On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Jay Lewis <[email protected]> wrote: > > How many of these complaints would you have after watching Children of > the Gods Pts 1 & 2?
A fair point, particularly since the first episode I watched was near the end of the first season as the story arc was heating up. > There is a huge cast and no where's near enough time in 3 hours to learn > everyone's backstory. This poses the first problem I have with the series. Well, not the size of the cast, but the cast of characters. One reluctant hero can drive a story (Daniel Jackson). Two reluctant heroes can offer some diversity (Shepherd and McKay). But a room full of dozens of short-order cooks and one video game addict is just messy storytelling. It complicates the narrative. > As a long-time fan of the series, am I thrilled with Stargate: Voyager > Galactica? Not entirely, but I'm willing to give them the time to flesh > the stories out. I'll give it time, too. Atlantis was slow to start, primarily because the villains had no character... nothing to drive them other than the need to feed. All you can do with something that one-dimensional is basic shoot-'em-up stories. > The introduction of the Ori took 3 parts to start (Avalon 1-3) and it > still only brushed on a much larger story. Also true, and, until I listened to the commentary on the first Ori episode and heard it was essentially a pilot for an entirely different series (Stargate Command), I found the whole concept of abandoning the original series mythology to be somewhat of a letdown. > We know about Eli and...that's about it in the first 2 hrs. A little > about the Sens daughter. More pieces get filled in in Pt 3. And, were I running the network... well... first I'd change the name back to SciFi. But then I'd include the following notes to the producers of SGU: 1 - Introduce a virus or a plague that kills off some of the dead weight. Having that many generic background characters can only lead to repeated "red shirt" scenarios where they get killed off one by one, as needed to force emotion onto a dry story. 2 - Introduce more mythology, not necessarily earth-based myths, but some sense that they're doing more than Arthur and Ford, hitching a ride on a Vogon ship. The three parter was anti-climactic because viewers KNEW the characters would survive, so taking three hours to tell us what we already knew slowed the series down right out of the gate. We now know how and what. Next we need the who and why. 3 - Also mythology related, try to include something that connects this series to the first two, besides the physical gate. SG1 used Egyptian and European myths to populate its universe, and from those myths came ancient races with ties to the Pegasus galaxy, which bridged the gap (with the help of a few crossover episodes) to Atlantis. Yes, the new ship is Ancient by design, but if you choose to ignore these basic elements of the franchise, why bother calling the new series Stargate? 4 - Bring the funny. The problem with beginning with a three hour desperate struggle for survival is that there is not a lot of humor to be mined from death and severe head trauma. The pilots of the first two series managed to weave more humor in the two hours than SGU did in three. Not to beat a dead horse, but since we know this series is to take place on board the ship, we knew the ship would survive, so that eliminated the suspense/drama of the story. And we didn't have nearly as much humor. And we had too many underdeveloped characters that we couldn't be bothered to care about. At day's end, the only thing the pilot did was establish the character of the ship itself. Even the cameos of the original cast hurt the pilot, inasmuch as it served to remind us that there was a series with characters and stories that we cared about, but that series is gone. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
