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Meanwhile in various TV
This ... started out as a post about what I'm watching these days and apparently turned into a sort of rant-ish thing about SGU, I guess. On the one hand, I like some of the things they've done with the last couple of episodes. On the other hand, as a viewer, I am a fickle and opinionated creature *g*, and I have issues, which I suppose largely come down to "this show is not tailored to ME, dammit!"
I actually love the last couple episodes' refusal to deliver a last-minute save. I still think that the show needs to pull a Lost and actually kill a character or two if it wants to have any credibility as far as the "... anyone could die at any time!" thing they seem to be trying for, but still -- I love being surprised, and having cliches averted, and the last two episodes have given a pretty standard "but now they will be saved at the last minute!" setup and then overturned it by not saving anybody. Which I really like, especially since it sets up far more plot possibilities than just returning the lost group to the ship at the end. However ...
... emotionally, I need more than I'm getting. I'm having the same problem that I had (and have) with LOST (the series, not the SGU episode): aside from a few troubled couples or love triangles, the characters never bond. There's lots of potential for it, and there are lots of one-off episodes or scenes that could have developed into very cute and interesting character relationships. But, like with LOST, they just don't happen. For example, Rush saving Chloe from the alien spaceship could've been the start of a weird little odd-couple friendship, unexpected by both parties ... but they haven't really interacted since, and now she's stuck offworld. Greer being left behind could've been the setup for a rescue that would've given an opportunity for him to work through some of his abandonment issues and become closer to one or another of the other characters, but no -- he was abandoned, and now it's likely that he'll be even more distant with the rest of the crew as a result.
It's weird because, whatever they may have done wrong (which was a lot), for 15 years the Stargate writers were awfully good at hitting my found-family, characters-in-danger-looking-after-each-other buttons. They did it over and over again, with many different characters, in many different situations. A recurring theme in both shows was being lonely and then finding other people to love, and being inspired through love to acts of courage, heroism, and compassion. And they did it over and over - whether it was something big like Daniel throwing himself into a roomful of lethal radiation or Sheppard flying a nuke into a hiveship, or something small like lone-wolf Vala hugging Sam after they got her back from another dimension, or Rodney putting a newborn baby into Teyla's arms.
I'm not getting that with SGU. In fact, SGU is like the total antithesis of that. For the most part, the only characters who interact with each other on a regular, recurring basis are people who hate each other (Rush and Young) or love triangles in which the third leg of the triangle (the romantic rivals' relationship) is never developed, e.g. Eli/Chloe/Scott, Young/TJ/whatever his wife's name is. There is no reason why you can't have romance as part of a healthy show dynamic, but if the only regular interactions that most of the characters seem to have with each other has to do with their love lives (and unhappy and conflicted love lives at that!), I start to raise my eyebrows. (Ranma 1/2, to name just one, was nonstop 24-7 love triangles and romantic misunderstandings ... but that never stopped the series from developing all the characters' relationships with each other, in every possible combination - and there were a lot of situations in which the romantic rivals had to put aside their rivalry to team up against a common enemy. The group as a whole might've had a lot of internal conflict, but they also bonded, and woe betide anyone who threatened any of them.)
Frankly, it doesn't matter to me whether it's a show or a book or a movie -- if you want me to care about the characters, and hover on the edge of my seat for fear of anything happening to them, you have to make them care about each other. This is why Stephen King is so good at ripping out my heart and stomping on it, because his characters might be flawed and petty, but they love each other -- as family, as friends, as siblings or partners or whatever. I don't want any of them to die because the others would be hurt so badly. And then he kills them all anyway, but ... it's Stephen King; at least you can't say you weren't warned. XD
And yes, I am very well aware that this is my own bias as a reader/viewer showing! But I own my bias. *g* Some people won't watch a show or read a book or fanfic if there's not a romantic couple in it, because romance is what they watch for. With me, it's friendship (or strongly friendship-based romance too). I can't really get into it if the characters don't bond with each other in some way, or at least demonstrate that a few of them care about each other as people and are willing to risk themselves for each other.
By this point in both SGA and SG-1 (fifteen episodes in!), we'd had quite a number of fairly dramatic scenes that demonstrated the characters' ability to perform heroically under pressure, or their willingness to go the extra mile for each other even when they didn't know each other all that well yet. I'm trying to think of similar scenes in SGU and I'm kind of drawing a blank. The emotional interactions that we have gotten in SGU could have been really interesting as the basis for a stronger relationship later on, but the show never follows through on it, like the Rush-Chloe thing I was talking about earlier. In, say, the first episode of SG-1, there were a lot of individual interactions between the characters that don't have a tremendous amount of emotional impact yet, but were built upon later as those characters continued to interact -- like Jack taking Daniel home after Sha're was taken, or Teal'c trusting Jack on Chulak. Imagine if, after that initial scene with Jack and Teal'c, they'd never really interacted again, but had continued to pair up Teal'c with different characters and never let him bond with anyone. That would be miserable! That's not what I want to watch!
I'm trying to envision how many of the characters on SGU have ANYONE on the ship that they'd be willing to risk themselves for, or put themselves on the line emotionally for, not because it's their job but because they like that person and don't want to lose them. Like Jack in the labyrinth in Thor's Hammer (... I think that was the episode), telling it that Teal'c is his family now and he's not leaving without him? Or Rodney standing up in Defiant One to shoot the Wraith before it can kill Sheppard? If most of the characters on SGU died, I can't think who would mourn them ... there are a few who might be a little sad (like Eli and Chloe are a little sad about leaving Greer for dead), but broken up? Not so much...
I'm not even gonna say it's unrealistic. Actually, if you're thrown together with a bunch of strangers, being mildly annoyed by the rest of them is probably more likely than bonding with them as BFFs. But that doesn't change the fact that BFF-bonding is what I want to watch; unfriendly strangers circling each other with their hackles raised just isn't really my thing. Strangers becoming friends makes me squee! Strangers staying strangers is just kind of ... meh. And, after a while, fairly annoying, because Show is not supplying my emotional needs, dammit!
ETA: After thinking some more, I think what it comes down to with SGU is that it's giving me lots of "hurt" but very little "comfort" to go with it -- and less and less prospect of any, as time goes by. And all that it's really doing is making me tune out emotionally, even though I like some of the characters and want to see more of them. Actually, the more I like them, the less I want to watch them suffer with no one around who cares.
OH HI, THIS GOT LONG. And opinion-y.
I actually love the last couple episodes' refusal to deliver a last-minute save. I still think that the show needs to pull a Lost and actually kill a character or two if it wants to have any credibility as far as the "... anyone could die at any time!" thing they seem to be trying for, but still -- I love being surprised, and having cliches averted, and the last two episodes have given a pretty standard "but now they will be saved at the last minute!" setup and then overturned it by not saving anybody. Which I really like, especially since it sets up far more plot possibilities than just returning the lost group to the ship at the end. However ...
... emotionally, I need more than I'm getting. I'm having the same problem that I had (and have) with LOST (the series, not the SGU episode): aside from a few troubled couples or love triangles, the characters never bond. There's lots of potential for it, and there are lots of one-off episodes or scenes that could have developed into very cute and interesting character relationships. But, like with LOST, they just don't happen. For example, Rush saving Chloe from the alien spaceship could've been the start of a weird little odd-couple friendship, unexpected by both parties ... but they haven't really interacted since, and now she's stuck offworld. Greer being left behind could've been the setup for a rescue that would've given an opportunity for him to work through some of his abandonment issues and become closer to one or another of the other characters, but no -- he was abandoned, and now it's likely that he'll be even more distant with the rest of the crew as a result.
It's weird because, whatever they may have done wrong (which was a lot), for 15 years the Stargate writers were awfully good at hitting my found-family, characters-in-danger-looking-after-each-other buttons. They did it over and over again, with many different characters, in many different situations. A recurring theme in both shows was being lonely and then finding other people to love, and being inspired through love to acts of courage, heroism, and compassion. And they did it over and over - whether it was something big like Daniel throwing himself into a roomful of lethal radiation or Sheppard flying a nuke into a hiveship, or something small like lone-wolf Vala hugging Sam after they got her back from another dimension, or Rodney putting a newborn baby into Teyla's arms.
I'm not getting that with SGU. In fact, SGU is like the total antithesis of that. For the most part, the only characters who interact with each other on a regular, recurring basis are people who hate each other (Rush and Young) or love triangles in which the third leg of the triangle (the romantic rivals' relationship) is never developed, e.g. Eli/Chloe/Scott, Young/TJ/whatever his wife's name is. There is no reason why you can't have romance as part of a healthy show dynamic, but if the only regular interactions that most of the characters seem to have with each other has to do with their love lives (and unhappy and conflicted love lives at that!), I start to raise my eyebrows. (Ranma 1/2, to name just one, was nonstop 24-7 love triangles and romantic misunderstandings ... but that never stopped the series from developing all the characters' relationships with each other, in every possible combination - and there were a lot of situations in which the romantic rivals had to put aside their rivalry to team up against a common enemy. The group as a whole might've had a lot of internal conflict, but they also bonded, and woe betide anyone who threatened any of them.)
Frankly, it doesn't matter to me whether it's a show or a book or a movie -- if you want me to care about the characters, and hover on the edge of my seat for fear of anything happening to them, you have to make them care about each other. This is why Stephen King is so good at ripping out my heart and stomping on it, because his characters might be flawed and petty, but they love each other -- as family, as friends, as siblings or partners or whatever. I don't want any of them to die because the others would be hurt so badly. And then he kills them all anyway, but ... it's Stephen King; at least you can't say you weren't warned. XD
And yes, I am very well aware that this is my own bias as a reader/viewer showing! But I own my bias. *g* Some people won't watch a show or read a book or fanfic if there's not a romantic couple in it, because romance is what they watch for. With me, it's friendship (or strongly friendship-based romance too). I can't really get into it if the characters don't bond with each other in some way, or at least demonstrate that a few of them care about each other as people and are willing to risk themselves for each other.
By this point in both SGA and SG-1 (fifteen episodes in!), we'd had quite a number of fairly dramatic scenes that demonstrated the characters' ability to perform heroically under pressure, or their willingness to go the extra mile for each other even when they didn't know each other all that well yet. I'm trying to think of similar scenes in SGU and I'm kind of drawing a blank. The emotional interactions that we have gotten in SGU could have been really interesting as the basis for a stronger relationship later on, but the show never follows through on it, like the Rush-Chloe thing I was talking about earlier. In, say, the first episode of SG-1, there were a lot of individual interactions between the characters that don't have a tremendous amount of emotional impact yet, but were built upon later as those characters continued to interact -- like Jack taking Daniel home after Sha're was taken, or Teal'c trusting Jack on Chulak. Imagine if, after that initial scene with Jack and Teal'c, they'd never really interacted again, but had continued to pair up Teal'c with different characters and never let him bond with anyone. That would be miserable! That's not what I want to watch!
I'm trying to envision how many of the characters on SGU have ANYONE on the ship that they'd be willing to risk themselves for, or put themselves on the line emotionally for, not because it's their job but because they like that person and don't want to lose them. Like Jack in the labyrinth in Thor's Hammer (... I think that was the episode), telling it that Teal'c is his family now and he's not leaving without him? Or Rodney standing up in Defiant One to shoot the Wraith before it can kill Sheppard? If most of the characters on SGU died, I can't think who would mourn them ... there are a few who might be a little sad (like Eli and Chloe are a little sad about leaving Greer for dead), but broken up? Not so much...
I'm not even gonna say it's unrealistic. Actually, if you're thrown together with a bunch of strangers, being mildly annoyed by the rest of them is probably more likely than bonding with them as BFFs. But that doesn't change the fact that BFF-bonding is what I want to watch; unfriendly strangers circling each other with their hackles raised just isn't really my thing. Strangers becoming friends makes me squee! Strangers staying strangers is just kind of ... meh. And, after a while, fairly annoying, because Show is not supplying my emotional needs, dammit!
ETA: After thinking some more, I think what it comes down to with SGU is that it's giving me lots of "hurt" but very little "comfort" to go with it -- and less and less prospect of any, as time goes by. And all that it's really doing is making me tune out emotionally, even though I like some of the characters and want to see more of them. Actually, the more I like them, the less I want to watch them suffer with no one around who cares.
OH HI, THIS GOT LONG. And opinion-y.
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I'm glad you're watching still! That makes, like, ten of us on LJ.
I'm, um, still loving SGU. I've separated the show from the other SGs - it's just not very much like SG-1, and even less like SGA. But, for me, it means I've finally stopped worrying about all the ways the SG shows betrayed me. I am less afraid of TJ's impending birth than of any other I've ever seen on TV, because I *know* we're not going to get what we got with Teyla and Torren, for example, where at the end of S5 we didn't even know if the baby was in the same galaxy as his mother, his impact on her life was so minimal.
Um, BID. Just last night, looking for something else, I came across a post where I said I should stop telling people they're watching SGU incorrectly!!
Actually, if you're thrown together with a bunch of strangers, being mildly annoyed by the rest of them is probably more likely than bonding with them as BFFs.
But it seems I can't stop myself!! The friendships in SGU, well, they feel right to me. I see a lot of c - probably more c than h. Dunno why - maybe it's just where I am right now personally??
Anyway, again, I'm glad you're watching at least!
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Obviously, all of that is IMHO, YMMV and all of that. Like you said, SGU is a very different show from the other Stargates. It's not surprising that most Stargate fans wouldn't like it, just like a lot of Buffy fans were extremely put off by Whedon's Dollhouse. My complaint with the show isn't that it fails to be brilliant television (nothing I'm watching right now is in any way brilliant television) but that it fails to supply my fannish needs and after fifteen episodes, it's looking like it's not going to. On the other hand, I am still watching it and I do find it entertaining - I'd just about thrown in the towel after the mid-season two-parter, but the last few episodes have picked up a lot (they're off the ship exploring stuff, and they've finally gotten kind of unpredictable with the plots). Also, next week's is the episode that got so much press pre-series, so clearly I have to watch that one because by this point I'm dying to know if what they've actually gone and done is as mind-bendingly skeevy as the spoilers made it sound. :D
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SGU all became too much for me and I stopped watching after 'Space.' That episode was when I realised that I was just watching for the sake of it, and couldn't really care less if they all got blown up by a giant nameless spaceship.
I asked myself 'Am I really liking this? Why am I still watching it?!'
Not finding a suitable answer, I stopped. And I actually feel better now for not watching it! :o
I posted this on my Stargate Meme (http://x-varda-x.livejournal.com/34549.html) a few minutes ago:-
[I don't want to spend nearly £2 an episode] to watch people I dislike wandering around a dark and dingy set doing nothing.
SGA snagged me on the first episode - it was exciting, action packed, scary, changeable. The characters were likeable, daring and heroic. The sets were colourful and bright. It was funny and entertaining to watch. Sure, it had it's serious moments, but mostly it was fun and enjoyable.
SGU is everything the SGA wasn't - dull, boring, tedious, serious, dark (lighting). Like RL then... but I want to escape from RL! The characters dislike each other, and in turn, I dislike them. There is nothing I relate to in any of them. No heroes, and no humour at all.
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Maybe that's why my response to SGU is so different from most of SGA fandom's (the part that has at least given the show a try, which I thank you for). I'm not much into escapism; I like shows which reflect RL back at me, in a way that I might not have expected.
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Me too!
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I don't always watch TV for an escape from reality, but if it's going to be dark and serious, it needs to be extra brilliantly written and insightful to keep me watching - like Life on Mars, for example, which could be a horribly bleak show with few easy answers, where the characters tended to take two steps back for every step forward in their interactions with each other, but the writing was freaking amazing. SGU ... isn't. I will happily watch a show with mediocre writing that's fun, fast and light, or a show with excellent writing that's serious, gloomy and heartbreaking, but mediocre writing + gloomy = meh for me. (All IMHO, obviously.)
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(I haven't watched the show, but I am totally on board with what you're saying. I watch for character-bonding and plot, myself.)
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OH HI, THIS GOT LONG. And opinion-y.
But I appreciate it very much. My BFF noticed SGU ads on Sci-Fi recently, and thought it sounded interesting. I had to explain it probably wouldn't interest her - based on half-remembered critiques from opinions I read 6 months ago. I see her today; I'll share this with her.
Because, for me and for her, you've nailed it exactly. - "If you want me to care about the characters, ... you have to make them care about each other." I couldn't have explained it any more succinctly. If they don't care about each other, why should we care about them?
EG, in NCIS, Tony irritates me. But, the other characters care for him (when he's not being obnoxious), and he cares for them (when he lets it show) and - when danger threatens - each of them are pulling for the others. That matters. If that wasn't there, I'd have quit watching because I couldn't tolerate such a unbalanced group-dynamic.
Actually, if you're thrown together with a bunch of strangers, being mildly annoyed by the rest of them is probably more likely than bonding with them as BFFs.
But that's the point - we can get that in RL. For escapism, we want comfort which, nine times out of ten, means people who like each other. Not just the SG shows, but any series that made it big-time. "Magnum PI" just popped into my head; Magnum and Higgens were always snarking at each other, but they would - and did - go to the wall if the other needed him. Rick and TC, too; Higgens professed to be irritated with their presence, but was concerned and helpful if they were in danger, and they several times joined together to help or rescue him.
Come to think of it (didn't know I was going to turn so philosophical, sorry), from ancient times, stories have been about heroes, people better than we suspect we might be. Current heroes may not be so grandiose, but we still want stories about people better than we suspect we might be. Strangers pulling together and forming a supportive group, instead of fracturing into self-interested individuals each with their own agenda, are a form of 'hero'. And, like you, that's what I prefer to see.
And yes, I am very well aware that this is my own bias as a reader/viewer showing!
So, I'm not sure it's a 'bias'; more a cultural (or humanistic?) trope that's ingrained in our psyches (generally speaking). Not for everyone, certainly, but pretty common - which is probably why so few seem to be warming to SGU.
Anyway, thanks for your thinky explanation; I enjoyed it.
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Oh, golly. Chloe is my favorite character on the show; perhaps my favorite woman character in SF ever.
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And your post was about SGU, so I'm going to stop now.
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I've been enjoying SGU so far, but this is starting to bother me too, especially with the latest ep in which Greer is left behind. Throughout this first season there have been some hints of (tentative) friendships here and there and I've been hoping to get more of this as the season progressed, but instead they seem to become fewer.
The only scene I can think of right now is Greer going back for Scott in Air III. It's one of my favourite (if not the favourite) scenes of SGU so far. Greer obviously cared about Scott enough to risk getting stranded on theat sand-planet. The problem I have with this scene though is that, to me, it's never (or not yet) become clear why Greer absolutely refused to leave Scott behind. I'd hoped to gain a little more insight into their friendship later on in the season, but...I can't help but think that Scott leaving Greer behind in the latest ep will have damaged that friendship.
For now though, I'm still holding out hope that it'll get better. That the characters will start to really care about each other.
Yes, this, exactly! Here's hoping that the writers are just building things up slowly, and that we will get some emotional bonding (and comfort!) in the last few eps of season 1 *crosses fingers*.
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That's right! I think that helped me like Greer—whom I care about a whole lot more than I care about most of the other characters.
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I left the show and came back for the last couple of episodes, and I feel like it's better than it was, but it's not there yet . . . and I've been trying to figure out where "there" is. I think you've totally hit the nail on the head. I do think Eli would risk himself for Chloe.
And that's about it. No one else really cares that deeply about anyone else. Young told TJ what he thought she needed to hear, and then he gave her a hug with a "Holy frack" look on his face that said he doesn't mean it at all. (I was wondering if she even wanted their relationship to resume; I never felt like she did!)
I also see a lot of hurt with no one even capable of offering comfort, with a very few exceptions: TJ tries with Lt. James. Eli tries to be there for Chloe. Chloe and Scott seem to have something to offer each other (I dunno; I just don't feel it).
I'm getting more into the stories. Rush seems to have found what he used to be, and I felt like he cared about finding the missing people—and maybe even cared about Eli. But not like the other Stargates. Maybe it's more realistic that way, but it doesn't touch me.
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Like you said, there are very few characters on the show who even have someone close enough to have the chance of comfort. I think you're probably right about Eli risking himself for Chloe, but would Chloe risk herself for Eli? Or for Scott? Scott would certainly risk himself for others -- we saw him stand between Chloe, Eli and a charging dinomonster -- but would he bring Chloe a cup of tea to cheer her up if she was depressed, or make a suicide run to the heart of an alien stronghold to rescue Eli? Like you, I never got the impression that TJ wanted her relationship with Young to resume; I kinda got the impression that Young didn't either, considering that he was going out of his way to patch things up with his wife and had little to do with TJ on the ship.
I mean, sure, you could fix it in fanfic -- considering that there are lots of people who ship characters who barely interacted in canon, you could totally write fic to make up the lack in canon. But right now I'm not getting enough from canon to make me want to.
For me, too, the other missing element is the sense of wonder, fun and play that was always present in the other Stargates. These characters don't glee in finding a crashed alien spaceship, or turn on alien tech just to see what it does, or stop to notice that a death ray being fired from space looks pretty cool when it hits your shields. Most of them would never be caught dead playing alien video games. The only character who's even interested in exploring the ruins is Eli, who has to talk the others into it, and then the show smacks him down hard for that. He's also just about the only character who ever cracks jokes. I can totally see wanting to dial back SGA and SG-1's crackiness for a more serious, "adult" show, but it's like no one on this show has ever seen a movie or played a game in their lives.
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ETA: And whether I watch it next season at all depends on what they do with the last few episodes, I guess.
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So, yeah...with that being my favorite part of SG, and that being what, from all accounts, was deliberately stripped from SGU (to be "edgy" or because the writers were bored or whatever) - not really interested in watching.
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I don't think I've ever minded romantic relationships as you do; I tend to prefer them low-key, but even looking back on older things I've fanned on, I remember liking things like Bobby/Claire in Invisible Man or Nick/Natalie in Forever Knight, and most of the anime I've watched had at least one couple that I liked. Having said that, though, I've always preferred the characters' friendships/rivalries/family relationships to be at least as important -- to the character themselves, and to the show in terms of storylines -- as who they were hooking up with romantically. Shows that leaned much more heavily to the "romantic hookup" end in terms of storyline weight tended to lose me eventually.
That's going back to the first movie - one of the reasons I wanted to see SG-1 to begin with is that I heard it brought back the Jackson and O'Neill chars, who I had thought had potential for friendship that wasn't really fulfilled, and I wanted to see it developed
hahaha ... ME TOO! I was so disappointed in the movie for not Going There with the Jack/Daniel friendship, and I was absolutely delighted when the series gave me all that I'd wanted from the movie and more!
I don't know if the writers just decided that buddyship/teamship is childish and real grownups only care about the people they have sex with, or if fifteen years of writing what's basically been a shounen manga in live-action-TV form has made them want to explore different kinds of relationships, or what. Sadly, it's taken away what was always the big draw for me ...
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I'm with you on the friendship thing. I'm a BF nut myself and it makes up a large part of why I like the shows I like. If a show is nothing but conflict and everyone at each other's throats every episode, then I'm out of there.
But, to me (and this is where we kind of differ, I think?) it's logical that some sort of bond - whether major Bff bond or at least a greater tolerance - should eventually develop between at least a few of the members of the group. Not major be-all-end-all friendship bonds but at least there should develop enough of a tolerance between two characters for those two characters to interact more, put up with each other more, even eventually hang with (and for it to either develop into a major friendship or fall apart for the sake of drama). Most people will usually gravitate toward some kind of companionship, even if they aren't the most social of people (speaking from experience). So when friendships or friendship-like interactions don't happen, to me it's jarring and can make a show difficult to watch.
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There's actually quite a bit of this on SGU, at least by my standards.
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I do agree what this show needs more of it the characters caring about each other. Right now it's hard to see that, though we do have Greer running back to save Scott....so I assumed they had a friendship before this all happened.
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Ha, yeah -- when the rescue party showed up, I said to the screen, "So how do you like the sweet taste of karma, you idiots?" (To Scott, Eli and Chloe, of course. *g*)
What did frustrate me is why didn't he shot his weapon to give them a chance to know he was there and alive. They would have heard a machine gun firing from miles away.
Um, wow. I didn't even think of that. Excellent point!
Although I can also see how he might be panicked enough not to think of it until too late.
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(Anonymous) 2010-05-01 08:21 pm (UTC)(link)I do think what they described while promoting it sounds like, from your comments, what they actually delivered.
unfriendly strangers circling each other with their hackles raised just isn't really my thing. Strangers becoming friends makes me squee! Strangers staying strangers is just kind of ... meh
Not what I want to watch, either. Thanks for the update.
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But yeah, I want connections, especially beyond sex. Hell, I want Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters to be friends in RL, and I'm actually sad that they're not. Even Greg House needs his friends and occasionally acts on their behalf — in completely screwed-up ways meant to redound to his own benefit, but still.
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(I choose not to read anything about Mythbusters except what's actually on the show. ...which means that Adam & Jamie are partners in the classic cop-show squabbling but loyal to the end sense, and Grant & Tory & Carrie are BFFs (and Grant & Tory are possibly boyfriends ;), and I don't want to hear otherwise! :P)
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Actually, if you're thrown together with a bunch of strangers, being mildly annoyed by the rest of them is probably more likely than bonding with them as BFFs.
I... disagree. Part of my disagreement comes from me being sick UNTO DEATH! with this idea that, in general, people are jerks. I get the New Yorker and I faithfully read every fiction story. For educational purposes, I suppose. And so many of them are about how alone everyone is. If you're married, your spouse holds you in contempt. If you have kids, you resent them. If you are a kid, your parents are horribly damaging. And no one (no one!) ever has a real friend.
So for me, everyone fighting, no one bonding, has become a sort of hipster shorthand for "depth". And it's just as cliched as everyone becoming bff's two seconds into introduction. Just more unpleasant. ;D
But the other part of my disagreement is I'd think this would be a time when a lot of people would actively look for someone to bond with. The amount of trauma they're going through, I'd think people would look for support. I could see factions springing up, but the solitude of everyone on board just didn't make sense to me. Especially since the bulk of people there had already been living with each other for quite a while. They weren't all strangers so shouldn't some of them been friends already?
I also had a really, really hard time believing people trained into the StarGate program were so bad at leading... but that's probably another topic. ;)
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I certainly don't think it's impossible for people to bond under stress, or when thrown together into unexpected circumstances -- but it can go the other way, too. Given my choice, though, in fiction I would much rather see the first kind than the second.
But the other part of my disagreement is I'd think this would be a time when a lot of people would actively look for someone to bond with. The amount of trauma they're going through, I'd think people would look for support. I could see factions springing up, but the solitude of everyone on board just didn't make sense to me. Especially since the bulk of people there had already been living with each other for quite a while. They weren't all strangers so shouldn't some of them been friends already?
Yeah ... Like I said in one of the comments above, I think a lot of the problem is that I don't get the impression that the characters' friendships are a priority of the writers. So they get neglected, or just never considered in the first place; the characters are typically paired up in various scenes without a whole lot of concern for that aspect of what's gone before. The "important" relationships are the romances (and occasionally who's betraying who, as with Rush and Young). It's hardly unique to SGU, but it's not what I want out of fiction.
It's just kind of boggling to me that we've gotten this from the writers of the earlier Stargate shows, which delivered on the team-bonding, chosen-family thing in a way that was hugely satisfying for me.
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(Anonymous) 2010-05-02 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)In fact, I think everyone has been trying to avoid deeper relationships exactly because they all realize anyone could be dead at any time. They're afraid of being hurt. Rush has had his epiphany in the chair, and seems to have been working hard to rescue that snot-nosed brat who saved the day at the last minute (did anyone else think of MovieDanielJackson--"still using BlahBlah, it's not Door to Heaven"--when Rush was describing Eli to Daniel in his subconscious?). And Young may now have to soften up a little, because everyone'll know he's the father.
Re Eli/Chloe/Matt: I think Eli wants to dislike Matt, but he really is a genuine nice guy--that's part of what's frustrating Eli and making him act out, trying to get Chloe's attention, but his anger is directed at Young & Rush.
Generously, I could say the writers were deliberately taking their time: the time the ST:V writers didn't take integrating the two crews. Or I could say the actors (or directors) have been subtly bending things, showing writers things they didn't realize were in the scripts. But I'll keep watching a little while longer to see if they do have a clue.
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I'll just say that I agree with your assessment. I mean, really, who wants to watch a show with a bunch of people that hate each other? That's what it boiled down for me. I was so tired of all the back-stabbing political stuff. Everyone doesn't have to be buddy-buddy, but when all the drama took a back seat and the characters began interacting on missions...well, that's when I really enjoyed the show. Out of the 15 episodes so far, I've like "Time," "Faith," "Human," and "Lost." I really liked the moment in "Faith" where TJ told Scott that she was preggers and he was all awesome and supportive, and that was the first time he didn't get on my nerves.
And I actually really liked when TJ was giving Greer the psych eval, the tension between them wasn't tedious, and actually that was the first time the two had been shown at odds, as they were on pretty good terms up until then.
I don't know exactly what other point I'm trying to make is, but I guess it's that this show could do with more continuity in the friendshippy moments.
I also appreciated that they didn't get saved at the last minute in the last few eps. I just hate that it took this show this long to hit it's stride, so to speak. :/