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My 2 cents on stuff
New Lost on Wednesday! SQUEE!
Also ... sorry, I can't help it, but LOL at the foofferaw about the Entertainment Weekly article on Battlestar Galactica dissing SGA (calling it an "inferior" show to BSG).
Look, I love SGA to pieces. I adore the characters, the writing, the world ... pretty much everything about it. But it's total brain candy. It's space opera. Honestly, I don't think I would love it so much if it wasn't. As SF TV goes -- hell, as TV goes, it really IS a quality show. The subtlety and continuity impresses me, not to mention its great strength, the characters. But ... it's brain candy. That's what it IS.
I've never seen BSG, but from all I've heard about it, it's very serious political SF, a la Arthur Clarke. And if that's your cup of tea, the more heady, intellectual stuff ... then yes, SGA *is* an inferior show. Sorry. It's true.
Just to pull another example out of the air -- my favorite book series of all time, bar none, is the fantasy series "Death Gate" by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. It's pure, utter brain candy. There are characters whose names inexplicably change spellings halfway through the series and subplots that simply vanish because the writers got overwhelmed and gave up on them. It's not dreck, but if you compare it to a master of genre fiction like, oh, Ursula Le Guin? It's inferior. Definitely inferior. And yet I love it to death, I've taken books from the series with me on trips as a security blanket and stayed up late re-reading my favorite parts for the umpteenth gazillion time. If I had to choose one book series to have on a desert island, it would be these books. I *know* that they aren't that great, and I don't care. I just love them anyway.
SGA is not the greatest thing ever written. It's not groundbreaking, it's not original, it's not especially profound. It's just FUN. My husband calls it "crack" because it's so addictive. But, if you're comparing it to SF that strives to break free of the monster-of-the-week genre ... I'm sorry. SGA *is* one of those monster-of-the-week shows. And yes, I can see why writers of a show that's trying to do serious SF would be annoyed by getting grouped in with the space-opera shows.
EDIT: I cut my editorializing (probably a bit late, but better late than never) for people who don't want to get caught up in opinion-izing on the subject.
And now ... back to pining for new SGA! LOL!
Also ... sorry, I can't help it, but LOL at the foofferaw about the Entertainment Weekly article on Battlestar Galactica dissing SGA (calling it an "inferior" show to BSG).
Look, I love SGA to pieces. I adore the characters, the writing, the world ... pretty much everything about it. But it's total brain candy. It's space opera. Honestly, I don't think I would love it so much if it wasn't. As SF TV goes -- hell, as TV goes, it really IS a quality show. The subtlety and continuity impresses me, not to mention its great strength, the characters. But ... it's brain candy. That's what it IS.
I've never seen BSG, but from all I've heard about it, it's very serious political SF, a la Arthur Clarke. And if that's your cup of tea, the more heady, intellectual stuff ... then yes, SGA *is* an inferior show. Sorry. It's true.
Just to pull another example out of the air -- my favorite book series of all time, bar none, is the fantasy series "Death Gate" by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. It's pure, utter brain candy. There are characters whose names inexplicably change spellings halfway through the series and subplots that simply vanish because the writers got overwhelmed and gave up on them. It's not dreck, but if you compare it to a master of genre fiction like, oh, Ursula Le Guin? It's inferior. Definitely inferior. And yet I love it to death, I've taken books from the series with me on trips as a security blanket and stayed up late re-reading my favorite parts for the umpteenth gazillion time. If I had to choose one book series to have on a desert island, it would be these books. I *know* that they aren't that great, and I don't care. I just love them anyway.
SGA is not the greatest thing ever written. It's not groundbreaking, it's not original, it's not especially profound. It's just FUN. My husband calls it "crack" because it's so addictive. But, if you're comparing it to SF that strives to break free of the monster-of-the-week genre ... I'm sorry. SGA *is* one of those monster-of-the-week shows. And yes, I can see why writers of a show that's trying to do serious SF would be annoyed by getting grouped in with the space-opera shows.
EDIT: I cut my editorializing (probably a bit late, but better late than never) for people who don't want to get caught up in opinion-izing on the subject.
And now ... back to pining for new SGA! LOL!