Stargate Atlantis
Aug. 26th, 2005 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhienellethOk, so I'm stilling missing two of the six episodes that have already aired this season, but I've seen four so far. (For those interested, 2x01, 2x04, 2x05 & 2x06. And I've read recaps of 2x03.) And I saw a scattering of episodes last season, though never in one consecutive order. Still, I feel fully entrenched in the show now, recording every week, etc, etc, and I thought I'd post my reactions to it/impressions of it as a whole. In case anyone at all is even remotely interested. :)
The first question that comes to mind is why didn't this show grab me last season when I tried to be interested? Several reasons, I think. I was trying to fill the F/SF TV void in my life that the cancellations of Firefly and Angel had left, and the ending of Buffy. You have to understand my background. I've been a fan of F/SF shows since the original Star Trek, though that franchise pretty much lost me with Voyager, and though I tried to love it, later seasons of Enterprise couldn't hook me back. I've been a faithful viewer of such classic as the short lived Dark Shadows remake, Forever Knight, and even on occassion Xena, though that show mostly catered to every cliche about the fantasy genre, and was thus hard for me watch. When Buffy came along with this smart and funny writing, a kick ass female heroine, and sexy villains, I was in TV heaven. I'd found the weekly love of my life. Then came Angel, and lastly, Firefly. I needed no other fulfillment in my TV watching week than that, being the genre geek I am.
Sadly, that time came to an end. Alias, while good for the first two seasons, did not fill my fantasy/science fiction need. I had friends who loved Stargate and Farscape, so I borrowed DVDs of the latter and watched all four seasons and the miniseries when it aired. It was good, but also cancelled. Stargate had a couple of things working against it for me. First, it had already been on for 7-8 seasons! That's a lot of catch-up to try and do, and I wasn't really interested enough to try. Second, it starred Richard Dean Anderson, who would always be Macgyver to me, though I would probably have gotten over that by the second season, if I'd watched.
Then came Stargate Atlantis. A new series, with new actors, none of whom I'd seen before. Also, this Sheppard character was nice looking. And it had a strong female character (Elizabeth) in charge. I tried the first few episodes. They were ok. They didn't rock my world, or otherwise really impress me. I think it was about that time that BSG finally came out as a series, and SGA was dropped without a second thought. BSG was everything I'd been missing: smart writing, good SF, strong characters with some definite sexual tension thrown in, and the really surprising thing: something different than any SF show I'd seen previously. Military SF. I mean, as a genre. Atlantis has a military element, but David Weber it isn't. BSG has that hard hitting military element that the Honor Harrington books have. Or the Ender series. I loved it. And for the short time that S1 aired, I had no need for other SF.
Now we come to more current times, and S2 BSG, or SciFi's SciFi Friday. I keep seeing these intriguing previews of Stargate Atlantis. And my f-list just explodes with excitement from fans who love the direction the new season is taking. Ever one to follow my f-list, I resolve to check it out again. Which I do, by d/ling four of the first six episodes.
And this time, I find myself thoroughly sucked in. But why? Is it the new kick butt warrior, Ronan? Hmm. No. As you can see by my icon, I'm a fan, and I enjoy the interplay between him and Teyla, but no, he's not the reason. In fact, at times I find his character too much -- a note to the writers, subtle works better than hit-us-over-the-head with how cool and strong and kick ass he is. In fact, he reminds me of a Mary Sue. He's better at fighting than John and the whole of John's team put together. He knows as much or more about the Wraith. He and Teyla are obvious and almost too easy to put together.
Does this mean I don't like him? Absolutely not. I kind of wish he had braids instead of dreds, but that's probably just my Tyr-love coming through. I can buy into the over-the-top warrior type, because I like the archtype well enough to do so. But that alone is not enough to make me watch.
To tell you the truth, now that the show's more established, I think it just works better. The characters, and the actors playing them, know exactly who they are. They know who they're fighting against and what their job is. The relationships they have with each other are tighter, less awkward, and everyone interacts with this kind of synergy that seemed to be missing from the episodes I saw last season. Even when they're fighting. :)
I love the fact that Weir and Sheppard aren't always formal, even in a work setting. He calls her "Elizabeth" quite often, and she calls him "John" when she unbends enough to do so. But then, she's in the position of keeping all of this together, of making all the tough decisions, and not being a Colonel in the military to do so. And she's a woman, though they don't seem to have made an issue of her commanding military men. It would be, in real life. A non-military female doctor having final sway over a group of military personnel, most of whom are men? But she and John seem to have developed a good rapport, and it works. (Of course I already ship them, but that's neither here nor there, and I don't ship them hard, like I did John and Aeryn.)
McKay is as arrogant as ever, and while I usually find him annoying, I realize that's his character, and he has his place. "Duet" was vastly amusing, I must say. The character I really like, and who I liked when I saw him last season, is the Scottish doctor, what is his name? The one McKay kissed in Duet. I hope he's around a lot, because I just love him. Being a doctor isn't just his job, it's who he is, like when he would have tried to heal that Wraith in the beginning of Duet. He has just the right mix of toughness, charm, caring, wit, and that lovely accent. :)
I also enjoy Teyla, though most of what I've seen this season has her interacting with Ronan, so I don't have a real handle on how her character relates to all the others. She was a leader among her people, so she's smart as well as tough, but I just hope they play her that way. It would be unfortunate to relegate her to the pretty looking muscle.
But I think what really pulled me in, beyond the characters, is the fact that the show reminds of all my favorite things about Star Trek, except better. It has a crew, exploring strange new worlds, encountering new civilizations, yadda, yadda. The command crew are always the ones doing the exploring (but at least they have a plausible reason for it in this series), and they have a much more involved secondary cast than Trek ever did, with characters that rotate in and out, who you see enough to form an attachment to, but not enough to be part of the core group. The enemy is much more threatening than any Trek villains were. The show has more violence, so everything isn't a "diplomatic solution", but it still has the planet-of-the-week or dire-scenario-for-the-crew of the week that Trek had. And maybe that's not the greatest TV ever, but I grew up with that for my SF tv shows, and as a consequence, it feels familiar and loved. And Atlantis is just different enough to be better, instead of yet another tired spin-off that fails to measure up. I think Trek hit it's all time high with DS9, and should have stopped there.
In any case, Atlantis has won me as a weekly viewer. It'll be interesting to see how my impression of it changes as I watch more. And who knows? Maybe I'll even start watching Stargate next. :)
The first question that comes to mind is why didn't this show grab me last season when I tried to be interested? Several reasons, I think. I was trying to fill the F/SF TV void in my life that the cancellations of Firefly and Angel had left, and the ending of Buffy. You have to understand my background. I've been a fan of F/SF shows since the original Star Trek, though that franchise pretty much lost me with Voyager, and though I tried to love it, later seasons of Enterprise couldn't hook me back. I've been a faithful viewer of such classic as the short lived Dark Shadows remake, Forever Knight, and even on occassion Xena, though that show mostly catered to every cliche about the fantasy genre, and was thus hard for me watch. When Buffy came along with this smart and funny writing, a kick ass female heroine, and sexy villains, I was in TV heaven. I'd found the weekly love of my life. Then came Angel, and lastly, Firefly. I needed no other fulfillment in my TV watching week than that, being the genre geek I am.
Sadly, that time came to an end. Alias, while good for the first two seasons, did not fill my fantasy/science fiction need. I had friends who loved Stargate and Farscape, so I borrowed DVDs of the latter and watched all four seasons and the miniseries when it aired. It was good, but also cancelled. Stargate had a couple of things working against it for me. First, it had already been on for 7-8 seasons! That's a lot of catch-up to try and do, and I wasn't really interested enough to try. Second, it starred Richard Dean Anderson, who would always be Macgyver to me, though I would probably have gotten over that by the second season, if I'd watched.
Then came Stargate Atlantis. A new series, with new actors, none of whom I'd seen before. Also, this Sheppard character was nice looking. And it had a strong female character (Elizabeth) in charge. I tried the first few episodes. They were ok. They didn't rock my world, or otherwise really impress me. I think it was about that time that BSG finally came out as a series, and SGA was dropped without a second thought. BSG was everything I'd been missing: smart writing, good SF, strong characters with some definite sexual tension thrown in, and the really surprising thing: something different than any SF show I'd seen previously. Military SF. I mean, as a genre. Atlantis has a military element, but David Weber it isn't. BSG has that hard hitting military element that the Honor Harrington books have. Or the Ender series. I loved it. And for the short time that S1 aired, I had no need for other SF.
Now we come to more current times, and S2 BSG, or SciFi's SciFi Friday. I keep seeing these intriguing previews of Stargate Atlantis. And my f-list just explodes with excitement from fans who love the direction the new season is taking. Ever one to follow my f-list, I resolve to check it out again. Which I do, by d/ling four of the first six episodes.
And this time, I find myself thoroughly sucked in. But why? Is it the new kick butt warrior, Ronan? Hmm. No. As you can see by my icon, I'm a fan, and I enjoy the interplay between him and Teyla, but no, he's not the reason. In fact, at times I find his character too much -- a note to the writers, subtle works better than hit-us-over-the-head with how cool and strong and kick ass he is. In fact, he reminds me of a Mary Sue. He's better at fighting than John and the whole of John's team put together. He knows as much or more about the Wraith. He and Teyla are obvious and almost too easy to put together.
Does this mean I don't like him? Absolutely not. I kind of wish he had braids instead of dreds, but that's probably just my Tyr-love coming through. I can buy into the over-the-top warrior type, because I like the archtype well enough to do so. But that alone is not enough to make me watch.
To tell you the truth, now that the show's more established, I think it just works better. The characters, and the actors playing them, know exactly who they are. They know who they're fighting against and what their job is. The relationships they have with each other are tighter, less awkward, and everyone interacts with this kind of synergy that seemed to be missing from the episodes I saw last season. Even when they're fighting. :)
I love the fact that Weir and Sheppard aren't always formal, even in a work setting. He calls her "Elizabeth" quite often, and she calls him "John" when she unbends enough to do so. But then, she's in the position of keeping all of this together, of making all the tough decisions, and not being a Colonel in the military to do so. And she's a woman, though they don't seem to have made an issue of her commanding military men. It would be, in real life. A non-military female doctor having final sway over a group of military personnel, most of whom are men? But she and John seem to have developed a good rapport, and it works. (Of course I already ship them, but that's neither here nor there, and I don't ship them hard, like I did John and Aeryn.)
McKay is as arrogant as ever, and while I usually find him annoying, I realize that's his character, and he has his place. "Duet" was vastly amusing, I must say. The character I really like, and who I liked when I saw him last season, is the Scottish doctor, what is his name? The one McKay kissed in Duet. I hope he's around a lot, because I just love him. Being a doctor isn't just his job, it's who he is, like when he would have tried to heal that Wraith in the beginning of Duet. He has just the right mix of toughness, charm, caring, wit, and that lovely accent. :)
I also enjoy Teyla, though most of what I've seen this season has her interacting with Ronan, so I don't have a real handle on how her character relates to all the others. She was a leader among her people, so she's smart as well as tough, but I just hope they play her that way. It would be unfortunate to relegate her to the pretty looking muscle.
But I think what really pulled me in, beyond the characters, is the fact that the show reminds of all my favorite things about Star Trek, except better. It has a crew, exploring strange new worlds, encountering new civilizations, yadda, yadda. The command crew are always the ones doing the exploring (but at least they have a plausible reason for it in this series), and they have a much more involved secondary cast than Trek ever did, with characters that rotate in and out, who you see enough to form an attachment to, but not enough to be part of the core group. The enemy is much more threatening than any Trek villains were. The show has more violence, so everything isn't a "diplomatic solution", but it still has the planet-of-the-week or dire-scenario-for-the-crew of the week that Trek had. And maybe that's not the greatest TV ever, but I grew up with that for my SF tv shows, and as a consequence, it feels familiar and loved. And Atlantis is just different enough to be better, instead of yet another tired spin-off that fails to measure up. I think Trek hit it's all time high with DS9, and should have stopped there.
In any case, Atlantis has won me as a weekly viewer. It'll be interesting to see how my impression of it changes as I watch more. And who knows? Maybe I'll even start watching Stargate next. :)
