Overthinking Things
Jan. 10th, 2014 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shifty_gardenerSo. I'm on season 3 of Stargate: Atlantis (the DVDs* came in the mail the same day I finished Season 2! An act of Providence! Of course, I watched like the last 4 episodes of S2 that day, so clearly Providence wouldn't have assumed I needed them, but...well, I just did, okay?) and from the very beginning I was extremely impressed by the subtlety of the character development and the way all of the random timeskips allow the relationships between all of the characters grow very organically. After watching shows like Supernatural, Sleepy Hollow and Elementary, where the characters talk about their feelings every single episode, I was impressed at how the writers of SGA weren't shoving it in our face and how much more it made me appreciate every single character in the family they created and the bonds between them that spoke for themselves.
Imagine my surprise and joy, then, when I ran into an episode (3.04) that had SURPRISE FAMILY FEELINGS. I, of course, after the episode, decided to watch the commentary for the 5 minutes of screentime of John and Rodney talking about feelings to separate people (I love that John was muuuuuuuuuch more awk about it than Rodney, lol. and how he was like, of COURSE I'm socially awkward, there is a reason I flew helicopters in the most remote part of my planet. OH JOHN. I THINK THAT'S THE FIRST PERSONAL THING YOU'VE EVER SAID. THIS WHOLE SHOW.) AND and and and, I can't believe this, the writers were like, "The actors have been doing a great job of acting like a family, but around the end of season 2 we were like, whoops, we've never got around to writing any feelings into the show. So we did it here!"
EVERYTHING WAS A LIE; THE WRITERS ARE THE MOST CLUELESS PEOPLE EVER. This really explains the interview in the special features where the writer/producer ranted for 20 minutes about how much chemistry Dr. Beckett and Mckay have and how he kept trying to write as many episodes with them together as possible and also that one where they made out. For those of you unversed in the ways of SGA, that is half of McShep and someone else. The writers don't just not see the McShep friendship as being much of a thing, they actively ship something else! Clearly they have NO IDEA what they created, and I can't stop laughing about it.
Tl;dr SGA was written for action scenes and the epic nakama is just an emergent property, largely created by the actors. This would really explain all of the mortal peril episodes that end suddenly and without any hugs or Meaningful Eye Contact or even Gee, I'm Glad You're Okay moments.
*There is a story here, but not one I will tell today.
Also, unrelatedly, I ship Teyla and Ronon so hard, even though I know the reason they end up together so much is probably because of racism. And I miss Grodin from season 1. The guy that replaced him looks like a muppet. More racism. He wasn't expendable to ME. :(( And while I"m talking about random opinions, Elizabeth is such a G and I LOVE HER TO PIECES.
Imagine my surprise and joy, then, when I ran into an episode (3.04) that had SURPRISE FAMILY FEELINGS. I, of course, after the episode, decided to watch the commentary for the 5 minutes of screentime of John and Rodney talking about feelings to separate people (I love that John was muuuuuuuuuch more awk about it than Rodney, lol. and how he was like, of COURSE I'm socially awkward, there is a reason I flew helicopters in the most remote part of my planet. OH JOHN. I THINK THAT'S THE FIRST PERSONAL THING YOU'VE EVER SAID. THIS WHOLE SHOW.) AND and and and, I can't believe this, the writers were like, "The actors have been doing a great job of acting like a family, but around the end of season 2 we were like, whoops, we've never got around to writing any feelings into the show. So we did it here!"
EVERYTHING WAS A LIE; THE WRITERS ARE THE MOST CLUELESS PEOPLE EVER. This really explains the interview in the special features where the writer/producer ranted for 20 minutes about how much chemistry Dr. Beckett and Mckay have and how he kept trying to write as many episodes with them together as possible and also that one where they made out. For those of you unversed in the ways of SGA, that is half of McShep and someone else. The writers don't just not see the McShep friendship as being much of a thing, they actively ship something else! Clearly they have NO IDEA what they created, and I can't stop laughing about it.
Tl;dr SGA was written for action scenes and the epic nakama is just an emergent property, largely created by the actors. This would really explain all of the mortal peril episodes that end suddenly and without any hugs or Meaningful Eye Contact or even Gee, I'm Glad You're Okay moments.
*There is a story here, but not one I will tell today.
Also, unrelatedly, I ship Teyla and Ronon so hard, even though I know the reason they end up together so much is probably because of racism. And I miss Grodin from season 1. The guy that replaced him looks like a muppet. More racism. He wasn't expendable to ME. :(( And while I"m talking about random opinions, Elizabeth is such a G and I LOVE HER TO PIECES.
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Date: 2014-01-10 08:41 pm (UTC)Spoilery fyi, but Teyla and Ronon don't end up together in the show.
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Date: 2014-01-11 05:44 am (UTC)Oh, by "end up together" I meant the way they get thrown together to have scenes separate from the rest of the characters all the time. Also from Ronon's flashbacks, it seems his last serious relationship was with a delicate flower-type civilian, so I doubt Teyla would be his type. I CAN DREAM, THOUGH.
Also your icon ♥♥
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Date: 2014-01-11 10:38 pm (UTC)My bad, sorry! I like Teyla and Ronon (and Teyla&Ronon) a lot, but yes. To be fair, from what I remember which might be from episodes you've not seen yet and/or distorted, I wouldn't call Melena a delicate flower. To me she came across as very brave,but a healer, not a fighter.
It's from a season 5 episode that is pretty great, not gonna lie.
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Date: 2014-01-12 10:03 pm (UTC)Omg that's from an episode?? I thought it was a manip or a chance meeting or something!
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Date: 2014-01-13 09:57 pm (UTC)Yup! I had never heard of Bill Nye before that episode, but he seemed pretty cool in it.
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Date: 2014-01-12 05:39 am (UTC)I wonder if Teyla and Ronon get scenes together because they are the only ones really native to that galaxy? And they bond over having to deal with these people from Earth xD
OMG Grodin does look like a muppet! :o
I'm forever Amanda Tapping (Sam Carter) biased, so I can't comment on strong female characters such as Elizabeth, but Elizabeth is beautiful.
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Date: 2014-01-12 09:39 pm (UTC)That's possible, but this happens in so many shows I watch (Sleepy Hollow, with the police chief and the sister; Hawaii Five-O, with Chin and Kono), where the group with the main character has the highest volume of white people in it while the people that aren't white go off and do their thing. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it's just something that sticks at the back of my mind. (of course, a. there isn't really a main character in SGA and b. they mix up the characters quite a lot, so it's possible I'm just noticing the Ronon/Teyla scenes more)
I was talking about this guy (http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii36/ugahill/Sexiest%20People/chuck_the_technician.jpg), actually. He looks so much like Bert! Although now that I look at him, Grodin was pretty muppet like as well. Maybe it's a requirement for the position.
Well, I haven't seen much of Sam Carter yet, but I love how they wrote Elizabeth to be very empathetic and yet not weak-willed. All of the episodes where she glares at military guys and politicians and tells them they don't have the authority/intel to pull whatever bullshit they're trying are just so great ♥ When my family watched Battlestar Galactica, my sister spent the whole time fangirling President Roslin, so I think I picked up a certain regard for women in charge.