weaselett

Okay so here are the answers I've had so far (plus those I could think of) - thank to everyone whose suggested peeps :)


Christians
Matt Murdock - Daredevil
David Rossi, Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss - Criminal Minds
Dana Scully - X-Files
Book - Firefly
Josiah Bartlett - West Wing
James Hathaway - Lewis
Shirley, Troy - Community
Vanessa - Penny Dreadful
Jeffrey Sinclair - Babylon 5
Declan Dunn - Mysterious Ways
Father Francis Mulcahy - MASH
Henry Deacon, Allison Blake - Eureka
Father Dowling Mysteries
Nate Ford - Leverage

Jews
Don Eppes - Numb3rs
Felicity Smoak - Arrow
Willow Rosenberg (up to a point) - Buffy
Susan Ivanova - Babylon 5
Ross & Monica Gellar - Friends
Cristina Yang - Grey's Anatomy
Toby Ziegler, Josh Lyman - The West Wing
Annie - Community
Grace Adler - Will and Grace
Ziva David - NCIS


Muslims
Djaq - Robin Hood
Survivor 2008 characters
Abed - Community
Sayid Jarrah - Lost


Buddhists
Inara Serra - Firefly
Steve Jinks - Warehouse 13


Hindu
Apu - The Simpsons
Kelley Kapoor - The Office
Rajesh Koothrappali - The Big Bang Theory
Kala Rasal - sense8

Others/Fantasy/sci fi
Unknown Neo religion - Pierce - Community
Foundationist - Stephen Franklin, Babylon 5


Basically, list a sci-fi show and there will be religion discussed and shown at some point. Ditto Fantasy. Apparently having it as a non-standard religion makes it ok to have it as an active part of people's lives ;)

(Xena - Legend of the Seeker - Babylon 5 - Battlestar Galatica - Star Wars - etc)

Can anyone think of any others?(Especially Sikh/Hindi as they are kinda, totally non-represented?)

So, to spare you all, this is going to be behind a cut. Basically, this is going to be me rambling about the shows that I like, and ensembles. The ones that work, the ones that don't; why they work and when they don't. Mainly, these shows are ensemble or focus on two characters.

Shows discussed ,even if only briefly: Andromeda, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Castle, Criminal Minds, Dark Angel, due South, Firefly, Jonathan Creek, Leverage, Numb3rs, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, Star Trek (all of them ;)), Torchwood, Xena


(note before hand - added now, because I have actually reread - and am paranoid, and don't want this meta/ramble to sound all knowing - it's all my opinion, and what works for me - I know a lot of things don't work for me, but work for other people and vice versa - I am reminded of that a lot when watching stuff with my family.
So, what I say under the cut? It's all my opinion, on what works for me - I may be wrong, you might disagree with me, and that's fine. I just wanted to put this out there. Feel free to throw things at me if you disagree.)

( thinky thoughts )

Been considering a few things that I've read/seen discussed a few times in fandom in general, especially in regard to SG-1.

A lot of characters are seen as being 'too perfect' or 'unrealistic' due to things they know/are capable of etc - Sam Carter and Daniel Jackson being the main two that come up.

I understand this to an extent - it's true that characters like Sam and Daniel have overly exaggerated skill sets, have too few flaws etc - but at the same time some people also seem to miss the flaws or the possibility that it's not so outlandish because they see a certain character as a Mary Sue or deliberately modeled to be 'brilliant'

I say this because while I lack a lot of knowledge of Sam's type of work, I know of at least one person who could be considered comparably 'brilliant' to Daniel (though he's attractive - but then he's not on TV) - he was one of my lecturers and he knows an insane amount of stuff, but no one sees him as being 'unrealistic' but then he's real and more tangible.

My point - and question to you all is - is this perception of characters in this way because fictional TV characters, or because we often find it hard to believe that people like that exist?
Is the perception of a lack of flaws because of how we ourselves as viewers see the character - or is it because of our hate/dislike of the character?

( more questions and further meta, on characters that aren't actively seen as 'too brilliant' and those that are but we like to ignore.... )