new rule: all Doctors must perform their own theme songs.

I am, as a general rule, not one of those people who gives a crap about what actors are like in real life, but eponymous_rose pointed me toward this today and now that I've watched it about forty-seven times I feel the need to wave my hands at it and say: OH MY GOD HOW CAN TWO HUMAN BEINGS POSSIBLY BE SO ADORABLE. THEY MUST EACH BE HALF-KITTEN. OR HALF-PUPPY. MATT SMITH IS HALF-KITTEN AND KAREN GILLIAN IS HALF-PUPPY AND TOGETHER THEY ARE SO ADORABLE THAT MY EYES BURN.

Anyway. This is a clip from a recent Confidential.

thirty days of television meme - day five.

Day Five: A Show You Hate.



Like most people, I really don't bother with shows I dislike long enough to actually hate them. The Bachelor, on the other hand, draws me in once every few years through a combination of circumstance and masochistic fascination. I've had a number of roommates over the years -- in high school, college, and after -- who were devoted to the show, and it sucked me in even as it infuriated me.

I probably don't need to explain to anyone on my flist why this show is disgusting. I hate any reality show that relies on the cat fight for so much of its drama, that misogynist's wet dream that reassures its audience that 1) competition between women always devolves into childish, bitchy tantrums, and 2) it's okay to look down on, slut-shame, and hate women because women hate each other. And all of this heartbreak and emotion and tears, over a man these women hardly know! The show invites you to ridicule even the nicest and most sympathetic of these women (because while they deliberately cast the crazies to incite drama and the aforementioned cat fights, they also include just enough sane, intelligent, likable women to make the crazies stand out), because that's the not-so-secret appeal of most reality TV -- to make the viewer feel superior to the people they're watching. I watch The Bachelor and I think, "Well, I'll never wear a bikini on national television, but at least I'm not a romantically desperate psycho-bitch slut." I hate that voice in my head. I hate it, and I hate that this brings out in me a latent sexism (and thus, a latent self-hatred) that I find so horrific in others.

I swear to god, women are better than this. Women are better than this, men are better than this, and love is better than this. We have to be.