Love to the Gingers

Please find below yet another ginger fan-service post by our own guest blogger, Jason (aka Jayowolf, cause apparently animal nicknames are becoming a thing). If you are a lover of gingers, as so many of us at TV Sluts are, feel free to suggest your favorite fiery-headed fox for adoration and squee.

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Not long ago, I wrote a post here that someone in my life called "gushingly" positive about Christina Hendricks. The word "gushingly" was used with that same kind of faux constructive praise, sort of like the tone of voice you use when you're trying to find something nice to say about the business contractor who just sold your house out from under you.

Now, I don't think I'm being too unfair in saying that part of the bite to the word had something to do with jealousy. And while there are probably a number of things that could have inspired said emotion, I'm going to go for the most obvious one, or at least the one that I want to believe is most true:

HOLY F*#KING SH!T CHRISTINA HENDRICKS IS A REDHEAD!!!

Don't hide from the truth, dear readers – in one way or another we're all a little intrigued by the coppertops in our lives. To that end, I offer what will hopefully become an ongoing feature on this blog – Television's Favorite Gingers.

Just in time for the New Year!

Gillian Anderson

Long before Christina Hendricks fled the sci-fi world for period dramas, Gillian Anderson had that territory mapped, charted and sold to Rand-McNally. Easily the world's sexiest doctor-cum-scientist-turned-FBI agent (granted, it's a small pool), Anderson skeptic-ed her way into our nerdy hearts as Special Agent Dana Scully from The X-Files.

While she could easily have become a staple of Comic-Con and other social-skill challenged gatherings, she skewed classy instead and opted for "serious" roles in adaptations of Dickens' Bleak House and Wharton's House of Mirth. Basically lots of time spent in corsets and drawing rooms without having to ever look at a surgical scalpel again.

Yeah, Gill – We thought the X-Files 2 script
was a little suspicious, too.

Anderson was labeled at the time the "thinking man's sex symbol", a phrase that kind of carries all the same bite as the aforementioned "gushing" when you really think about it. In any case, it may have contributed a little bit to her publicity off-camera. Although far from the train wrecks of today's modern pop culture starlets, Anderson was noted for purposefully cultivating a far raunchier image of herself in real life than she portrayed on television.

This actually was probably a smart, not to mention lucrative, move considering the last thing a serious actor wants is to be typecast. By being unafraid of showing herself as the opposite of the staid, buttoned up Agent Scully, she was also able to stick to being identified as an actress and not just the former star of The X-Files.

Also? This. Just because.

And yes, we know she isn't a natural redhead. It was out of a bottle. That why this is called "Television's Favorite Gingers" and not "Real Life's Favorite Gingers Because a Bunch of Killjoy Nitpicks Had to Get All Wicked on Our Asses."

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Next time: "As unabashed in his nerdiness as he is about his small stature, he easily fits the mold of that friend that would just be cool to hang with."

Getting in the spirit.

Just a few Christmas-themed moments to brighten your day...


It is the season of the heart, a special time of caring.




Rock on, Linus.



Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.



(that last one had me tearing up. Damn you, Jimmy Stewart!)

Tastes great, less filling.

Unless you are a total Grinch, you probably have a soft spot for holiday movies. Some of my favorites include White Christmas, Home Alone, Love Actually, Muppet Christmas Carol...I could still list about 5 more, but that's not the point of this post. No, this post is actually more of a confession. One of my favorite holiday movies is basically a lame bit of Hallmark Channel fluff, but I can't help it. I love this movie. What is it?

A Boyfriend for Christmas.

I can feel you cringing from here. In fact, you've probably never heard of it. It aired on the Hallmark Channel back in 2004, and has become a perennial cable channel favorite. So when I noticed it was airing last night on the Lifetime Movie Channel I got really really excited.

Here's a little taste of the plot:

As a 12 year old, Holly Grant meets Santa and as she thinks she is too old for traditional gifts, she tells Santa she wants a boyfriend for Christmas. He leaves a gift under her tree with a message: she will receive her requested gift in the 20th year "when two hearts are ready". 20 years later when Holly is working for a non-profit and has given up on love. Santa hasn't forgotten his promise and arranges for Ryan Hughes, to be Holly's gift for Christmas. For reasons that are too involved to go into here, Ryan initially hides his true identity from Holly, and agrees to "pretend" to play the role of her boyfriend at her family holiday gathering. But of course they start to like each other blah blah blah then hijinks and misunderstandings occur, etc, but everything works out in the end.

I know. Sounds kind of lame, right? It's full of B stars, and nothing about it is really that great, but for some reason, I just love it. It's got just the right amount of Christmas magic with Santa, a happy ending (spoiler alert!), and Holly wears this really great blue coat throughout the movie that I've always really liked. When it aired, the TV Guide reviewer said it was, "sweet but full of empty calories." Fair enough. But sometimes I want empty calories. And wouldn't it be nice if Santa could be your match-maker?

Santa, Holly, and her pretty blue coat.

So judge away, I can take it. I'm not ashamed of my love for this movie, and I bet if you did a little soul-searching, you can find some really embarrassing holiday movie that you love. Also, it's airing again on Christmas Eve on the Lifetime Movie Channel, so I suggest you set your DVR. Trust me, it's like the twinkie of Christmas movies.

The good old days.

A few weeks ago I randomly decided to start watching Alias. Like a lot of shows (Gossip Girl, Heroes, etc.), Alias had an awesome first season and then made a gradual decline in drekitude. Its mythology got too complex, the characters and plots got too ridiculous...things just went off the rails. But I have very fond memories of the first season, so I decided to give it another watch. And of course I got hooked again.

While rewatching there were lots of things that I was reminded of. And since I am such a nice person, or because I needed to come up with something to blog about, I decided to share them with you.

1. The wigs were really cool. The iconic pink one from the pilot is my favorite, but Sydney was truly a master of head and hair disguise.


2. Victor Garber is a) incredibly awesome and b) can say more just by pursing his lips than most actors can say in an entire monologue.

3. David Anders (aka Sark) is smoking.

4. The Rambaldi foolishness may have been present and planned from the beginning, but I pretty much had no idea what was going on even from the second episode. And you thought it just got complicated in the later seasons.

5. Bradley Cooper! I always felt kind of superior to everyone that I discovered how neat he was back in 2001, way before The Hangover came out.

6. Sydney's friends' social lives were always annoying. I mean, really. There are wigs and asskicking to hand out--do you think I really care about lame Francine and her relationship troubles? NOT.

7. Sydney cries at least once in every episode. Every. Single Episode.

Will I keep with my rewatch through the other seasons? I can't say for sure right now. I seem to remember Season 2 had some pretty cool moments and one hell of a cliff hanger, but do I want to waded through more of the Rambaldi stuff to get there? I dunno. Until then, I still have lots more wigs to enjoy.