common topics that some people find triggering.

 

Elizabeth Moss as June/Offred.

 

When season one of this show ended last year, Offred discovered she was pregnant shortly before being lead out of the Waterford’s home and into one of the vans that was owned by the Eyes, the government-authorized spies in Gilead. Whether the van was meant to deliver her to a life of freedom in Canada or take her someplace else entirely was left to be seen.

The pursuit – and loss – of freedom was one of the major recurring themes in season two of The Handmaid’s Tale. As a member of a totalitarian society who only valued her for her reproductive capabilities, Offred should have been resigned to the loss of her husband, daughter, and freedom by now.

She wasn’t.

 

Yvonne Strahovski as Serena Joy Waterford.

 

Life as a Handmaid in general or with the Waterfords specifically had never been pleasant for Offred.

Since Offred had done it once before, the Waterfords held high hopes that her latest pregnancy would have an equally happy ending. I had strong opinions about the most likely outcome of this pregnancy when season two began.

Offred had something that Serena Joy desperately craved: the ability to conceive and bear a healthy child. The jealousy in this household was palpable, and it only grew stronger as the season progressed. As someone who has never felt the urge to be anyone’s mother, I appreciated the fact that the storyline spent so much time exploring what it means to be a parent and what it feels like when someone is stripped of the ability to decide when, whether, with whom, or how often to reproduce.

While being biologically related to a child can be part of parenthood, this theme was much more complex than who shared DNA with each other. I’d be wandering into spoiler territory if I said much else about this idea, but do pay close attention to how all of the characters on this show react to children and the concept of being a parent in general.

Joseph Fiennes as Commander Waterford.

 

Speaking of Commander Waterford, I liked the fact that this season spent so much time exploring how a man who claimed to be doing God’s work could authorize so many things that no loving deity would ever command anyone to do. He was also one of the least paternal characters I’ve ever known.

If you need a trigger warning for rape or abuse, know that these are two of the many horrible things this character does in the second season. This is all I will say on this topic, but I would be happy to privately go into more detail for anyone who needs to know what to expect ahead of time.

The thought of Commander Waterford possibly raising a baby was a frightening as it was bizarre. He seemed to have no interest in children outside of their ability to elevate his status in society, and that’s never a good reason for anyone to have a child.

The tension between the wholesome image this character wanted to project to his neighbours and who he genuinely was when the doors were closed was as frightening as it was thought-provoking. Anyone might notice slight discrepancies between who they would ideally like to be and who they actually were, but when the gap between the two is this gigantic it becomes impossible to ignore.

Amanda Brugel (left) as Martha.

 

This is even more true for people who interacted with Commander Waterford on a daily basis.

I appreciated the fact that Martha, the cook/housekeeper, was given extra screen time in season two. Her character shared enough tidbits in season one from her previous life  – including the fact that she had a son who died in the civil war – that I was hoping we’d learn more about what sort of person she was.

As is often the case with secondary characters in this series, I didn’t get as many details about Martha as I would have liked to receive. There simply wasn’t enough time to tell me everything I wanted to know about this character, but my appetite has been whetted for more. I hope she gets even more attention in season three.

 

Max Minghella as Nick.

 

Nick, the Waterford’s driver, Guardian (bodyguard), and biological father of June’s baby, did get his fair share of development, however. Based on the way he behaved in season one, I was not at all prepared for what would happen to him in season two. It was really nice to dive into this character’s point of view so deeply, especially once certain things began happening that he hadn’t planned for or desired.

Honestly, he wasn’t someone I liked or trusted all the much in the first season. Throwing Nick into situations he found unnerving was the best possible thing that could have happened to him. I learned so much about his moral code and what  he wanted out of life based on his reactions to all of the life changes that Gilead thrust upon him.

Yes, I know I’m being quite vague in this section. It’s something I’m doing on purpose in order to avoid sharing a major plot twist from one of the early episodes of season two. Just know that Nick’s life is about to be turned upside down in season two if you’ve just begun watching it.

Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia.

Aunt Lydia was as insufferable as ever.

When I first met her in season one, I couldn’t tell if this character was a true believer in the unbearably strict religious mores of Gilead or if she’d always been a sadist. The things she did to the handmaids she trained and kept in line were disturbing on a good day.

When she felt threatened or like her handmaid’s weren’t being obedient, Aunt Lydia was quick to slide past disturbing and into much darker corners of the human mind. I can’t imagine mistreating anyone the way she did, so it was hard to understand where she was coming from.

Other than Martha, Aunt Lydia is the character I’d like to see fleshed out the most in season three. The audience had so little information about what makes this villain tick that her violent choices only lowered my opinion of her more this season.

 

Alexis Bledel as Emily/Ofglen.

 

Offred wasn’t the only Handmaid in this society. Some of the most memorable scenes this year explored the fates of the other Handmaids in Gilead. None of them could be said to be having a positive experience, but certain ones were treated worse than others.

Emily/Ofglen’s fate was of particular interest to me due to how much I could relate to her as a fellow member of the LGBT community and lover of knowledge. In a slightly different set of circumstances, I could have easily walked a mile in her shoes. That’s frightening.

Madeline Brewer as Janine/Ofwarren.

 

Janine was another Handmaid whose storyline was developed nicely in season two. Once again, I can’t say a great deal about her life with giving away spoilers, but I did find it interesting to see how someone as fragile and emotionally unwell as this character has managed to stay alive in a society where either of those “flaws” could so easily lead to a quick death for anyone unlucky enough to develop them.

O.T. Fagbenle as Luke, June’s husband.

One of the things that first pulled me into this book before it became a TV series was June’s relationship with her husband.

The Luke in the book annoyed me in the beginning due to his unwillingness to empathize with June’s fears about living in a society where women were so quickly losing their rights and his stubborn determination to ignore every red flag until it was too late for him to get his family out of the country safely. I didn’t blame him for failing to understand what it’s like to be a woman. However, I did blame him for refusing to take his wife seriously when she opened up to him about how women were really being treated.

Getting to know a little more about the assumptions Luke made about others helped me to understand why he messed up so terribly in the beginning. I still wish he’d listened to his wife the first time she shared her concerns with him, though!

Jordana Blake (left) as Hannah Bankole, daughter of June and Luke.

 

There is very little I can say about Hannah without giving away spoilers, but her emotional bond with both of her parents has been a beautiful part of the plot since the first scene of season one. June’s second pregnancy was made even more poignant because she’d already had years of parenting experience under her belt. She knew exactly what it was she was going to be giving up after her pregnancy ended and she was moved on to the next childless household.

Samira Wiley as Moira.

 

I do wish Moira had been given more opportunities to shine in season two. We got to know her so well in the first season that I would have relished the opportunity to see how she was adjusting to life outside of Gilead after her daring escape at the end of season one.

Only time will tell if season three dig more deeply into the lives of Moira, Martha, and Aunt Lydia.

If you’re a fellow fan of The Handmaid’s Tale, what did you enjoy the most about season two?

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Saturday Seven: What to Read Next If You Loved The Handmaid’s Tale

Saturday Seven is hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

As those of you who follow me on social media have no doubt already noticed, I’m a huge fan of The Handmaid’s Tale.   I first read this Margaret Atwood book when I was in high school, and I loved it from the opening sentence:

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

Offred’s descriptions of what it was like to live in an abandoned school and why a group of young, fertile women had been enslaved in the first place captured my imagination. There was grief, loneliness, and pain etched into every thought this protagonist had even before I had any idea what was going on with the characters or setting.

The writers for the TV show based on this novel have done a superb job of fleshing out the storyline so far. While I’m waiting to see the next episode of this show, I’ve been thinking about books that have similar social justice themes and writing styles to this one. If you enjoyedThe Handmaid’s Tale, you might like these titles as well.

1. The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence.

I’m tentatively planning to talk about Margaret Laurence’s work again this summer in a Canadian-themed Saturday Seven post, but I had to include her in this list as well. The main character of this book was someone whose choices in life were severely limited due to abuse, poverty, and being born into a society that had pretty limited empathy or help available for women who found themselves in difficult circumstances.

I should warn you that Hagar wasn’t an easy character to like at times. Her harsh life had shaped her into someone who could be abrasive under certain circumstances, but I still saw glimpses of the young, hopeful girl she’d once been no matter how difficult she was to love at the end of her life.

2. The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist.

Fertile women in The Handmaid’s Tale were forced to bear children for powerful infertile couples. Characters in The Unit were forced to donate their organs to strangers even if doing so lead to their immediate deaths. Both groups of people were simultaneously shunned for “sinning” against the impossibly-strict rules of their societies while also being told their suffering was worth it for the greater good of humanity.

3. The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper.

If you can only read one book from this list, make it this one. Fertility was controlled in The Gate to Women’s Country just as strictly as it was in The Handmaid’s Tale. The difference between the two lies in how well women are treated otherwise, who raises the children they conceive, and how (un)aware they are of what is really happening to their bodies.

4. The Fire-Dwellers by Margaret Laurence.

I read this so long ago that I’ve forgotten a lot of it. I feel compelled to reread it again soon. What I remember the most about it was the fact that two people could remember the same event so differently. There’s no doubt in my mind that Offred’s account of what happened to her wouldn’t be the same as the men who drafted the laws that made all sorts of human rights violations legal or the wives of the high-ranking members of The Republic of Gilead who ignored the abuse of women like Offred because of how much they stood to gain from the arrangement.

This isn’t to say that any of the supporting characters in The Fire-Dwellers are violent like the ones in The Handmaid’s Tale, only that empathy isn’t a skill everyone develops in life. Such a lack of empathy can show up in both small and profoundly serious ways.

5. Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler.

Honestly, I could have listed many of Ms. Butler’s books here. The things she had to say about prejudice, how power can be horribly misused, and what happens when one group of people oppresses another over a long period of time fit in beautifully with the themes in The Handmaid’s Tale.

6. He, She, It by Marge Piercy.

This book didn’t arrive from the library in time for me to read it before this post went live, but I’m looking forward to seeing how the main character handles a custody dispute that’s mentioned in the blurb. It reminded me of how Offred pined for her daughter after they were ripped away from each other.

7. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields.

Once again, this book hasn’t arrived from the library yet. I like the idea of a female character telling stories about her life that are typically the sorts of things someone wouldn’t talk about. While this narrator had a much happier and safer life than Offred did, there were still parts of it she regretted at the end. I think there’s something to be said for talking about those things openly sometimes instead of hiding them.

How many of my readers are fans of The Handmaid’s Tale? Do you enjoy books about social justice in general?

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5 Things I Want from Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale

Disclaimer: there are mild spoilers for the book and major spoilers for the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale in this post.

How is it possible that almost an entire year has passed since the release of the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale? It honestly feels like I just finished watching this show.

I used to roll my eyes when adults said that time sped up as they grew older, but now I completely understand where they’re coming from.

April 25 is the release date for the second season in the United States. Last year, Canada was about a week and a half behind the United States on new episodes. That meant that by the time I saw episode three, for example, people in the US had already seen episode five.

It looks like that waiting period for those of us in Canada will be shortened to about five days this year. Avoiding spoilers is going to be easier this time around, and I’m very grateful for that!

While we’re counting down the last few weeks until season two begins, I thought I’d list five things I’m hoping to see in it.

1. A Detailed Look at How the U.S. Government Was Overthrown

The first season spent a decent amount of time showing how Commander Fred and his associates built up the social and practical support they’d need for the moment when the United States ceased to exist and the Republic of Gilead was born, but we still don’t know the logistics of how a small percentage of the population was able to take control of one of the most powerful countries in the world.

Without giving away too many details for anyone who hasn’t read the book yet, this was something that was briefly addressed in The Handmaid’s Tale. However, Offred was such an ordinary, non-political person before all of this began that she only knew the basics of how her government replaced. She was not privy to any of the details of what exactly happened or how it was planned out.

On a positive note, this means that the screenwriters will have a lot of leeway in showing what happened to the previous leaders of the country formerly known as the United States.

2. Happy Baby News for Offred

In the first season we learned that 80% of pregnancies in this universe are now ending in a miscarriage, stillbirth, or serious birth defects for reasons that no one has been able to figure out. The odds aren’t in her favour, but I’m hoping that Offred being the protagonist of a beloved show will make the writers hesitant to kill off her child.

Babies who were born with birth defects in the novel version of The Handmaid’s Tale never grew up. It was heavily implied that this was due to at least some of them not being allowed to live instead of their health issues being too difficult to treat. As curious as I am to know how such a baby-obsessed society would rationalize killing an infant who could have lived if they were given medical treatments, I’m crossing my fingers that Offred’s child won’t be the one to show us how this system works if she doesn’t make it to Canada before she gives birth.

3. Reunions with Hannah and Luke

Is seeing Offred reuniting with her daughter and husband too much to ask for season two? We know that all three of them are still alive as of the end of the first season. Luke is safe in Canada, Hannah is living with a high-ranking official in Gilead, and Offred has possibly been rescued by the Resistance.

My fingers are crossed that they’ll be together again soon, even if it turns out to be a temporary reunion for the sake of future plot twists.

4. Scenes From the Colonies

The Colonies were describe in the book as a place that rebellious, infertile, elderly, sick, and/or politically useless people were sent. Some of them cleaned up toxic waste while others were responsible for tasks like farming. They were a quiet threat to the life of anyone who wasn’t wealthy and powerful who fought back against their assigned role or who had the bad luck of being diagnosed with a serious illness.

Based on the previews, we will be seeing The Colonies at some point. Any scenes set there are almost certainly going to make me cry, but I still want to know exactly what life was like for Offred’s mother and other people who were deemed not worthy of being kept around.

5. What’s Going On in the Rest of the World?

We already know that Mexico is suffering similar problems with infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths, and life-threatening birth defects in this universe.

If the reproductive issues are limited to these two countries, it could point to a specific environmental cause that the characters in this show will eventually be able to fix.

On the other hand, we might find out that many other countries are suffering in the same way. My fingers are crossed that we’ll get a peek at what’s going on in Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and the rest of North America.

I was always a little frustrated with how vague the book was about this part of the plot even though I understood why Offred couldn’t possibly know what life was like thousands of miles away when the news was so heavily propagandized and filtered.

If you’re watching this show, what do you hope will happen in the second season?

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I Have a Guest Post at The Alexandria Papers About The Handmaid’s Tale

Alexandria Constantinova Szeman published a guest post from me yesterday afternoon. Click on the link below to check it out.

Nolite te Bastardes Carbundorum: A Spoiler-Free Review of The Handmaid’s Tale.

I will be back here on Thursday with another post. In the meantime, I’ll see you over on Alexandria’s site today!

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14 Science Fiction and Fantasy Shows I Can’t Wait to Watch This Season

When I originally started working on this post, I was planning to say that I don’t watch very much television. As you’re about to discover from this list, though, I was wrong about that. There are far more SFF shows that I enjoy than I originally thought!

Click on the titles of each shows to read descriptions of their plots. The premiere dates I’ve written down are valid for Canada, and they’re arranged chronologically.  I’m also sharing my spoiler-free reasons for anticipating them below the links.

 

The Orville

Season 1 premiered: Last night (September 10).

Other than the animated series that I’m still slowly working my way through, I’ve seen every episode of every Star Trek show that’s ever been made. I’m looking forward to watching this homage to this universe, although I’m still not sure what to expect from it yet. The previews for it make it sound like a comedy, but the reviews I’ve read say it’s mostly serious. It will be interesting to see what it’s actually like.

Since I don’t have cable I watch most of my shows a day later using iTunes season passes, so I’ll know more after I’ve had a chance to see the series premiere tonight.

 

 

People of Earth

Season 2 premiere: September 19.

Sentient aliens are real in this universe, and they abduct certain people regularly. Season 1 showed us why this happened, so I’m hoping season 2 will dig more deeply into what the aliens want from the people they capture. This is one of the funniest shows I watch, although it did take an episode or two for me to get to know the main character well enough to find all of the humour in his reactions to the strange things that happen to him.

The Good Place

Season 2 premiere: September 20.

All of the characters in this show are either dead, robots, or angels. This isn’t your typical version of the afterlife, though, and the hijinks they all got into last season made me laugh so hard that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Without giving away any spoilers from season 1, the afterlife is a far more complicated place than one might imagine. They explored that beautifully in the beginning, so I can’t wait to see what they do with these characters next.

 

 

Star Trek: Discovery

Season 1 premiere: September 24.

As with The Orville, I’ve heard a lot of different theories about what Star Trek: Discovery will be like. I’m excited to see how the Stark Trek universe will be revisited regardless of which theory turns out to be true. For the time being, I can’t even begin to guess what I’ll think of it or whether anyone has made correct predictions about its theme.

Lucifer

Season 2 premiere: October 2.

Imagine what it would be like if the Devil developed a crush on a human woman and began helping her solve criminal cases in an attempt to grow closer to her. (No, none of this is a spoiler. It was all revealed in season 1, episode 1 of this series). I absolutely love Lucifer’s witty, charming, and slightly dark personality. There are other sides to him that are completely unexpected as well, although I’ll leave it up to you to discover what they are.

The Shannara Chronicles

Season 2 premiere: October 11.

The first season started off a little slow, to be honest with you, but I really came to enjoy the world building. There was a lot of it once the audience got into the second half of the season, and it all fit together incredibly well. Give this one a chance if it doesn’t appeal to you right away. It has a lot of creative spins on the typical fantasy universe.

 

 

Stranger Things

Season 2 premiere: October 31.

I couldn’t believe how much the standards for childhood supervision, nutrition, and discipline have evolved since the 1980s. What many people would consider semi-neglectful these days was apparently par for the course for the 1980s (as far as not supervising children goes. There was no graphic child abuse here, only kids being left to their own devices for hours on end every day). The plot itself was also complex and written wonderfully. Season 1 was wrapped up beautifully, but it also left plenty of unanswered questions for season 2.

Marvel’s Runaways

Season 1 premiere: November 21.

I’m not generally a fan of the superhero genre, but I really enjoyed the Runaways graphic novels when they first came out years ago. I will be giving this series a try this November. Only time will tell if this story translates well to the small screen for my tastes.

 

 

Glitch

Season 2 premiere: November 28.

This is a show that I actually convinced my zombie-hating mother to watch! The characters were zombies in the sense that they came back from the dead and no longer exhibited many of the same life signs that normal people do. They weren’t violent or scary in the least, although I’m really hoping that the plot will dig more deeply into what exactly is going on with their physiology in season 2.

Beyond

Season 2 premiere: February 2018 (tentative).

The first episode of this show reeled me in immediately. While there were a few times when my attention lagged later on in season 1, I’m still extremely curious to see what happens to the characters next. The main character was someone who spent many years in a coma after an accident when he was a kid, so there is still a lot of stuff he hasn’t figured out yet about adulthood and what happened to him while he was comatose. That’s about all I can say about this one without giving away spoilers, but it was thought-provoking for sure.

 

Westworld

Season 2 premiere: Spring 2018 (tentative).

If the science fiction and western genres had a love child, they’d name it Westworld. Basically, it’s about a group of highly unusual people who are living in a violent, wild-west-themed amusement park that wealthy folks visit. I hate to be so vague about this show, but many of the plot twists later revealed in it contain major spoilers. This isn’t the sort of thing to watch if you’re triggered by include rape, murder, or assault, but the storytelling is incredible for anyone who doesn’t mind those kinds of themes.

 

The Handmaid’s Tale

Season 2 premiere: April 2018 (tentative).

Anyone who has followed this blog for more than a few months knows how much I adore this series. I can’t wait to see what the writers do with universe next, especially since the novel it’s based on left so many unanswered questions for the audience. All of my theories about what will happen next are full of spoilers for later episodes of season 1, so I won’t go into any detail about them here.

Timeless

Season 2 premiere: Summer 2018 (tentative).

Time travel isn’t something I typically seek out in science fiction shows, but this one takes a smart and sensible approach to the topic. I especially loved the fact that the characters who weren’t white men acknowledged the often serious difficulties they faced when the group visited certain times and places. Many eras were downright dangerous for people who were black and/or a woman.

 

The Magicians

Season 3 premiere: 2018 (tentative).

The best way I can think of to describe this series is to say that it’s Harry Potter for grown-ups. Magic is real, and adults who have the natural ability to perform magic are sent to a special boarding school to learn how to control and use their powers. Given that they’re all healthy, young adults, there’s plenty of sex, drugs, alcohol, and dangerous hijinks along the way. I wasn’t a big fan of the first few episodes on my first attempt at watching them, but the plot dramatically improves as you move into season 1. I’m hoping to finish season 2 by the time season 3 airs.

What science fiction and fantasy shows are you looking forward to watching this season?

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How Social Media Is Changing the Rules About Spoilers

Those of you who have been following me for years might remember my post from 2014 about hating spoilers.

Since then I’ve been paying attention to how social media – especially Twitter – has been changing the rules about if, whether, and when it’s okay to share spoilers.

It was especially interesting to see how people reacted to The Handmaid’s Tale a few months ago because of how much faster that show was released in the U.S. than it was in other parts of the world.

Canada was always one or two episodes behind the United States depending on which day of the week you were on. Other countries were even further behind us.

People in the States were sharing spoilers before or right after the latest episode there ended. Even mainstream news sites were leaking plot twists as they discussed what had currently happened and what was going to happen next. I had to mute the hashtags for that show and avoid reading all news articles about it until I’d finished the whole series.

While I still believe that it’s rude to share spoilers for a show that has just aired, not everyone agrees with me and not everyone who does agree with me has the same rules about how to go about sharing them after a certain amount of time has passed.

The Old Rules

This varied according to which parts of the Internet you spent time in, of course, but I remember the old rules being as follows:

  • Always put a spoiler warning before sharing anything that mentioned even mild plot twists.
  • Don’t discuss the latest episode of your favourite show with people who haven’t seen it yet unless they tell you they don’t mind.
  • When in doubt, don’t mention it.

I do not remember the mainstream media releasing spoilers back then the way they do now. To be fair, I don’t know if that’s because I watched fewer shows at that point or if the rules have since changed for the media as well.

The Controversy

If cats knew what spoilers were, they’d disapprove of them.

I’m going to be doing some generalizing and simplifying here for the sake of brevity, but people who have an opinion on this issue seem to fall into one of two camps.

The first camp believes that everything is up for discussion the second a show has finished airing in their time zone. While some of them do warn everyone about their discussion of spoilers ahead of time, many others don’t bother to mention it at all.

Interestingly enough, my own mother belongs in this group. If I read a book or watch a movie that she hasn’t tried yet, she genuinely doesn’t mind hearing spoilers about it. This blows my mind sometimes, but I’m much less cautious about discussing how stories end with her than I am with almost everyone else I know.

The second camp is against all spoilers. We want to be warned of potential spoilers well in advance so we can avoid them. We often also want everyone to use the official hashtags for that show or movie so that we can mute them before any of the plot twists are revealed.

The New Rules

  • Always use the appropriate hashtags when discussing your favourite shows on social media.
  • Give people fair warning if you will be sharing spoilers.
  • Find likeminded people to discuss (or avoid) spoilers with.
  • Respect the rights of others to make different decisions.
  • When in doubt, don’t mention it.

From what I’ve seen, the Internet hasn’t yet come to a conclusion about how long everyone should wait before spoiler tags are no longer necessary.

I take a conservative approach and add spoiler tags to almost everything. Just because a book was released a few decades ago doesn’t mean that everyone has read it. While I do occasionally share spoilers about old movies, TV shows, and books, I warn people first in case they don’t want to know what happened.

It’s going to be interesting to see how all of this plays out over the next few years.  Is giving spoiler warnings for everything no matter when it was released the best way to handle it? I honestly don’t know. This is something I do as a courtesy for others, but I don’t think it’s currently realistic to expect everyone to follow this rule given how unwilling they are to wait even a few days to dissect current shows.

With that being said, I would like to see people become more aware of the fact that their favourite shows have global audiences and that not every country or time zone gets the latest episode simultaneously.

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The Handmaid’s Tale: Night


This post includes spoilers for “Night”
 (Season 1, Episode 10) of The Handmaid’s Tale. As usual, the link on the left has full summaries of all of the episodes.

Wow.

Just wow.

It took me longer than usual to write this post because of how much I loved the season 1 finale of The Handmaid’s Tale. It set up so many possible storylines for season 2 that I don’t even know where to begin.

First of all, I never expected Offred and the other handmaids to refuse to stone Janine/Ofwarren for attempting to murder her child in the previous episode. Aunt Lydia’s horrified, angry expression was priceless when she realized that the handmaids weren’t willing to murder someone who had clearly been pushed past the breaking point a long time ago.

It’s going to be interesting to see what the punishment is for that for all of the handmaids. I’ve heard rumours that Janine is going to be back next season, but I have no idea if that is true or how it might happen.

The only spoiler I’d accidentally read for this episode had to do with Moira making it safely to Canada. At first I was a little disappointed that we barely saw any of her journey north, but there were so many other things going on in the plot that I understood why that part had to be shrunken down so much.

It was fun to see her brush snow off of the license plate of a car and realize that she’d made safely it to Canada! I’m going to assume that the people who owned that car found her, treated her kindly, and gave her a nice, hot meal before letting the authorities know that another refugee had made it across the border.

Moira’s reaction to being given simple life choices in Canada was heartbreaking. She couldn’t handle the thought of being allowed to read a book, decide what to eat, or choose what she wanted to do in general. The only thing I enjoyed more than seeing her realize how much freedom she had was watching her reunite with Luke after she told her social worker that she didn’t have any family in Canada.

The fact that Luke has marked her down as a family member really brought their friendship full circle. They’ve had more than their share differences in the past, but I’m pleased that she’s going to have someone looking out for her as she deals with all of the emotional fallout from her experiences in Gilead. The way Moira was acting reminded me of many of the symptoms of PTSD, so I can’t imagine that she’ll have an easy adjustment to life in Toronto.

It was Offred’s storyline that kept me on the edge of my seat this week, though. The revelation of her pregnancy was a bit of a surprise. The final scene of the book mentioned it as a possibility, but I wasn’t sure if the creators of this show were planning to explore that part of the plot so early on. At this point, I’m going to assume that the pregnancy goes full term and she has a healthy baby. This show doesn’t seem to be willing to harm babies that come from main cast members, so I’m guessing that trend will  continue despite the fact that 80% of pregnancies in this universe don’t turn out that way.

The last thing I was expecting was for Offred to see – but not touch or speak with – her daughter again this episode. How did Serena Joy figure out where Hannah was? I was surprised that she’d threaten to harm Hannah if anything happened to the fetus Offred was carrying. Serena Joy has done abusive things in the past, but this seemed beyond the pale even for her.

This did give me hope that we’ll see Hannah again next season. It will be fascinating to see how much she remembers about her parents and what the authorities told her about what happened to them. I have plenty of memories from the age of five, but three years is a long time for a child to be separated from her family. Who knows how much she’s changed since then!

I was thrilled to see that the last scene in this show was exactly the same as it was in the book, from Offred’s thoughts about what would happen to her to the description of her climbing out of the light and into the dark shadows in the van. The fact that Nick whispered, “just go with them. Trust me.” to her before The Eyes lead her into the black van was taken straight from the book as well.

I think I trust Nick on this one, although I’m not too sure that this is going to be how Offred gets out of Gilead. It seems too simplistic after all she’s been through.

Final Thoughts on Season One

While there were a few minor things I would have tweaked in season one of The Handmaid’s Tale, I was thrilled with  it overall. The writers clearly understood the source material incredibly well, especially when it came to Offred’s quiet grief and desperation in a household that denied her the ability to ever express those emotions openly.

One of my biggest questions when I first heard that this series was going to be made was, “how will they flesh this world out?” The book itself didn’t always explain how certain parts of Gilead like the Colonies worked because they weren’t things that Offred had seen and her perspective was so limited.

It was wonderful to see this world expanded. I loved almost every single change the writers made in order to expand the original material. It was especially nice to learn what happened to Luke as this was one of the biggest unanswered questions in Offred’s life.

The people who made this show couldn’t have done a better job at bringing Offred’s story to the small screen. I am incredibly happy with their work, and I can’t wait to see what happens in season two next year.

In the meantime, posts here will go back to their regular rotation of topics. If you haven’t read the book or seen this series yet, I highly recommend doing so.

Previous posts in this series:

5 Things I Want from The Handmaid’s Tale

Introducing Offred’s World

Gender Treachery

Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

Faithful

A Woman’s Place

The Other Side

Jezebels

The Bridge

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The Handmaid’s Tale: The Bridge

This post includes spoilers for “The Bridge” (Season 1, Episode 9) of The Handmaid’s Tale as well as for the book this show is based on. As usual, the link on the left has full summaries of all of the episodes that have aired so far. 

Wow, this week was intense! I think it’s my favorite episode yet in this series because of how beautifully everything is coming together.

I’m going to discuss “The Bridge”  by breaking it up into the experiences of certain characters. This is something I did a few weeks ago for “A Woman’s Choice,” and I think it’s a good way to gather my thoughts about everything since there were a lot of exciting and scary things happening.

Aunt Lydia, Ofwarren, and Angela

Aunt Lydia, the woman in the picture on the left who ran the Red Center where Offred and the other Handmaid’s were trained before they were sent out into the world, showed up again this week.

I’ve spent the last eight weeks not having any sympathy for Lydia at all. She has always come across to me as a true believer, and that makes her much scarier than she’d be if she were simply sadistic.

One of the things I’m hoping we get in season two is an exploration of her background. I want to know what could make an ordinary person cling so tightly to a belief system that they know is destroying people’s lives. This happens all of the time in real life, too. It wasn’t something that Margaret Atwood or the other writers had to make up to help the story flow. People behave that way sometimes for their entire lives without ever choosing – or being able to, if you don’t think it’s a choice – to ask hard questions about the things they see going on around them.

Will Aunt Lydia suffer this same fate? She’s a character that I like even less than I do Serena Joy or the Commander, but I still want to see if she ever wakes up and realizes how many lives she’s helped to destroy. Aunt Lydia was present when Ofwarren ceremoniously handed baby Angela over to Warren and his wife before being transferred to a new home. She also showed up later on in the episode after Ofwarren ran away from her new home, kidnapped baby Angela, and stood on the edge of a bridge threatening to jump into frigid water to both of their deaths.

Angela died in her early infancy in the book, so I was genuinely expecting her to meet the same fate once I saw her mother holding her and deciding whether or not to commit suicide. It would have been a darkly appropriate plot twist given how easily people die in this show, but I was glad to see that Angela survived that scene. Whether Ofwarren will be okay depends on how you interpret the final scene she was in. I’m guessing that she’ll live, but it’s honestly hard to say what will happen to her next or whether Aunt Lydia will soften her views at all as a result of this near-tragedy.

How can she deny just how traumatized Ofwarren has been by all of this? We’ve all seen this character’s mental health decline severely over the course of the show.

Moira

Moira’s fate seems much more certain to me at this point.

I was shocked and thrilled to see her again this week.This was something I wasn’t expecting to see until season two, if it even happened at all. I loved the fact that Offred convinced her to stop giving up and start fighting for her freedom again. Those two are platonic soulmates. They are so good for each other in every single way.

I silently cheered at the final scene of this episode, too. It was wonderful to see how quickly Moira came up with a plan to escape Jezebels. Here’s hoping that the final episode of this season will show her arriving in Toronto or some other safe place. Moira’s suffering hasn’t been shown on camera as much as Offred or Ofwarren’s has, but there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s had some horrifying experiences.

Offred

Offred’s development this week wasn’t quite so interesting to me. Of course I’m glad that she’s decided to join Mayday and fight back, but that’s something that’s been building since the first episode. I’d argue that we all knew it was coming. I’m only surprised that it didn’t kick off a lot sooner.

What I was expecting to learn about Offred this week was that she was pregnant. There was a short conversation between the Martha of the house and Serena Joy about her monthly cycle, but it’s still too soon to say if Offred is expecting. When I wasn’t grossed out at the thought of people paying that much attention to something so personal and private, I was wondering if this wasn’t foreshadowing for episode 10.

Offred does wonder if she’s pregnant at the end of the book, so there would be canonical reasons to follow the same path. Then again, baby Angela is still alive and will presumably remain that way. It is possible that the writers decided to wait until a later season to dig up this part of the original plot. We’ll have to wait and see.

Next Monday can’t come quickly enough!

Previous posts in this series:

5 Things I Want from The Handmaid’s Tale

Introducing Offred’s World

Gender Treachery

Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

Faithful

A Woman’s Place

The Other Side

Jezebels

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