TV Roundup Spring 2014

I haven’t binge watched a show for a long time although I do have a few regulars. The updated version of Friends, New Girl makes me laugh out loud. Agents of Shield with its loveable characters and silly in-jokes gives me warm and fuzzies as if I am actually snuggling up to Joss Whedon on the sofa. Womens prison drama Orange is the New Black was sharp and entertaining, as was the dramatisation of the story of revolutionary sex researchers Masters and Johnson in Masters of Sex.

I didn’t know that a bold and brassy drama about country music would impact my life, but for over two weeks I’ve been averaging three episodes of ABC’s Nashville each day. My laundry continues to accumulate, as does the length of my todo list.

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Why Lena Dunham’s Girls can’t represent every woman – and why it shouldn’t have to

I love Girls, but sympathise with the show’s creator Lena Dunham who has been bombarded with criticism, for what I see as a well written, well acted and engaging series with strong voice. The below is from a good analysis of this with a feminist perspective from New Statesman’s Laurie Penny.

Nobody is saying that Lena Dunham doesn’t deserve critique. Debate and discussion is part of the life of a piece of art, particularly when it comes to episodic television, which has replaced film as the dominant medium of collective storytelling. What is curious is that no male showrunner has ever been subject to quite this sort of intense personal scrutiny, this who-are-you-and-how-dare-you. No male showrunner has ever been asked to speak to a universal male experience in the same way, because “man” is still a synonym for “human being” in a way that “woman” is not.

via Why Lena Dunham's Girls can't represent every woman – and why it shouldn't have to.

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