Olivia Dunham

So my homie Brandon Eisenberg, who I would like to give a linkage to, but when I look up his personal website on fb it lists three separate pages, and I frankly don't know if any of those are blogs of him personally or whatever, anyway, he cornered me online this morning and told me I needed to see Breaking Bad, so naturally I responded that he needed to see Red Riding, because that was a pretty good miniseries and it kept me intrigued.
The truth is, I don't really want to get into Breaking Bad. I've heard about the show a lot from a lot of people who really like it but regardless something about it makes me feel like I just wouldn't enjoy it. For one thing, if I wanted to watch people cook up meth I would have just stayed in Chico, but also, I haven't heard any praise that would make me think, 'Okay, that would make a show good.' For the same reason, I haven't tried watching Dexter yet.

At any rate, I decided I should finish watching Fringe before I watch a new show, even though that's bullshit, because since The Office and 30 Rock ended this season that's opened up space in my life for 2 new shows. Regardless, I started watching it again, without remembering where I left off, and I just took a stab in the dark and picked one where people are being killed from the inside out by cold viruses that grow to the size of cats. That show is badass. It really is, and at the heart of it is a badass woman named Olivia Dunham.

I want to make one thing clear right now. This post is about the fictional character Olivia Dunham. The actor who plays her is probably very nice, but I don't know her and I'm guessing she's not a badass secret agent who shoots guns and is down to fight the corporate machine and get to the bottom of vast conspiracies.
Her character is almost identical in personality to the agent from The 4400, which is one of my favorite shows ever. I don't know if there's a term for that sort of stock character, but if not I move that we call them 'Scully Clones.' I guess if I'm doing a feminist cultural analysis on it, the reason for Scully clones is probably similar to final girls, where the film wants to show a tough character but needs her to be female so that she can have a sensitive side/pull more empathy from the audience. That's not an all bad thing. In a sense, Scully clones are better agents then their male counterparts because they're capable of being nurturing, or in touch emotionally, or otherwise sensitive when the situation calls for it, which, from the little I know about tactical situations, I believe can go a long way to coping with the stress of a tactical situation, both for the agent and her partners. At any rate, I always like Scully clones. Although, admittedly, I never got that much into X-Files. Something about fictional re-imagining of purported incidents just never acquires my interest. I also couldn't get into From Hell.