SGA highs and lows, season three!
May. 13th, 2024 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annavereA post was still needed to cover the bulk of the season, so here are my thought. A lot to love, and a small but significant portion to hate, but most of that I covered in previous mini-rants (Carson, Kolya and the "Irritable" two-parter).
Plenty of stuff I liked, though!
The characters continue to feel like a family and the increase in small character moments is marvelous. Little things like Teyla attempting to teach Ronon to meditate, Ronon acknowledging that when there isn't an enemy he can fight, he actually feels helpless, Sheppard getting a traumatic war flashback due to "who was dumb enough to invent that?" device of the week, and McKay even getting an entire episode dedicated to his estranged relationship with his sister and learning how to be supportive of her decisions. Good stuff. There's also a fun thread of the Atlantis team gradually becoming estranged from their former ardent loyalty to the chain of command. They've been away from earth a long time and it's starting to show.
Season finale was delightfully nuts, with a sudden swerve in setting I did not see coming, but should have. Space is an ocean, after all, and it was established the city could fly with enough power.
There is a certain amount of (I'm aware unintentional) dark comedy inherent in this show's very premise. Most episodes seem to revolve around a Pandora's Box structure: Team finds something interesting, poke it, and something horrible happens. As I said to my boyfriend (who I really need to find a suitable alias for on this journal) the other day: "I am really glad the Atlantis team went to the Pegasus Galaxy because I sure as hell wouldn't want them around here." They are unbelievably good at short-term problem-solving (their never-say-die attitude is truly admirable) and so catastrophically bad at big picture strategies. This show might as well be called Fuck Around and Find Out IN SPACE. Which I find consistently entertaining and rather endearing.
Spot the obscure Jeremiah actor continues to be my game: Jon Cuthbert (guy who played Rod) showed up during the atrocious Kolya episode, playing to type as another gun thug for hire. He was also in the Highlander episode 'Bless the Child' playing much the same gig.
Chris Heyerdahl showed up again, in a new role as (amazingly) a well-written Wraith (Michael sure as hell no longer counts), sadly so submerged in prosthetics and vocal effects that I would never have recognized him without the credits, but with all his customary gravitas in place. I'd say I look forward to him showing up again, but... (*stabs Michael*)
I'm also gonna count the SG-1 Cheyenne Mountain set, which continues to feature during a surprising number of crossover eps. It's kind of disorienting. I kept staring at the hideous tan walls and barely noticing which actors were wandering through the shot. :)
Not sure what to make of the various SG-1 crossover characters. In general they strike me as comedic dupes (the World of Warcraft guy, among others) or as red tape villains (like the guy played by Beau Bridges) getting in the way of the Atlantis crew and responding to every problem with "break out the nukes, gentlemen." Knowing the most famous SG-1 crew by sight, I have to suspect these are mostly bit players?
However, O'Neill's straight man "done with it all" vibe did win me over to him very quickly and makes me wish he was a regular on this show, because putting him in a room with McKay, their sniping is truly the stuff of legend. Sam strikes me as a reasonable authority figure (unlike Beau), but half of one episode is very little to go on, character-wise. I'll have more opinion on her soon.
Eventually I will have to try out the parent show to answer the increasing questions I have about it.
As far as post-'Sunday' disappointments go, I must say the lack of follow through made Carson's death even worse to me. He isn't talked about! He's referenced all of once for the remainder of the season, and that in a mechanical manner to introduce the new doctor. I swear, the cast decided to throw in the subdued demeanors and excessively sharp tones to the "banter" kicking off 'Submersion' because they wanted some acknowledgment of their fallen comrade and the writers had completely dropped the subject. Good on them if so.
One thing I noticed in Buffy fandom was a tendency by the audience to hate replacement characters for the crime of not being the prior one. I never saw the point of this outlook. No idea if that happened to Jewel Staite's character here, but I have exactly zero problem with her. I'm just sad they didn't think to bring her in as Carson's assistant, because most of the other key roles have a designated understudy (Zelenka, Lorne) and that would have been fun to see.
The most major disappointment to me is how the Michael story develops (more like devolves, honestly), jettisoning all the elements which made his character and situation so interesting. His new plan is so heinous (and icky) it bulldozes any possible sympathy, changing the question from "how are the team going to handle this terrible, complex situation?" into "when are the team going to freaking kill this guy already?" Which is a time-honored storytelling technique, and SGA is not alone in making this switch, but it's not one I ever find very interesting. Also, by removing the nuance but refusing to kill the character off, it damages the heroes, too. Damn it, John, just shoot him, stop talking to him, just - oh, he got away while you were doing your macho blathering routine. *Headdesk*
So that's frustrating, and I hope they wrap the Michael plot up quickly, because I don't think there's any water left in that particular well and between the original Wraith (who still haven't been dealt with, like, at all) and the replicators, they really don't need another Big Bad snapping at their heels. At least they made peace with the Genii, for the moment. That's progress.
I continue to be completely entertained and I'm so glad I own this on disc.
Plenty of stuff I liked, though!
The characters continue to feel like a family and the increase in small character moments is marvelous. Little things like Teyla attempting to teach Ronon to meditate, Ronon acknowledging that when there isn't an enemy he can fight, he actually feels helpless, Sheppard getting a traumatic war flashback due to "who was dumb enough to invent that?" device of the week, and McKay even getting an entire episode dedicated to his estranged relationship with his sister and learning how to be supportive of her decisions. Good stuff. There's also a fun thread of the Atlantis team gradually becoming estranged from their former ardent loyalty to the chain of command. They've been away from earth a long time and it's starting to show.
Season finale was delightfully nuts, with a sudden swerve in setting I did not see coming, but should have. Space is an ocean, after all, and it was established the city could fly with enough power.
There is a certain amount of (I'm aware unintentional) dark comedy inherent in this show's very premise. Most episodes seem to revolve around a Pandora's Box structure: Team finds something interesting, poke it, and something horrible happens. As I said to my boyfriend (who I really need to find a suitable alias for on this journal) the other day: "I am really glad the Atlantis team went to the Pegasus Galaxy because I sure as hell wouldn't want them around here." They are unbelievably good at short-term problem-solving (their never-say-die attitude is truly admirable) and so catastrophically bad at big picture strategies. This show might as well be called Fuck Around and Find Out IN SPACE. Which I find consistently entertaining and rather endearing.
Spot the obscure Jeremiah actor continues to be my game: Jon Cuthbert (guy who played Rod) showed up during the atrocious Kolya episode, playing to type as another gun thug for hire. He was also in the Highlander episode 'Bless the Child' playing much the same gig.
Chris Heyerdahl showed up again, in a new role as (amazingly) a well-written Wraith (Michael sure as hell no longer counts), sadly so submerged in prosthetics and vocal effects that I would never have recognized him without the credits, but with all his customary gravitas in place. I'd say I look forward to him showing up again, but... (*stabs Michael*)
I'm also gonna count the SG-1 Cheyenne Mountain set, which continues to feature during a surprising number of crossover eps. It's kind of disorienting. I kept staring at the hideous tan walls and barely noticing which actors were wandering through the shot. :)
Not sure what to make of the various SG-1 crossover characters. In general they strike me as comedic dupes (the World of Warcraft guy, among others) or as red tape villains (like the guy played by Beau Bridges) getting in the way of the Atlantis crew and responding to every problem with "break out the nukes, gentlemen." Knowing the most famous SG-1 crew by sight, I have to suspect these are mostly bit players?
However, O'Neill's straight man "done with it all" vibe did win me over to him very quickly and makes me wish he was a regular on this show, because putting him in a room with McKay, their sniping is truly the stuff of legend. Sam strikes me as a reasonable authority figure (unlike Beau), but half of one episode is very little to go on, character-wise. I'll have more opinion on her soon.
Eventually I will have to try out the parent show to answer the increasing questions I have about it.
As far as post-'Sunday' disappointments go, I must say the lack of follow through made Carson's death even worse to me. He isn't talked about! He's referenced all of once for the remainder of the season, and that in a mechanical manner to introduce the new doctor. I swear, the cast decided to throw in the subdued demeanors and excessively sharp tones to the "banter" kicking off 'Submersion' because they wanted some acknowledgment of their fallen comrade and the writers had completely dropped the subject. Good on them if so.
One thing I noticed in Buffy fandom was a tendency by the audience to hate replacement characters for the crime of not being the prior one. I never saw the point of this outlook. No idea if that happened to Jewel Staite's character here, but I have exactly zero problem with her. I'm just sad they didn't think to bring her in as Carson's assistant, because most of the other key roles have a designated understudy (Zelenka, Lorne) and that would have been fun to see.
The most major disappointment to me is how the Michael story develops (more like devolves, honestly), jettisoning all the elements which made his character and situation so interesting. His new plan is so heinous (and icky) it bulldozes any possible sympathy, changing the question from "how are the team going to handle this terrible, complex situation?" into "when are the team going to freaking kill this guy already?" Which is a time-honored storytelling technique, and SGA is not alone in making this switch, but it's not one I ever find very interesting. Also, by removing the nuance but refusing to kill the character off, it damages the heroes, too. Damn it, John, just shoot him, stop talking to him, just - oh, he got away while you were doing your macho blathering routine. *Headdesk*
So that's frustrating, and I hope they wrap the Michael plot up quickly, because I don't think there's any water left in that particular well and between the original Wraith (who still haven't been dealt with, like, at all) and the replicators, they really don't need another Big Bad snapping at their heels. At least they made peace with the Genii, for the moment. That's progress.
I continue to be completely entertained and I'm so glad I own this on disc.
