Cupid, a remake of a cancelled show barely a decade old and written by one of the original writers, premiered Tuesday night. The basis of the show is the interplay between a man, who claims to be Cupid of Roman mythology on a mission to put together 100 couples, and a female psychiatrist, and novelist, determined to shatter this man’s deific delusion and a steadfast believer in the slow death of “True Love.” Each week, there will be a couple that Cupid (AKA Trevor Pierce) will try to put together, and I imagine he’ll succeed more often than not.

Earlier this year, CW aired, and quickly cancelled, a show on their Sunday night block called Valentine, about a female romance novelist recruited by Aphrodite and Cupid, along with a few of their Olympian friends, to help reinvigorate the world with Love, one couple at a time. In many ways, the shows are very similar. Obviously, the former is going to emphasize the ambiguity of Trevor Pierce’s situation — is he a broken man, or an exiled god? — and the latter was quite explicit, and delightfully mythological, about the history of their Cupid. But overall, both shows will follow that structure of a weekly romance unfurling as the overarching story develops in the background.

I’ve admitted in the past to being an unabashed romantic and lover of love stories, which why it’s no surprise I enjoyed Valentine, and really enjoyed Cupid. I’ve also been re-watching Gilmore Girls from the beginning and find myself very much caught up in the girlie moments of the show, tittering when they describe their first kiss or sighing during that all-important first dance. So I guess what I’m trying to tell all of you, is that I’m a huge girl when it comes to these things, so my judgement of this sort of material is likely biased. But, hey, if you’re got an hour free Tuesday nights, might as well watch two people fall in love, right?

Last night, yet another of the final episodes of Kyle XY aired, and the show still manages to amaze me with its ability to draw realistic characters while maintaining its sci-fi arcs.

I started watching Kyle XY for a lot reasons. The first reason I had was the music: there’s an ongoing thread in the original scores for Kyle XY that, to this day, reminds me of Explosions in the Sky. And we all know that Explosions in the Sky’s music makes even the most mundane moments seem epic so the early moments of the show were greatly enhanced by the minimalist bombast of the score. I mean, there’s a scene where Kyle eats a freaking muffin in the first episode that makes it seem like he’s climbing Mount Everest.

So the music made me stay for a little while, but the thing that really made me stick around was the novelty and realism with which they handled a character with complete and utter amnesia, though it’s not really amnesia per se. The scene I linked to earlier is Kyle’s first meal. He didn’t know what food was or how to eat before that scene and his discovery of it is handled very well. In a scene shortly after this he pees his pants because he didn’t know what that strange sensation he was having meant. There are lots of little interesting trains of thought brought up through the narration in those early episodes that offer a fantastic look at what it might be like to be born fully grown. This sort of storytelling is already very much in the realm of science fiction, but the show goes beyond that by introducing Kyle’s superhuman abilities and the mystery of where he came from, why he isn’t there anymore, and why he has no bellybutton. And while those sci-fi elements are interesting, the thing that really truly makes me excited to see each new episode is the characters.

When I wrote about Kyle XY getting canceled I mostly brought up its sci-fi aspects, but the real world relationships are why the show is so good. That science fiction is a part of the tapestry of the show is surely a reason I enjoy it, but I get as much pleasure from Kyle using his super genius brain to hack into a mainframe as when he’s super nervous about his first date with Amanda.

Last night’s episode had some of the sci-fi stories to tell, but the real beauty of them was that they were there to facilitate telling stories about the characters. Kyle used his ability to visually explore memories to help Jessi, his female bellybutton-free counterpart, get some closure on the disappearance of her mother. Those scenes also brought some much needed empathy and humanity to Jessi and managed to convert me from a Jessi pseudo-hater into a full-on Jessi/Kyle shipper. And all of that happened in just one of the plots of the episode. In another thread, Josh and Andy, one of the best teenager relationships — one of the best relationships in general to be honest — on television, are forced to deal with their impending separation. And he makes all the stupid mistakes you know you shouldn’t make when you’re desperate not to lose the most important person in your life. Josh began the series as the slacker joker who never takes a moment seriously and if you started watching this show with this episode you would have been amazed at his evolution and growth.

I wish this show was continuing on. Mondays at 9, two shows come on that I watch: Heroes and Kyle XY. I think you all know my stance on Heroes by now, but I haven’t done my due diligence in expressing my love of this sweet little show. Don’t let the fact that it airs on ABC Family dissuade you: this show is worth your time. Enjoy it while it’s still here.

I wrote a while ago about how guilty pleasures are stupid and that we should all just admit if we like something even if we know it’s stupid. This week, Prison Break kicked off its fourth season, and there is no better example currently on TV of a show so bad it’s good.

When Prison Break started, I didn’t start watching because I wanted to watch a bad show. I thought the idea behind the show was intriguing and, let’s be honest, an engineer playing superhero isn’t a common occurrence. The first season was great for its first half and good for the rest. But after that the show got worse. Some people ridiculed the second season because they were no longer in prison, so the name no longer applied. But that’s a facetious argument at best. The people on Lost aren’t all lost, either physically or emotionally, that doesn’t mean the show’s name should be changed.

But that doesn’t mean the show didn’t get ridiculous. And yet, as the show degenerated rather than giving up on the show I continued to watch but with glee over the absurdities found in every new moment. By that point, half the fun of any given episode was reading the recaps over at television without pity, where not a single logical flaw or absurdity is forgiven.

The real problem here is that other entertainment media don’t seem to have this problem with “guilty pleasures.” Reality TV made the term necessary in the television world because no other medium has such bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping trash. Plan Nine from Outer Space is not seen as a “guilty pleasure” but rather it’s loved and revered for being one of the most unintentionally terrible and incompetent movies ever made.

So let’s make this clear; there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. There are simply things we like (and often love) in spite of their flaws. Would you call your brother a guilty pleasure because he has an addiction? Would you call your wife a guilty pleasure because she cracks her knuckles? Humans are passionate creatures who love and hate for reasons ranging from the sublime to the petty. It’s one of the reasons hatred and bigotry exists, and its one of the reasons adultery and polygamy exist. It is a core aspect of our humanity. Ignorance may be bliss but calling our less noble loves and passions “guilty pleasures” belittles them and simultaneously gives them power over us. Looking at the uglier aspects of our psyche, even when manifested as the enjoyment of bad television, is necessary to self-improvement.

Awareness of our surroundings through highly attuned senses and through opportunistic pattern recognition led us to the top of the Darwinian food chain. But now our society exists outside of those confines and so beyond this awareness we require self-awareness: an understanding of our internal flaws. Whether we succumb to or rage against them, our flaws drive us as much as anything else. Ignoring them is as smart as ignoring the oncoming wolf or lion 10,000 years ago.

So, am I pushing the point too hard? Guily pleasures don’t exist. Love comes in many forms and is formed by many things. Being aware of that is a good thing and ignoring it or pretending it isn’t true by calling things guilty pleasures is a bad thing. It weakens you and makes certain your ongoing ignorance of yourself.

I’m going to have a brief detour into personal life angst, so bear with me. I’m not good with strangers; I almost never start a conversation with someone I don’t know. I also tend to live online and at my computer, so I don’t go out very often. I almost never go to bars, and going out to stores, the next best place to meet people, is increasingly rare for me in part to online shopping. But sometimes when I do make my rare ventures out to the real world, I come across a girl that really gets my attention.

Earlier today, I went to Walmart to look around for a new bookshelf/dvd shelf and as soon as I entered I saw to my right a stunning girl. She was working the express lane and as I looked at her she took a look around and our eyes met. Though it was brief I felt an instant connection. It was one of those moments that would run in slow motion if my life were a movie. Well after a few minutes, I decided Walmart’s options were pretty shitty and decided to go home. But I didn’t, as I left there I looked towards my car and then I looked towards the nearby Chapters. For some reason I decided I’d drop by Chapters before I headed for home.

I walked about the aisles for a while picking up a few more books for my nonexistent bookshelf and then I headed to the front to pay for them. As I was walking down the main path to the front of the store, I noticed that same girl again, this time searching for a book at their online kiosk. My first thought was that this was a moment of serendipity. A perfect opportunity offered up by the universe for me, a chance to start up a conversation with a girl, and a girl I’m already interested in no less.

So as per usual, I walked by her with awe, stopped for a few seconds to think about the best way to start the conversation and after coming up with a few lame introductions which would only have worked if she were similarly interested in me I abandoned the idea entirely, paid for my books, and went home cursing all the way.

So regarding the post’s title, why am I such a coward? Countless men have sucked up the fear of rejection and general introversion to ask out girls they fancy, or the species as a whole would be nothing but extroverted douchebags. So why didn’t I just man the fuck up and ask her out?

This episode is just… really amazing. The build up to the final moments where the doomed love affair from the past speak for the story of the present is really fantastic. James finally manages to have his happy ending, but Buffy must go on living through the horror of a broken heart. Not only that, but the scene where the two spirits reconcile, after James prepares to kill himself again through Buffy, when watched after seeing the season finale is so profoundly prophetic. You can really see the effort put into not only ensuring a cohesive arc for the season with excellent foreshadowing, but also in planting the seeds of how the dynamic between Buffy and Angel changes when he returns in the third season. I’d talk more but I’m trying to keep this marathon going at a steady pace. I’ll have to come back and write a more detailed review of my favourite episodes when I’m done.