Other than that I’ve finished the show; the first season was a bit awkward, like with most shows. The aforementioned “Rape” ep addressed some rape myths, didn’t end in a magical conviction, and wasn’t as offensive as it could’ve been by a very long shot, but seeing it as “problem of the week” in 45 minute show is still very unsatisfying. There are several “the 2nd wave was a good thing” episodes, yay for that, so all in all the worst I can confess is that with few exceptions, when Sam’d leap into a black person, you’d know it’d be a “race” episode, and when he’d leap into a woman, it’d be a “sexism” episode (meaning that if it was a “people” problem, he’d jump into a white bloke in the overwhelming majority of cases, but not all).

I was a bit afraid it might leave a bad taste in my mouth along the lines of, yeah, poor women, need a white dude with a messiah complex to help you out (though I’m not quite sure why, that’s the premise of the entire show, after all, and applies to everyone; men and women of all ages and colors need the white messiah). But not even that applies — he does help out the episode’s problem child, but after he leaps again, the woman he’d body-swapped with gets a better career, remains happily single, and starts an adoption programme for single parents, all by herself and mostly unrelated to the hero’s actions.

True, there is a rather tacked-on feeling scene where he re-asserts his manhood and gets his revenge on the sleazeball who sexually harassed him and almost drove his friend into suicide which I’d have felt better without, but at least it’s pretty obvious throughout that that bit is wish fulfilment and not really an option for most “real women” (defined as those who won’t leap back into male privilege within the next ten seconds).

Yes, I realise that that implies that he didn’t leap into a woman in the eight episodes of season one, but if that’s the worst I can confess, I can sort of make peace with that. (Only just.) Pretty much the only line I could have done without is the one Nice Guy’s line that “after all those years” of not dating due to being married until recently when his wife left him “he didn’t imagine it’d be so easy to talk to women again.” What, people don’t talk in a marriage? And women are, like, some space aliens, rather than, you know, people? (IBTP, obviously.) But they seemed to’ve gotten a fair bit right in this twenty-year-old episode.

I know there is an episode in Series 4 which I also haven’t seen, “Raped,” which I am (very slowly) approaching with a mix of hope and dread (Wikipedia suggests the episode starts after the crime, but of course that doesn’t mean they can’t still mess it up with a lack of sensitivity, rape myths, etc.). But I have hope. May still well end up being triggering, of course.

I have come to believe one has only to study the history of advertising and media — if one can stomach it, that is — in order to understand exactly how women are truly “seen” in society, whereupon one becomes greatly enabled for blaming the patriarchy all the live-long day. What a pity that it is not considered general education.

The premise was cool, but the show ended up feeling like some nerdy 14-year-old boy’s dream world.