New on telly

[wiseheart]

I've watched "Lie to Me" tonight... and actually liked it, even though Kelly Williams was the only actress I knew of the whole crew. I don't buy the ground idea of the series, actually, but they play it nicely enough. At least the cases aren't as bloody, sick and sadistic as in "Criminal Minds", where I do love the crew to pieces but can't stomach the brutality any more.

Today's SGU episode was abysmal, though. There were nice shots about the sun and stuff, but the plot was incredibly lame, Lt. Scott is the new Kirk, all women are either incompetent or whores (with the exception of the Blonde Bimbo, who's clearly a robot), and I just can't be bothered to care for them.

IOA representative is, of course, incompetent, selfish and manipulative, little Chloe throws herself at two different men within ten minutes, cuz' she needs to be coddled, the poor dear, the male lead is stoic and manly (and boring), so... no, unless there will be drastic changes, I'm not gonna like SGU.

Well, at least it's something new.

Comments

[artemis10002000]

Totally agreeing with you on the SGU characters! Especially the female ones. What happened to Stargate screenwriters coming up with strong female characters like Sam and Janet? They already slacked off some in SGA, with all these bimbos of the week falling for Sheppard, but well, bimbos of the week are a sci-fi staple, unfortunately, so I wasn't overly bothered by it. But SGU is so cliched. Women are either manipulative bitches or clingy damsels in distress. That's so frustrating!

However, I think with the IOA representative, it's more of a case of Stargate's "soldiers are noble, politicians corrupt" mindset than stereotypes about women.

What made the experience all the more frustrating was that I then switched to ProSieben for Vampire Diaries, which is a freaking teenage vampire romance flick aimed at the Twilight fangirls and gives their female characters depth I've not seen a sliver of in SGU yet. While that's nice for VD, it's pretty sad for SGU.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

However, I think with the IOA representative, it's more of a case of Stargate's "soldiers are noble, politicians corrupt" mindset than stereotypes about women.

That, too. And while it's true that many of them are corrupt, from time to time there must be some honest ones, or the SGC had been out of business for a very long time.

But SGU is so cliched. Women are either manipulative bitches or clingy damsels in distress. That's so frustrating!

Oh, ain't that true! I'm so happy that Tele 5 is re-running the first season of Andromeda, at 18.20 every workday. Beka Valentine is such a delight to watch after the SGU bimbos! Even if she does get turned into a bimbo later on, unfortunately.

I find Chloe Armstrong especially annoying. And the affair with Scott came way too early and without preamble. The whole scene reminded me of Torchwood, when the end of the world is near and Owen says: "Then let's all have sex!"
To which Ianto answers flatly: "And I thought the end of the world couldn't get any worse!"

Except that even nonexistent TW characterization is a hundred times better than what's going on in SGU. Hell, even Gwen Cooper is better, although I really, honestly detest her.

[artemis10002000]

Yeah, but at least Gwen has an actual full-fledged personality to detest. The SGU women don't even have that!

With the politicians, I don't mind so much that they show politicians as corrupt as that they don't judge soldiers by the same standards - if they had a "(all) power corrupts" mindset, I would consider that awesome. Heavy-handed politicians are malicious jerks, heavy-handed generals are well-intentioned patriots and so on. *shrugs* But ah well, it's a pet peeve. Stargate is military gung-ho by nature, so I don't mind so much. Although it's really frustrating that their biased views make them miss out on a really fascinating power struggle between civilian and military forces in SGU.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

True enough. I don't get Col. Young's reaction to Rush, either. When every other person on the ship wants to throttle their head geak, he lets him get away with things he shouldn't. When Rush finally shows some human characteristics (like being surprised that their survived), he becomes all suspicious.

I think they should have killed Young on right at the beginning. He looks dead all the time anyway, so what would be the big difference? Of course, in that case Lt. Scott would become the chief military honcho (with a harem), and that particular idea makes me shiver.

Speaking of which, how in hell does a grean Lt. just out of military training, get sent to a super sekrit base as his first assingment? Shouldn't they, you know, prove their abilities at first? Serve on less important posts? At least on Atlantis, everybody but Sheppard had some off-world experience under his belt, and Shep at least used to be Black Ops before.

Oh, and the other cheep eye candy effect: that Sgt Grier, or what the heck his name is. They have ten minutes to a fiery and horrible dead, and what does he do? Sits in his quarters shirtless, so that everyone can admire his oh-so-many body. Are they allowed to do steroids in the military?

BTW, in the entire SG-universe (in the broader sense of the world) it always annoyed me that the soliders were allowed to talk to scientists twice their age and ten times their brain capacity as if said scientists were idiots. Remember how Ford treated Zelenka in Hot Zone or Carson in The Storm? I couldn't resist the temptation and wrote a short Hot Zone coda once, in which Dr. Hays, who used to be a middle-weight boxing champion, promise Ford to break his nose if he speaks to Zelenka in that tone ever again. *g*

[artemis10002000]

Yeah, the soldiers lording over the scientists has always annoyed me in SG as well. It's a recurring theme in all the shows, unfortunately, even with the good writers, which just makes it all the more annoying to me. Scientists are always patronized and the soldiers get taken down a peg for it far too rarely. And even if the scientists turn out to be right, the soldiers don't learn their lesson.

I find Scott extremely annoying. I was actually relieved that Young recovered because I'd have hated to have Scott as leader of the expedition.

And am I the only one thinking they're overdoing it with the floating eyeball diary entries? It's nice in the pilot, but by now it's beginning to get old. Especially since they don't really do anything important with it. I think they want to use them for characterisation, but they don't, really. The "message in a bottle" episode in SGA was very powerful emotionally, but the vid cam diaries aren't.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

I thing the flying eyeballs are supposed to replace the MALP... and sensitive characterization. They just show every idiot on the ship a few times, they repeat their names, and the writers hope we'll eventually learn who's who. Cuz they have no personality whatsoever, and otherwise we'd barely be able to tell the boys from the girls... save from the fact that the boys are the ones who shoot and the girls the ones who whine.

I hate Scott. He's the worst jarhead cliché I've seen for a very long time (even if he happens to be a pilot). And I hate how soldiers treat scientists, especially Sheppard. What I liked in the original SG was that Carter was a soldier, too, and could stand up to O'Neill if she needed to.

[artemis10002000]

They just show every idiot on the ship a few times, they repeat their names, and the writers hope we'll eventually learn who's who. Cuz they have no personality whatsoever, and otherwise we'd barely be able to tell the boys from the girls...

*sad sigh* So true!

Yeah, I also liked about Carter that she's both a soldier and a scientist.

[nerwen-calaelen.livejournal.com]

Sounds like SGU is even worse than I was expecting from the (small amount) I'd already heard about. That's a pity, although I wasn't expecting much from it.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

If you know what's good for you - stay clear of it. If curiosity gets the upper hand, have a bucket handy. You'll need it. :(

[nerwen-calaelen.livejournal.com]

I'll probably end up watching at least the first few episodes at some point (but probably not until it is out on dvd here, as there doesn't seem to be any sign of it being shown on terrestrial tv), but I'll remember the warnings.