Andraste

So, it took me six days to go from 'well, this is interesting ...' to 'WHY ISN'T THERE MORE ALREADY???' I could sit here the rest of the night and nitpick plot details and pacing issues, and not all of the eight character storylines were equally strong. However, the show's visual beauty and amazing character interaction firmly outweighed its weaknesses for me. Some dot points about why:

- While the details didn't always work for me, the plot always dragged me along. I never finished watching an episode without desperately wanting to know what happened next. (Including, unfortunately, the last one. I know this went up less than a week ago, Netflix, but please put me out of my misery and renew it.)

- I love the way they explore how the relatively low-level superpower of sharing a psychic connection with seven other people changes the lives of the people involved and makes so many impossible things possible.

- Most of all, though, I just loved watching the characters interact. Some of my favourite moments were the ones where they just talked quietly. (I will admit to crying through all of what I will always think of as Nomi's Big Gay Pep Talk.)

- A quarter of the main cast are LGBT (sorry, Nomi, I know you want to get rid of the letters ...) Half are women. Around half regular characters are people of colour. Because they shot in the actual locations, the Kenyans are largely played by Kenyans, the Icelanders by Icelanders, the Koreans by Koreans, the Mexicans by Mexicans, the Indians by Indians and the Germans by Germans! (Seriously, that last one surprised me the most. Hollywood German accents are usually relentlessly awful.)

- The cast is fabulous. I have favourites, but they're all charismatic and likeable.

- In addition to the above, there are a whole lot of completely shallow reasons to like this show. For starters, I don't think I've seen such a collectively attractive cast since Heroes. And the writers and directors are clearly enjoying the freedom from the constraints of network TV to bring us lots of nudity and sex, gratuitous and otherwise. I already mentioned the rainbow dildo, but I'm especially happy to report that they don't follow that enraging trend of showing women naked constantly while all the men mysteriously keep their pants on. Close-up, full-frontal male nudity ftw! (It's totally relevant to the plot. Really.) There is also a bisexual psychic orgy that has to be seen to be believed.

- Speaking of shallow reasons to watch: Naveen Andrews! (Who has remained depressingly clothed so far. Dear show: my crush dates back to The Buddha of Suburbia, and he wasn't shy back then. So please make sure Jonas is in the next bisexual psychic orgy, kthnx.)

- It's given me an excuse to use the phrase 'bisexual psychic orgy' multiple times.

- I am both amused and pleased that when we talk about the time on that JMS show where all the telepaths sang together, we now have an example where this was heart-warming and glorious as well as one where it was terrible. I have to wonder if JMS has been thinking about fandom's reaction to Byron's protest song for all these years, trying to work out where he went wrong and how to fix it ...

- Miguel Silvestre gets my vote for the actor who can deliver any line of JMS dialogue, no matter how potentially stagey or corny, and make it sound completely convincing. (Naturally Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas shared it on B5.) It probably helps that this is an ability his character has in universe, too. I think the part where he talks to the bartender is my favourite example. People who have watched already will know the speech I mean.

- I desperately need to see these characters knock over a casino or perform an improbable bank heist, in fanfic if nowhere else.