With the second season of House of Cards released on Netflix on Feb. 14, it’s worth taking a look back at the lessons we have learned from Congressman Francis Underwood in season one.

1. Accept Pain:

“There are two kinds of pain: the sort of pain that makes you strong or useless pain, the sort of pain that’s only suffering. I have no patience for useless things.”

What is it about murder mystery shows that fascinates us as an audience? Is it the reminder of our own mortality? The look into humanity’s dark nature? Is it the self-affirming knowledge that something bad has happened to someone else?

Murder mysteries and police procedurals have experienced a dedicated fan base over the decades. Shows like Murder She Wrote, Twin Peaks and CSI have had a massive effect on popular culture.

It was inevitable that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would have to face an existential crisis: is it a Marvel movie in television form or a Joss Whedon show — a question I raised in a previous column. Five weeks in and comments around the Internet are predictably divided, between continued excitement and rising disappointment. A moderate consensus is that the show is still figuring itself out.

A slew of strong female characters have spread rapidly across movies and television shows in the last few years. They’re smart, they’re sexy and they can beat up just about anyone — including the majority of the male cast. A prime example of this trend is ABC’s Once Upon A Time with the show’s cast of warrior women.

In the last part of my fall television column I previewed four shows I was looking forward to this fall: The Blacklist, Sleepy Hollow, Dracula and Almost Human. This week I look at a show that should have been included last week: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Two years ago, if I listed off my favourite shows, not one of them would have been Canadian. As a Canadian, I would still have rather watched American television than Canadian television. But that has changed recently. A handful of Canadian shows have been getting attention, two science fiction shows in particular.


Scripted television comes in two flavours: the serial variety and the procedural variety. Serial television shows follow storylines across an entire season. Procedural shows offer individual storylines within a single episode. A show’s identity and audience appeal is usually determined by which category it fits into.