“So long, nerds!” The Network-which-shall-not-be-named flips the bird to science fiction fans May 2, 2010
Posted by ce9999 in Caprica, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: Universe, The Sci-Fi Channel, Uncategorized.Tags: Caprica, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: Universe, the Sci-Fi Channel
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I came across this little item yesterday. It’s a “must read” for those who enjoy what little quality science fiction programming occurs anymore on the Network-formerly-known-as-the-Sci-Fi-Channel:
So long, nerds!
[The-network-which-shall-not-be-named] doesn’t need you
Particularly worrisome is the news that the best shows on the channel are going to be moved from Friday night to Tuesday night, just so they can put Friday Night Smackdown on Friday night. Having Caprica and Stargate: Universe on Tuesday is going to suck.
I figure this is the beginning of the end for that network. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s chapter two or chapter three of the end. Stargate: Universe and Caprica will run their course, probably three seasons each, at which point the powers-that-be at the network will give us a song and dance similar to the cancellation of Stargate: Atlantis, that is, something along the lines of, “we think it would be a great idea to continue this, only as a sequence of individually released DVD movies instead of a weekly series.” Well, have there been any Atlantis movies? No? One is supposedly in the works, but at this point it seems to be entirely vaporware, and it was two years ago already when all of this was announced.
Supposedly they’re having difficulties on the money side of things. In particular, the unexpected change in relative values of the American and Canadian dollars has made it more expensive to shoot in Canada now than, say, five years ago. Universe, however, is being filmed in Vancouver anyway, as is Caprica, so I am not sure if that argument holds water. [edit: looking back on this, I am no longer sure what my reasoning was for that statement…actually, it sounds as if I may have just been wrong outright…oh well…] Perhaps if they hadn’t made the mistake of canceling Atlantis, it would still be airing just fine and dandy! Ooops!
The thing is, although Atlantis sometimes ventured into the realm of brilliance, on the whole it was a show that never quite lived up to its potential, so I don’t bemoan the loss of it all that much. Mostly I miss David Hewlett’s performances, and I regret that, with its passing, the ratio of quality to crap on the network has gone down once again. Caprica and Universe, on the other hand, are both turning out to be pretty excellent programs. If, perchance, either one of them was lost just so the network could experiment with new ways to make money, it would be a bitter pill to swallow. All that would be left of quality science fiction television programming, in that case, would be Doctor Who.
Don’t get me wrong. The network will still be there. It will still exist as an entity. It’ll just be focused on other stuff. They’ll have to change the name again, too. Just watch.
Atlantis goes pay-per-view August 22, 2008
Posted by ce9999 in Stargate: Atlantis.Tags: Apophis, Ba'al, Brad Wright, character development, Gateworld, Kathryn Janeway, Kazon, MGM, pay-per-view, Robert Picardo, Sci Fi Channel, Star Trek: Voyager, Stargate Productions, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: Universe, viewer demographics, Wraith, Zac Efron
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I became aware earlier today that the Sci Fi Channel, MGM and Stargate Productions have mutually decided to end the television run of Stargate: Atlantis at the end of its current season.
Really, I shouldn’t be surprised about this, but I am. Does that mean I’m gullible? Well, yeah, but apparently I’m not gullible enough to qualify as a viewer that the Sci Fi Channel is interested in. They’ll be replacing Atlantis with a new show, Stargate: Universe, that’s specifically aimed at a “younger demographic.”
People, “younger demographic” is simply marketing double-speak for “people who are more gullible and susceptible to advertisements.” In other words, if this new show is aimed at you, it means the Powers That Be are assuming you are dumber and easier to sway than the current viewership of Stargate: Atlantis. Are you?
What’s also disturbing about this is the way Atlantis itself is apparently being switched over to “pay-per-view” status. No, it won’t be like regular PPV. You will actually have to go to a store and buy a DVD, or use whatever other means they might offer for getting your money (iTunes, for instance). But paying is paying, regardless of the means of delivery. Right now, you can watch Atlantis for free. Next year, you won’t. What’s more, I think they are doing this specifically because they believe Atlantis is at a popularity peak right now, that it can only go downhill from here, and furthermore, why should they continue to allow people to watch the show for free when they can replace it with a more profitable show which will probably cost less to produce, which will also appeal to a more desireable demographic, while still popping off the occassional Atlantis “movie” to rake in a few bucks on DVD sales to boot? To summarize, we, the viewers of Atlantis, are being ripped off precisely because we made this show as successful as it is.
What are my sources for these allegations? The changes have been documented with multiple articles on Gateworld, with the one of primary interest being “Wright: Atlantis is going out on top.” This quote is of particular interest:
The decision to end Stargate Atlantis and jump to the movie format was made mutually by the SCI FI Channel, MGM, and Stargate Productions in Vancouver, executive producer Brad Wright told GateWorld today. Rather than canceling the show because of under-performance, the Powers That Be decided to go out on top while Atlantis is still popular enough to support the release of DVD movies.
See?
However, there is a potential positive side to this. While I’ve seen some concern expressed that the new Stargate: Universe show will end up being nothing more than the Stargate remake of Star Trek: Voyager (credit goes to Glenn H for that idea), it seems that the creators of the show are aware of some of the concerns I previously mentioned on this blog. An article entitled Stargate Universe Has A Go! states:
The show will be “a little more character-based, a little less rooted in a sci-fi mythology,” co-creator Brad Wright told GateWorld. “It really does come down to characters and stories that are engaging, and that people want to see — that they feel like they haven’t seen before.”
I’m not sure what Wright means about “rooted in sci-fi mythology”, but I do like what he’s saying about making the show more character-based, provided they don’t end up with a bunch of squeaky-clean noobs like on the first couple of seasons of Star Trek: Voyager.
The other problem with that show’s initial seasons was pretty simple too: the villians were boring. Remember the Kazon? No? I’m not surprised. Theoretically, they could have been interesting, but in practice, I groaned painfully at their every appearance on the show, and jumped for joy when Janeway and the crew finally got their asses out of that sector of the galaxy. The Wraith are somewhat better, but not a lot, and I’d consider them to be one of the primary flaws of Atlantis as a series. If Universe is to succeed, they really need to work on the bad guys. Look back at Apophis and Ba’al, and tell me I’m wrong.
I admit, I’m already wondering who they’re going to cast on Universe. They’re aiming for a younger demographic, so there’ll probably be some 20-something male heartthrob in the lead. Zac Efron, anyone? He’s 21 now. Heheheh. (I suppose I should shut up, before somebody gets the idea to do High School Musical In Space!….)
All in all, if Universe turns out to be a better series than Atlantis, then I’ll probably be ok with this. There is one thing, however, which will disappoint me, even if that happens: Robert Picardo will only have one season to really show his stuff.
Back July 28, 2008
Posted by ce9999 in Uncategorized.Tags: about this blog, Battlestar Galactica, ComicCon, Doctor Who, Jane Espenson, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: SG-1, Wil Wheaton
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Well, I’m back.
What can I say–I didn’t intend to be gone this long, but on the other hand, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to come back. Some things went pretty wrong a few months ago, and only recently am I starting to feel the creative juices flow again.
My plan to analyze the entire Stargate: SG-1 series is on indefinite hold. In fact, that project may have proven to be too ambitious. It seemed like a great idea, but SG-1 is a HUGE series, and as I got into the process of writing about the episodes in the first season, I found myself not wanting to spend time writing when I could just go ahead and watch the next one. This is commonly known as “lack of self discipline.” I also found myself wanting to delve into more and more detail about each episode, so what started as a general summary of the series was evolving into a full-fledged episode guide, for a series with over 200 episodes. Yikes. So I got farther and farther behind. I even started watching season two, thinking I could get caught up any old time. That was wrong. Before I knew it, I was hopelessly behind. This was also about the time that the new seasons of Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who were getting into full swing, and the prospect of trying to keep up with both of those shows, plus get caught up on my SG-1 project, it was just too much. So I tabled this whole idea for a while.
In my absence, I ended up skipping the entire fourth season of Doctor Who, which is unfortunate, because there’s a lot that could be said about it. There’s also Battlestar Galactica‘s fourth season. Wow. And that was only half a season. Of course I can always come back to these later. Regarding Galactica, I’ll just say for now that I think the revisioned series is turning out to be the finest program in the history of television. I’m not really qualified to say that, mind you, since there are way too many shows I haven’t seen. But if there’s a show out there that’s as good as this one, I’d sure love to see it. (Ok, one more thing–is it just me, or was there a marked upward jump in the quality of this already-excellent show at the point when Jane Espenson came onboard?)
Today I started work on an article pertaining to Stargate: Atlantis, particularly some of the developments in the new season. The article is going well, although it still needs some polishing up. That should be ready for publication sometime very soon, maybe even tonight.
I am also going to be broadening the focus of this blog a bit. My initial idea was to limit myself to “Television Sci Fi” programming. However, I have to admit, there are some movies I’d like to mention on here from time to time as well. There’s also the question of that “science fiction” parameter, which I wondered out loud about when I first started this blog. There’s some very imaginative work out there that is well worth talking about, but which doesn’t exactly fit into the proper realm of “science fiction” at all. The new theatrical release Hellboy 2 is one example. But there are others, even farther afield than that. Take David Lynch’s masterpiece Mulholland Drive, for instance. In no way could this movie be considered science fiction (unless you have developed an entirely new take on it, in which case, feel free to tell me about it), but it’s certainly imaginative. And I do like that word, “imaginative.” So. “Imaginative fiction” it is. Seems like a good topic for discussion, no? However, the emphasis will still be on science fiction, since that’s really where my heart lies.
Finally, I want to close by posting something which really helped to motivate me to get back on track with this. This is an interview with Wil Wheaton, done at ComicCon. It’s quite interesting. Wheaton is an interesting guy, and he says a thing or two here which I really appreciate, in particular some advice he offers towards the end of the interview, intended for aspiring internet writers. It occurs to me that his advice applies to people with other creative inclinations too. That means me, since I’m also struggling with various photography and music projects, in addition to writing. Anyway, here is the whole thing. Enjoy!
The Nox, Hathor, Cor-Ai March 8, 2008
Posted by ce9999 in Stargate: SG-1.Tags: Addison Ridge, ancient races, Anteaus, Apophis, Armin Shimerman, Ba'al, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cliff Simon, continuity errors, Cor-Ai, Daniel Jackson, Dr. Janet Fraiser, Frida Betrani, Goa-uld, Hathor, Jack O'Neill, Jaffa, Lya, Nafrayu, Peter Williams, Samantha Carter, SG-5, Stargate: Atlantis, Suanne Braun, Teal'c, Teryl Rothery, The Nox, victim's rights
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Friday night, I continued my SG-1 marathon with three more episodes.
The first of these was “The Nox,” a truly fascinating episode, and one of the best in the entire ten-year run of SG-1. Aside from being brilliant and very enjoyable, it lays some groundwork for a lot of what happens in the remainder of the series. Although the SG-1 team members don’t know it yet, this is their first face-to-face encounter with one of the four ancient races, who will play (to varying degrees) such an important role in their mission in the years to come. It’s also the first indication we have that the U.S. government isn’t entirely satisfied with the performance of the SG-C, a fact which will lead to all sorts of interference, oversight and outright shennanigans by a variety of other people, continuing even to this day on Atlantis. We also begin to get a sense in this episode of just how wily and challenging an opponent Apophis will be, when SG-1’s straightforward and simple plan to capture him ends up with O’Neill, Carter and Jackson all getting killed. If it wasn’t for the extremely sophisticated healing abilities of the Nox, the series would have ended about ten minutes into this episode.
Of course the Nox are the main point of this episode, so let’s talk about them a little. There are four of them shown, and their leader is played by none other than Armin Shimerman, of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. Casting him in this episode was a stroke of genius, because the character Anteaus is such a marked contrast to Shimerman’s well-known roles in the other two series, and it’s always a pleasure to see a good actor do something different from what he’s done before. He’s just delightful here, managing to quietly eclipse much of his more well-known work in what must be only fifteen or twenty minutes of screen time.
The other Nox character to play a major role is Nafrayu, the cute little Nox kid, played by Addison Ridge. Observe Carter’s expression when she looks at him, as if she’s never seen anything so adorable in her entire life. Can you blame her? My favorte of the other Nox, though, would have to be Lya, played by Frida Betrani. She’s a sweetie. Pretty, too. :) I am quite infatuated with her, I admit—this is why I’m saying such totally unprofessional things. ;) She is the only one of the Nox ever to appear on the series again, after this episode. I had high hopes that they would play an important role in the series, but only Lya comes back a couple of times, very briefly. This is very disappointing, because the Nox are an uncommon thing: an advanced alien species who actually seem advanced and alien. This makes them extremely interesting.
Apophis also plays a major role in this episode. In fact, is there any other episode in the series where he is “in play” as much as he is here? Not very many of them, that’s for sure. Peter Williams is still starting to get into the Apophis character at this point—later on, he gets better and better at it, until, eventually, the very sight of him makes a person want to scream in frustration. He’s the second best of all the Goa-uld to ever appear in the series, I think, bested only slightly by Cliff Simon’s hilarious, frustrating and brilliant portrayal of Ba’al, much later in the series.
In other matters, I must point out how much I enjoyed the musical score in this episode. I’ve noticed that, in general, the quality of the incidental music this season is pretty high. This is important to me, personally, so I thank the composer(s) for their efforts in these episodes, as well as the people who had the sense to hire decent composers in the first place.
In the realm of trivia, we see SG-5 briefly at the beginning of the episode, and I noticed that all of the Jaffa in Apophis’s personal guard are sporting gold forehead tattoos identical to Teal’c’s. This once again contradicts the idea that only first primes have gold emblems. I suppose it’s realistic to assume that different system lords would have different, um….systems to their Jaffa insignia, since they certainly would not be interested in trying to standardize something as trivial as this. After all, they have much more important concerns, such as how to kill all their rivals, live forever, and achieve domination of the galaxy. :P
I mentioned I watched two other episodes Friday: “Hathor” and “Cor-Ai.”
“Hathor” was better than I had remembered. I believe there are some inconsistencies between what’s presented in this episode and what comes later on, both with respect to the creation of the Jaffa, and to Goa-uld reproduction. It’s been a long time, though, so I will have to wait and see. The most enjoyable thing about this episode to me was Suanne Braun’s portrayal of the “goddess of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll”, Hathor. She’s just plain hot, in a beautiful, sensual, sultry and full-hipped way. I love it. :) It must also be said that Carter and Dr. Fraiser both kick a lot of ass in this episode. Indeed, this episode is all about the girls, since the boys end up spending most of their time in pheromone-induced thrall to Hathor.
“Cor-Ai” is a really good Teal’c episode, and pretty excellent in general. I really enjoy how it deals with questions relating to guilt, innocence, forgiveness, redemption, victim’s rights, the burden of punishment of a criminal, and so on. It’s quite fascinating. Briefly, some background: During the 1990’s, a hot political issue in the U.S. was the question of victim’s rights, namely the belief that the rights of the accused were being accorded too much weight by our legal system, and that this needed to be corrected in favor of victims of crimes. This episode hypothesizes a rather extreme solution to the problem, namely a legal system where the trial itself is controlled by the victim, who is also responsible for determining and carrying out the sentence. On the surface, it seems like a hopelessly barbaric way of doing things (at least it does to me, civil libertarian that I am), but the episode is written intelligently enough so we see that it wouldn’t really be that simple…although I still much prefer the American way of doing things. This episode is what science fiction is all about: using the story in a way that’s not only relevant to the complexities of the real world, but doing so thoughtfully, so that the viewer is actually drawn into thinking about an issue in a new way.