sholio | Tonight, on "Bastards in Space" ...

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Tonight, on "Bastards in Space" ...

Uh-huh. Not that I expect medical realism from Stargate. But I'm pretty sure that the medical-profession approved treatment for a crushing injury is not leaving them lying there to bleed to death. There have been actual, documented cases of trapped people amputating their own limbs with improvised tools and surviving! I'm just sayin' -- if you've got nothing to lose, why not slap a tourniquet on him, get a pile of rocks and an improvised lever, and go to work? What's the worst that can happen ... he dies?

"Sorry your foot got blown off by that land mine, Private Bob, but you're probably not going to make it, so we're going to have to leave you here. See ya."

I suppose where I'm going with this is that it's a lot easier to buy the ~tragedy~ and ~drama~ of it all if they'd picked an injury that was 100% lethal. Like, say, a big rebar spike through his chest or something. As it is, it just kind of makes the characters look like they can't be bothered to do anything about it. It's not the euthanasia angle that bothers me -- I can believe in that under appropriately desperate circumstances; heck, it worked for me in Defiant One, because they made us believe that Gall was a goner anyway, and managed to set up his suicide as a somewhat heroic act under the circumstances. Here? Not so much.

Sitting around being depressed = NOT A GOOD RESPONSE TO A MEDICAL CRISIS. Especially from trained military and EMT personnel!

Also, why is it that the one Stargate show that doesn't have the cojones to actually kill a main character -- as opposed to knocking off a string of recurring minor characters and redshirts -- is the supposedly "darker and edgier" one?

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I'm not watching SGU nor reading your review.

I'm just LOLing at 'Bastards In Space'. Like the Muppets segment "Pigs in Space":

BAAAASTAAARDS IIIIIN SPAAAAAACE!

Dammit, I meant to comment on the title! But now I don't need to.

I love you.

And now anytime anyone mentions SGU, the little voice in the back of my brain will declare: BAAAAAAASTARDS IIIIIN SPAAAAAACE!

AND I start looking around for the voice! :D

Hee. Everything is better IN SPAAAACE! (Well, no, not really.)

We've been calling it that around our household since the first few episodes. And yet ... we're still watching it. Every once in a while it will dangle the possibility of an interesting storyline before snatching it away! Perhaps I'm simply a glutton for punishment or something.

Heh. You know, I feel somewhat compelled to point out that 'dangling the possibility of an interesting storyline before snatching it away' is what the Stargate PTB do best.

And inevitably the storylines they follow are the ones that Do Not Interest Me At All. Which is probably why I'm never going to get around to watching SGU.

yea. I thought them all pretty much jerks from watching 10 episodes. It was like, OMG, I just want to kill them all! Please! Stop the pain! As for this episode (which I didn't watch). They really did that? Didn't even TRY to help someone? *facepalm*

As for killing main characters, yea, I'm pretty sure they will - too early to do that yet.

Actually, you want 'darker and edgier' ... watch Caprica.

Well, they tried to lift off the piece of debris that was crushing him, failed, and then just sat and held his hand while he slowly deteriorated. Until assisting his suicide later on.

I can grant that this could have been a very sad and tear-jerking situation if they'd made his situation more dire, or if they'd actually TRIED TO DO ANYTHING beyond a cursory attempt to lift off the debris at the very beginning.

>>Well, they tried to lift off the piece of debris that was crushing him, failed, and then just sat and held his hand while he slowly deteriorated.<<

Apparently they could learn a thing or two from Ronon and Sam Carter simply by ~~watching~~ reading the mission report of "Search and Rescue". ;-)

Well, if that's what TPTB meant when they spoke about SGU being more realistic...

I'm just happy that the SGA-writers didn't get this particular idea earlier, say, while they were still writing episodes for SGA.

Well, I'm certainly not going to argue that SGA was better with the medical realism. It was at least as bad if not worse. On the other hand, the previous two Stargates tended to push the laughable-lack-of-credibility in the other direction -- having characters survive things they couldn't possibly have survived, or bounce back from broken legs and things in apparently a matter of days. Which is very eyeroll-worthy, but, you know, given the choice ...

Isn't this the show that brags about how unready and unqualified (read: incompetent) everyone on it is, particularly the highest-ranked medical-trained person? I could be misremembering, but that detail was one of the many specific reasons I wasn't interested in it.

I have to wonder if they think they're offering the "darker, edgier" version of the Homicide: Life on the Street episode in which Vincent D'Onofrio's character was crush-trapped by a subway train. That case had the medical rescue personnel spending all the episode's time trying to find a way to lever the train away from him, knowing that the degree of crushing would send him into ... hypovolemic shock rapidly followed by death, I think, because his entire lower half was crushed and that's not really a tourniquet situation. Even knowing that, they tried.

That was actual quality television, though, as opposed to Our Flawed Characters and Can't-Do Attitude Make Us Deep television.

(Is there any way in which the "darker, edgier" content and "sexual exploration" of SGU is anything less trite than a college freshman discovering how prudish his own upbringing has been and thinking that the very concept of sex somehow confers Deep Meaning?)

See, the "unready and unqualified" aspect actually appeals to me, and the fact that they have an EMT rather than a doctor is kind of neat. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out before me and as someone who's watched the whole first season of the show I have to agree ... that whole thing is just not a good fit for a universe in which they've been exploring the galaxy for fifteen years already. The general way that they've framed it works fine in a first-contact, unprepared-humans-discover-alien-tech kind of situation (which I've read plenty of! And really liked!). But, er, here it looks more like these are the dregs of the Stargate program who were dumped on Icarus Base because no one wanted them any closer to home.

And I like the sound of the episode you described! See, I'm pretty sure that's what they were trying to go for. But what we actually saw was that the guy's got debris covering his legs and it really hurts him when anyone tries to lift it off, then the medical person reaches underneath (to about knee level, it looked like) and brings her hand back covered with blood, and at that point they pretty much stop trying to get him out, just sit there and hold his hand until he dies. (Well, more accurately until he isn't dying fast enough and wants to kill himself, so the guy who's on current hand-holding duty smothered him.) It was just a total cluster*** all the way around.

I had a brief moment last night when I noticed SGU season 2 was about to start showing here, and I thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if it's improved at all since I abandoned it halfway through last season? Perhaps I should give it another chance." -- So thank you for helping me through that brief moment of dubious judgement.

Hee! No, not really. The finale gave me hope! The last couple episodes of last season were pretty good -- tense and interesting. But, er, no, not really. (The way they played out the end of the one pregnant character's pregnancy in the first episode of the season was pretty much everything I was afraid they were going to do with Teyla and then was terribly relieved that they didn't.)

There have been actual, documented cases of trapped people amputating their own limbs with improvised tools and surviving!

One of which has been made into an upcoming movie, so you'd think it might have registered on even the Stargate PTB's radar.

(But this way there's more ~drama~ and ~gloom~. *g*)

Did they? Which one? Is it the mountain climber who got his arm trapped under a boulder and amputated it with a pocket knife, then hiked for help? Because holy hell, that was some serious will-to-live right there.

Is it the mountain climber who got his arm trapped under a boulder and amputated it with a pocket knife, then hiked for help?

Yup! Now a Danny Boyle movie.

I do not have that much will-to-live.

I might have that much of an aversion to boredom, though.... I mean, if there's no other way to avoid having to just...hang out there, stuck under a rock, for a few days, yeah, I might be able to manage that.

so.. the new series still has it's little "teething" problems does it.:)

I really do not understand why the series writing is so poor. Is the series so strapped for cash it can't hire at least one writer who can go "take away the "sci-fi" aspect of the scenario, if I was in this position what would I do?" or "remove the space stuff and apply real life scenario to this situation.. ". It isn't hard to do.. or do I just think it isn't hard to do because I do it naturally?

You know, I think that I wouldn't mind if the characters in this series were all actually defined as complete "bastards".. At least it would be a consistant character defintion and would allow you the viewer to back the person you most want to "win"..

Yeah ... Young is a bastard, Rush is a bastard, but everyone else is just kind of -- there. If they were all plotting and sneaking around and being Macchiavellian, I think it would actually be much more interesting! There still wouldn't be anyone to root for, but at least they'd be characters instead of placefillers.

I do find the show entertaining, but at least partly in a love-to-laugh-at-it kind of way. The other Stargates weren't great shows, but they had a fun tongue-in-cheek attitude about their own badness. This show takes itself SO VERY SERIOUSLY and it's ... just as bad if not worse. I'm also faintly boggled that a franchise that's been so good at coming up with fun, relatable characters in the past has done such a dismal job this time around. (At least for my tastes. There are a couple I like, but even the ones I used to like have lost me with their poor decisions and constant glooming.)

Aaaand this is why I will likely never watch SGU, despite hating not knowing what's going on in the Stargate 'verse. I need to actually be able to like characters if I'm going to spend hours at a time with them.

I don't really think it's objectively any worse than the other Stargate shows, it's just ... the badness kind of goes in the opposite and far less emotionally fulfilling direction. I am willing to roll with a last-minute, WTF save on SGA because, well, I like the characters and don't want them to succumb to the certain-death scenario they've been stuck in. The SGU characters sort of ... do the opposite; they could save themselves, but they're quite often too incompetent or passive or too busy fighting to try.

It's because we care about these characters so much!

No, wait...

I know, right. While I do watch the show, and sometimes I feel like it has painted me with an invisible leper state, if it were pulled tomorrow it'd be like 'oh well, shame' and that is a shame because they actually had something good going with SGA and chewed it up and spit it out, bastages.

*giggles* It's pretty sad that I've been watching this show for ... well, a season plus two episodes now, and a shuttle full of characters crashes on a planet and I totally don't care. Mostly it just made me think, "Ooh, nice crash f/x. I wish they'd done this on SGA." *g*

I just watched it this morning and was like 'wth'...seriously, do these writers *ever* think? I am watching SGU, enjoying a decent enough chunk to keep watching, but stuff like last night's episode...makes me want to shake the writers all over again.

You know, SG-1 and SGA were good. They weren't perfect but they were mostly good. Then they go and want to make this new toy with 'dark and edgy' and they just don't have the talent for it, at all.

You want to kill off a character, fine, but use your flipping head for once, dear writers. They stopped trying to free him because it was hurting him and they were worried it'd kill him. But...then they go and essentially leave him to die until Young commits a mercy killing. I like Young but that made me want to throw up a little. If he's going to die anyway, then free him and give him a chance. If you still want him to die, then let blood loss and infection take him in the next episode. Geezus H. Pete, they can't possibly be this stupid in the writing room are they?

...grumble grumble grrrrrr...

YES. WTH, INDEED. I'm glad it wasn't just me! I could see how they were trying to set up this terribly tragic, "watching our friend die, oh noes there's nothing we can do" scenario -- which probably would have been tragic, if there had ACTUALLY been nothing they could do! Instead they just sat around moping until Young shuffled him off this mortal coil. WHAT.

It worked with Gall because it was a weird sci-fi disease that had always been 100% lethal every time they'd seen it before. Note to writers: If you're going to use an actual injury that has actually happened to people, crack open Google and do some research for pete's sake.

I'm not sure if the show is actually worse than the previous two; it's just that the writers were writing to their strengths before. The plotty, serious episodes tended to flop (Misbegotten *shudders*), but they were good at writing friendship and action and likable characters pulling last-minute, unbelievable saves out of their asses! And then they created a new show in which they do none of that. Huh.

Like you said, I'm getting enough entertainment out of the show to keep watching it (heck, Robert Carlyle's accent alone is worth the price of admission; I still maintain it's the best thing about the show *g*), but so much of it is cringeworthy.

Oh yes, Gall is an excellent example of doing it right. I wandered over to the SGU discussion for the episode thinking 'hmmm, people had to have chewed this one up' and was shocked to find the majority thought it was bravo-worthy and well done. I had that whiplash effect when I realized the response was not at all what I'd expected. The promos for this season look like there's some pretty interesting episodes to come so I'll try to forget *this* one ever happened LOL.

And I am relieved that you are still watching, if only because then I don't feel particularly guilty about watching (and eyerolling, and WTF?-ing, and being indifferent) while stitching. So far the Mr and I have watched up to the middle of the first season, and we've quit mostly because now there's other interesting stuff on the TV. :)

Hee! Yeah, I do find it entertaining (in a guilty sort of way - a lot guiltier than my guilty pleasures normally are!). I'm not invested in it, but we don't watch much TV and it's nice to have a space show every week. I must admit that mostly I just find myself giggling at its thin efforts at SRS DRAMA or mining it for ideas for SGA fics. *g*

And this episode was even written by Rob Cooper, who has written some of the best SG-1 and SGA episodes. Of course, he's written some of the worst, too. But as one of the lead producers, I expected at least a WATCHABLE show from him. I had to fast forward when Young killed Riley--it just about made me ill to think of how the writers actually think this is GOOD TV (TM), when it is just garbage.

I am still watching, but as I have often said, purely so that I can KNOWINGLY say it's a pile of crap. And if my watching gave them one penny of income (ie, DVD's or Netflix, or if I had to pay separately for the SyFy channel, or if I was a Nielsen family), I wouldn't watch.

Also, was this the episode that all the actors uniformly were gushing over, that it was their "favorite episode ever" at the Chicago Creation Con? It seems to me that Smith said the episode name was Aftermath, but I forget. If this is their best, I shudder to think how much worse it will get.

PS. I managed to find my con notes, and the favorite episode is called Malice--DIRECTED by Cooper. Let's hope it's at least watchable.

(Sorry for the several edits!)

Edited 2010-10-06 23:42 (UTC)

Yeah, I must admit the one thing I don't feel guilty about when it comes to this show is downloading it. *g*

I find it entertaining, but in a mockworthy kind of way.

Coattail-jacking to agree with the general atmosphere of ::GROAN:: and WTF going on in this post.

At least with SGA and SG-1, we could admire our heroes, despite their flaws and moments of ~~bad writing~~ stupidity. SGU portrays absolutely nothing I find admirable or worthy of respect—I don't give a damn what happens to any of these jerks, and it's been a season-and-change.

(I'm mostly depressed because I love Robert Carlyle to bits. He's the only reason I continue to subject myself to the show.)

Well, like I've said, Robert Carlyle's accent is the best part of the show. :D

I'm still watching, but even the characters I liked in the beginning have mostly lost me by now.

It truly, truly is. Someone tech-savvy should use his dialogue to re-dub some of the other characters, just to see if we'd like them better that way!

Strangely, the character I thought I'd hate the most based on pre-premiere information—namely, Chloe—actually had me hooked during the first few episodes. Her actress was surprisingly engaging, despite the character's uselessness-potential.

And then she hooked up with Scott. Ugh.

Right now I'm mostly exited about the lucian alliance people who are still on the ship. And David Blue, because he's made a character I'd normally eye-roll into a puppy pile of adorableness. Also, yes, Rush's accent.

But now we seem to also have:
a one guy who both possesses common sense and uses it! And might even have some diplomacy skills! Also, not bad looking!

b Julie McNiven! She played a recurring character on my favorite show, so it's always nice to see familiar faces.

c Unless I'm much mistaken the lucian with the mohawk is played by the guy who single-handedly made Prison Break into an interesting show, despite the plot becoming more and more ludicrous over the years.

I'm frankly weirded out by Julie McNiven, because I can't stop thinking of her as whatserface on Supernatural. *g*

I dunno how I feel about the Lucian folks on the ship. On the one hand, it sets up some interesting potential conflicts. On the other hand, the last thing they need is more conflict; they need some cooperation, and it seems to be in really short supply!

O_o

I see your O_o and raise you a WTF!

I finally finished the end of the last season and watched the first two of this season on Hulu.

It's... not awful. I was honestly expecting it to be worse, because it's the third of the franchise, and they have a very tough act to follow.

But I am seriously feeling your pain on the lack of admirable characters. Bastards in Spaaaaaace, indeed.

And also, yes, the 'let's let him bleed to death rather than amputating or even just tourniqueting' is freaking ridiculous. The mercy kill was awkward and unnecessary.

I feel frequently like the whole show is trying a little TOO hard to be Battlestar Galactica. I mean, we've even got a psuedo-hallucinated blonde past-love-interest showing up around the accented crazy genius of dubious morals. And hello civilian female 'president' versus hardened military leader. Stranded on a ship far, far from home, stopping at planets to resupply! They already did this on TV, remember?

Stop this, and go back to humor-injected, like-able stuff! The WIT was always one of the best parts of SG, and I'm not really seeing much of that right now. It's like watching a smart teenager wallowing in emo. You know they've got more to offer than that, but they aren't doing a good job of proving it.

I haven't given up on it yet. But I'm also not over the moon about it, in any way.

Yeah; I don't hate it, certainly. But it's not very engaging, and I'm kind of amazed at how they seem to have dumped everything that made the shows work in the past: the humor and likable characters, the way you could relate to it, the way that it wasn't afraid to poke fun at itself. Like you said, they're bending over backwards to emulate Battlestar Galactica, but they really haven't got the writing skills to pull it off. It's like the way that Pixar's rival studios try to cash in on their success by doing computer animation, but that's not what makes the Pixar movies successful -- just emulating the trappings is not enough. Somebody else can't be Pixar unless they can write like Pixar. And it takes more than shaky-cam filming and constant gloom to make a new BSG!

I was only planning to watch the premiere to resolve the cliffhanger, then quit this show, but something keeps dragging me back.

Riley's death bugged me a lot, not just because of the medical issues but the fact that TJ and Young were the only ones who spent any time with him. Eli and Volker both spent a fair number of scenes with Riley and you'd think that they'd take the time, especially since there were a few scenes in the excavation where Eli didn't seem to be doing much. That sequence left a bad taste in my mouth, it seems like we could have less scenes of moving rocks and talking about deadlines and focus more on the wounded comrade.

Robert Carlyle continues to entertain.

Varro seems to come of as a far more humane and compassionate leader than Young. They do similar things, but Varro is coming at this from a warlord environment that he seems to rise above while Young comes from a military with a code that he fails to live up to. I almost wanted him to refuse to leave his men behind and go with them to the planet, except then he wouldn't be on the show.

I liked the scenes with Ginn, Julie McNiven's character, except that the discussion of what was meant by "godlike power" demanded a mention of the Goa'uld. If the conflict with the Lucian Alliance back in the Milky Way is going to be a plot point, then some of the history with the Goa'uld and free Jaffa is going to have to be part of the story; instead it seems to be all ancients all the time.

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Tonight, on "Bastards in Space" ...

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