Summer Glau is not as awesome as I was led to believe
Living in a world surrounded by Whedonites, such as I am, I’d heard a lot of good things about Summer Glau. Or course I should have realized that praise coming from people who are Whedonites should be taken with a grain of salt, but I don’t hate everything the man’s ever done. (I just don’t worship it, you know?)
Oh God they have a button.
And I know I’ve been going on a lot about The Cape lately, but God bless it, I am really trying to give the show a chance. I need stupid bubblegum television! I need mindless action sequences and over-the-top villains. I AM TRYING TO LOVE YOU, THE CAPE, WHY DO YOU KEEP RUINING IT!
So, anyway, Summer Glau stars on The Cape as Orwell, which is ha ha ha because George Orwell wrote 1984 and, like Big Brother, Orwell is watching you.
We love Big Brother!
God, I wish they were that clever all the time.
(And that’s not even all that clever, but when you compare it to everything else on the show, it’s like someone was channeling a real writer or something.)
And the thing about Orwell is that she’s supposed to be a computer genius, fine, I’ll buy that, whatever. But all of a sudden, she’s buddying around with The Cape, which might be interesting if there was one iota of sexual tension between the two of them or something, but it’s more like watching two rocks just sitting there, and neither rock realizes the other exists. Oh, and one of the rocks has washboard abs, but truly awful hair.
I’m sorry, folks, I just don’t enjoy image searches for this guy, so this is what you get.
And the other thing about Orwell is that she’s not supposed to be some ass-kicking machine, which is, apparently, what Summer Glau is known for, even though she is smaller than most 8-year-olds. (And, actually, I know a couple of tall 7-year-olds, too.)
OK, I have to admit this IS impressive.
So, fine, she’s not kicking ass and taking names, but can’t she try, I don’t know, not delivering her lines like some sort of automaton? It’s bad enough we’ve got The Cape’s wife who can’t fake-cry to save her life and his dead-eyed kid, and they’re not spending nearly enough time focusing on Chess, who is far superior to the heroes in every way, especially in the being-portrayed-by-James-Frain way, which is rapidly becoming a super-big plus in my book.
Gratuitous photo of James Frain as a vampire alert!
But Summer Glau isn’t even trying? Or maybe she is trying, and she’s just not that good?
I mean, God, the car has more personality than she does.
Look, all I know is: Whedonites, you lied, and I won’t forgive you for this.
You, too, could own your own struggling franchise!
If I had the money, I'd buy it and rename the franchise "Batman vs. The Terminator." Sure, I'd get sued, but then I could just sell the franchise to pay the lawyer fees.
Q. Did you know that the rights to the Terminator Franchise can be bought for a wee $60-$70 million?
A. Let Joss Whedon have it for his throat lozenge idea alone! (I am now breaking the two-sentence review rule to say that I can’t believe I’m commending Joss Whedon for a good idea.)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer vs. Echo
Now, we all know that when Buffy faced Eliza Dushku’s Faith on the small screen, she came up triumphant. I’m not quite certain how we all know that, especially myself, as I have only seen three episodes of Buffy and (scandal!) didn’t like any of them. The episode in which Buffy defeats Faith was not one of those three episodes, by the by.
But what if, just what if, mind you, Buffy had to go up against Whatserface from Dollhouse (not to be confused with Whatserella from what is sure to be a soon bestselling young adult romance, “Title Coming Soon, and it has something to do with Bulgarian Demons”)?
Well, she can’t.
Except here, in the pages of Hollywood Hates Me.
Look, Echo, you think you're all that, but I slay vampires and other evil stuff.
I. Have. No. Personality. Of my own. Yes, I mean Echo, not Eliza Dushku.
Let the battle of the Joss Whedon “feminist” icons begin! (They’re not particularly feminist, is why the quote marks.)
Physicality. I like pretty people. Men, women, it doesn’t matter. Pretty people make me weak in the knees and I go “guh guh guh” a lot. Sarah Michelle Gellar is cute and so is Eliza Dushku, but neither lady makes me “guh guh guh.” So, um, I pick Sarah Michelle Gellar, because she’s been in more cosmetics commercials. That’s a sign of beauty, right?
Ass-kicking quotient: Like the previous matchup of Superman vs. Batman, we come across a slight disparity in skills here. Buffy is the Slayer by birth and has all sorts of supernatural abilities at her disposal. (Including, apparently, the power of being irresistable to hot vampires.) Echo, on the other hand, can have all sorts of martial arts bad-assedness programmed into her (I assume? I haven’t watched this show either. Don’t ask me why I’m writing about it, then. Shut up.), possibly even the awesome that is Ray Park. I love you, Ray Park. Winner? Echo, because I love Ray Park. (Wait, is that even logical?)
Who cares? Ray Park!
Feminism! I recently read a hilarious article on Cracked.com about why it sucks to be a Joss Whedon fan, and it made me feel bad for all you Whedonites out there. You poor, poor bastards. Anyhoo! It made the point that Whedon claims to be a feminist, then has these scantily-clad women running around kicking ass … but they need a man to complete them, so it’s really more like he’s a fanboy. Sounds about right to me. However, apparently, people (any ladies among you?) consider his female characters as icons of feminism, and since Buffy was the first one, she wins. Whoo. Go, Buffy.
Speaking of men completing them. Buffy got to date the sloping-foreheaded Angel before she went on to the superiorly beautiful Spike. There were some other guys in between or something, but 1) didn’t watch the show and 2) James Marsters is bleeding stunning, so they don’t count.
It's the cheekbones.
I don’t know if Echo has a love interest. She’s like a blank slate or something, with no personality of her own. (Yes, I mean Echo, not Eliza Dushku.) But she does get to hang out with Helo from Battlestar Galactica, who certainly brings on the pretty.
Damn.
In conclusion, I would not turn either of these gents away were I to get them drunk enough to hang out with me in the first place. It’s a tie!
Speaking of men some more, which one of these characters is basically a high-priced escort/dating sim? Echo wins! And by wins, I mean loses! Go to hell, Joss Whedon.
Saved the world? I’m pretty sure that’s on Buffy’s gravestone. Winner? Buffy.
Ohhhhh, "a lot." She saved the world a lot.
Got Joss Whedon to create an entire series based around her “acting” “ability”? Winner? Eliza Dushku! I mean, Echo!
Has a group of reliable friends? In Echo’s case, not particularly. I mean, unless you count a bunch of personality-less (until they’re imprinted with one, and seriously, how do I know this stuff since I’ve never seen an episode?) drones, she’s got no one. Well, she’s got Helo, but whatever. Buffy had the “Scooby Gang,” and one of them was a powerful witch. Winner? Buffy!
Overall winner? Buffy, by a squidge.
Hollywood Hates Me 