A couple of nights ago, tired of the evening news, Melanie and I began to look for a new show. We looked through a few movies, but we wanted a series. Something that would occupy us if we wanted to snuggle up to something good on television, but weren’t in the mood to feel like the world was ending.

I didn’t ever think I’d grow weary of the news. As a kid, watching the 5:00 broadcast or “Sixty Minutes” with my parents made me feel grown up. It’s something I figured that you just did as an adult – tune in to a smartly dressed broadcaster on your local station and say things like, “Good Lord. A bike stolen in our neighborhood. What is the word coming to?” Or “That dog rescued a kitten and an old woman from an avalanche. [sniff, sniff, wipes away tears of renewed faith in humanity] Life is beautiful. Thank you, Tom Brokaw.” These days watching the news feels like watching a reality TV show set on a ship that is both sinking and on fire. I look for the highlights that I need to know to try to be a responsible and kind citizen, and then I switch it off because it’s exhausting.

Enter “Warrior Nun.” At first when Melanie and I were checking out our Netflix possibilities I was being really picky.

“I want something moving,” I said, and I meant it. “Something that’s just…just GOOD.”

What I meant by “good” was, I wanted to find a show that was so artistically breath-taking that it changed my perception of reality. It would have such a profound effect on me that I would mark the day of its viewing as the day that I changed as an artist, much the way that a Pokemon evolves.

This is the lofty standard I apply to my Netflix search, which is why I usually end up watching nothing. Melanie searches for zombies. This time, though, she stopped at one title in particular and read it out loud, “‘Warrior Nun.’ Let’s watch that one.”

“Ha ha!” I said, then realized she was serious. We scrolled through more shows. We kept coming back to that one. Then I read the description. I will share with you IMDB’s plot summary, which does a good job of giving you the bare bones of the show, “After waking up in a morgue, an orphaned teen discovers she now possesses superpowers as the chosen Halo Bearer for a sect of demon-hunting nuns.” YEEEEEEES.

Artistically breath-taking? No. Tactical nuns that kick butt? Yes. We’ve seen four episodes. Maybe the premise of the show would bother someone who’s had bad nun experiences. Melanie and I haven’t. I mean, I did go to a Catholic high school, and there was that one creepy time when Sister Angela stopped me in the hallway and said, as severely as she could, “Genevieve, do you owe the library ten cents?” A nun muscled me for a dime by my locker. To be fair, she was right about the late fees. And now that I’ve seen this show I have to wonder if she also fought demons. Do we all fight demons metaphorically? Sure. But I mean with sawed-off shot guns.

And it turns out that teenaged warrior nuns look a lot like Ellen Page. Check it out:

There are some parts of this show where I’ve told Melanie, “For real, that’s Ellen Page.”

“It’s not, though,” Melanie has argued. “Ellen Page is like 30.”

“She’s not 30. She’s 19 and she’s whacking demons with sticks.”

(Quick Google search)

“She’s 33,” Melanie confirms.

Fun fact, she’s also married to a lady. And Canadian! But my Ellen Page rabbit hole aside, including the confirmation that the actress playing Ava the Halo Bearer is a woman named Alba Baptista and not Ellen Page [it’s Ellen Page], I was still left wanting after a few episodes of the show. Not because it’s not badass, but because I wanted…well, I explained it to Melanie.

“I want her to be noble,” I said.

Ava has the angel’s halo infused into her back. She’s got mad super powers and the ability to fight evil for good, but all she wants to do at this point in the show is dance with cute boys, eat croissant, and play in the sand on a Spanish beach.

“Well,” Melanie said. “She is nineteen. And she was a quadriplegic for most of her life until she was murdered. I could see why she wouldn’t want to join a convent right away.”

“I mean, I guess,” I said.

I get it. She’s back from the dead, beautiful, and can move from the neck down. Of course she’d rather hit a club than save the world!

I think I just want someone in real life to save the world. All of us want to go to the beach, eat at restaurants, and dance at crowded clubs. I don’t even dance and I want that. I’m not in the mood to watch someone make decisions out of fear or because they feel good in the moment regardless of whether or not they hurt other people. That’s what I do in my worst moments. I don’t want to watch a super hero that’s like me. I get that origin stories involve magical characters with human weaknesses, but that story line isn’t romancing me right now. Not at a time that I and most people I know feel powerless.

Fight evil, Ellen Page. Swing your sword of justice with a noble heart. And then come out with a season two soon because I’ve already watched the entirety of “Parks and Rec” and “The Office.”