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cahnSmash: So I wasn't expecting to watch any more Smash, but then I realized there would be, like, an actual Broadway production in the last one, so I did. Kind of. Not paying much attention. It made me kind of sad, because every so often I'd get this Slings and Arrows memory and it just made me really unhappy for the show Smash could have been, if they'd trusted themselves to make that show. Sigh.
Once Upon a Time: Hee. Lana Parilla is MADE OF AWESOME. I was thrilled that Gold/Rumpel wasn't woobified; I liked that very much.
Stargate: Universe: Uh, I am sort of obsessed with Robert Carlyle? Although I should have watched this in the other order, because I keep getting weird Rumpelstiltskin flashes from having watched OUAT first (though these are fading rapidly). Also, it's really, really good this wasn't around when I was an adolescent, because brilliant snarky angsty scruffy physicist full of mockery? I might have been scarred for life by that fandom crush.
I don't necessarily recommend this show for others (communication stones, seriously? I've never watched any Stargate before, so I would just howl when these things came up... this just seems SO CAMPY EIGHTIES; and I want to tell the cameraman that rotating round and round does not an "edgy" production make; and it annoys me that all the characters with power are men; and then there's the part where two people just disappeared in the pilot part 3 and no one ever refers to them again, as far as I can tell), but apparently I am a complete and utter sucker for fantastical shows with people pulling together into a community and focusing on character interactions, and am willing to totally ignore the bits that don't make sense. (Hi, Firefly! And BSG before you got crazy! And OUAT! And Farscape!) Obviously I was going to really enjoy watching Rush, and I like Young quite a lot, and I disliked Eli for the first two episodes then swung completely around to adoring his character, and I just want to hug Riley, and I might have a crush on TJ too, she's so quietly and compassionately competent. Love that.
...should I watch the other Stargates?
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Date: 2012-06-01 03:45 pm (UTC)Oh, Stargate. Oh, Stargate. I haven't watched SGU, just all of SG-1 and Atlantis until I couldn't take it anymore (i.e., until Amanda Tapping was no longer a regular). My relationship with it could adequately be summed up by the words 'Stockholm Syndrome.' SG-1 is downright right-wing – U.S.-ethnocentric, militarophilic, democratophobic. It's a boringly structured contest between Good and Evil. It has terrible gender politics, seldom (especially in the late seasons) passes the Bechdel test, and there is just so much wrong with it. Its central relationship is a cheap, manipulative will-they-or-won't-they between the leading man and the leading lady. And yet. My major argument in its favor is Sam Carter – Amanda Tapping fought and fought hard against the Soldier-Barbie model the producers wanted, in order to make her complex and fully realized. But if you're not the kind of girl who can fall and fall hard for an equal-parts-dashing-and-goofy action heroine with an intellect of extraordinary capacity, she might not be enough to pull you through. There are other good characters – if you like Ben Browder, his Cameron Mitchell is just to die for. And some good plot arcs, and good aliens (the Norse gods, as it turns out, were little grey men all along), and the ten or fifteen episodes that I would call Legit Television are truly very good. But I can't exactly recommend it, no. Oh, Stargate.
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Date: 2012-06-01 04:44 pm (UTC)Though I have to say that your posting this morning was part of what made me ask whether I need to watch the rest of Stargate, because I want to read your fic! Hm. Not sure one heroine is enough to pull me through, but if she has meaningful relationships/interactions with other people (I'm not asking for a lot, here, but I think I do require some modicum of relationship arc, where "relationship" could be defined as simply as "saying hi in the hallway") maybe it would be worth giving it a slight go. I was pleasantly surprised by SGU in this respect, at least, although I've only watched four episodes, so we'll see how it holds up and I'll report back. What are the 10-15 eps you recommend, and how much should I know before watching them? ;)
OUAT is... umm. It's got women, strong women, lots of women, women interacting with each other -- passes Bechdel every week -- and for that alone I think I could love it. And it's got character interactions and community (in Storybrooke, at least), which made me fall for it hard. And the principal relationships are parent-child, which is a refreshing change from the All Romantic All the Time thing I usually see, which I just get tired of. And there's at least one dysfunctional romantic relationship that is, surprisingly, actually meant to be dysfunctional (I think) and not romantically woobified. On the other hand, the Fairyland bits are completely campy, the magic system makes no sense, the attitude towards True Love is both inconsistent and disturbing, the attitude towards foster/adoptive parents (negative) is consistently rage-inducing in me, the pacing is ridiculously bad, they seem not to know what to do with one of the characters and jerk her characterization around, and the main heroine has this season been -- though sympathetic -- consistently and irritatingly stupid. So... there you go. I don't exactly recommend it either, but I'm clearly willing to talk my head off about it :)
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Date: 2012-06-04 12:57 am (UTC)I liked what SG-1 tried to do in the first season, despite some clunky plotlines and very clunky one-liners. S1 - S4 were okay-to-good, S5 - S8 have creeping quality issues, and S9 - S10 enjoyment is pegged to your feelings about Ben Browder and Claudia Black.
Haven't seen Smash or OUAT yet; is it worth picking up OUAT?
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Date: 2012-06-04 03:50 am (UTC)Huh. SG-1 sounds kind of interesting, actually! I, uh, sort of love Ben Browder and Claudia Black? Yeah, sounds like I might have to go watch that.
Smash is absolutely horribly terrible, not worth watching even a tiny bit (although it is a tiny bit worth watching the musical clips, which I think are available on nbc.com). OUAT is... not quite that horrible? I'd say, I don't think it's worth picking up unless you don't mind campy and doesn't-really-make-sense-if-you-think-about-it, but it does have the feature that almost all the action is initiated by women, and almost all the meaningful interactions are between women, and the men are there mostly as eye candy, which is a rather refreshing change from the usual.
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Date: 2012-06-09 05:33 am (UTC)SG-1 is probably worth a look, just keep in mind the later seasons were produced by the same people who thought up Universe. (I can't talk about being a little crazy, I watched Stargate Atlantis of my own free will.) May look up OUAT this summer, watch this space.