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Sports Night and SGU
Oct. 5th, 2009 07:32 pmI finished watching Sports Night!
I think Quo Vadimus is one of my favourite series finales ever. I'm a big fan of endings being open ended, and it doesn't get much more open ended that that. The major plotline - the future of the show - is resolved, but none of the romantic plots are given resolution and Sorkin seems to deliberately leaves the relationships of the show in ambiguous places.
I, in fact, really like the way the show handles romance in general. Yes, the dating plan is contrived, but at the same time, I really like that after a season of will-they-wont-they, Dana and Casey screw up their relationship before it can even begin and it becomes a definite 'they-wont'. It's not satisfactory in a romantic comedy sense, but it is satisfactory in that it's realistic. Plus it reminded me of Broadcast News.
I will do a bit Sports Night pimping post eventually, with pictures and things, when I have the time/energy.
Also, watched Stargate Universe and – surprisingly - I don't hate it. I don't think it's great, but I don't hate it, which is something.
But basically what I got from watching it is that the Stargate writers obviously watched BSG and decided they wanted to make that show, so watched and took notes and decided that what made BSG great was death, darkness and the shaky-cam. So what we got was Stargate with death, darkness and a shaky-cam.
Unfortunately, what made BSG great was not death, darkness and the shaky-cam (although, I do think BSG is one of the most beautifully shot shows on telly). It was complex, layered characters, intelligent writing and big themes with more hits than misses their execution. And well, the Stargate writers have never been that great at characters, and particularly not at character development, the writing was to much of a rip off to be intelligent and themes, umm, what themes? (can we shoot some bad guys now?)
And more unfortunately, in order to make it a new, 'improved' and 500% more serious Stargate, they had to do away with the elements that made the Stargate franchise so wonderfully watchable in the first place: the funny, the crack and the team-y goodness. Coz what Stargate is to me, it's funny sci-fi crack, filled with team-y goodness.
Plus, I can't seperate it from the rest of the Stargate Universe, which means that I can't sit back and watch the characters scrambling around for a double episode trying to fix a problem and not think to myself, 'just give Sam or McKay duck-tape and a crazy straw and they'd have that fixed in five minutes.'
Still, I found it didn't actively suck. And it was great seeing what SG1 is up to these days (for the record: Jack's gotten fat, Daniel's the host of 'Stargate for dummies' instructional videos, and Sam's in command of her own spaceship, and has Teal'c waiting for her in her quarters. Okay, I made up that last part, but somebody's got to be a rabid Teal'c/Sam shipper, and the lack of a Teal'c cameo was disheartening). And I actually want to see what happens next week, so I will probably watch.
I think Quo Vadimus is one of my favourite series finales ever. I'm a big fan of endings being open ended, and it doesn't get much more open ended that that. The major plotline - the future of the show - is resolved, but none of the romantic plots are given resolution and Sorkin seems to deliberately leaves the relationships of the show in ambiguous places.
I, in fact, really like the way the show handles romance in general. Yes, the dating plan is contrived, but at the same time, I really like that after a season of will-they-wont-they, Dana and Casey screw up their relationship before it can even begin and it becomes a definite 'they-wont'. It's not satisfactory in a romantic comedy sense, but it is satisfactory in that it's realistic. Plus it reminded me of Broadcast News.
I will do a bit Sports Night pimping post eventually, with pictures and things, when I have the time/energy.
Also, watched Stargate Universe and – surprisingly - I don't hate it. I don't think it's great, but I don't hate it, which is something.
But basically what I got from watching it is that the Stargate writers obviously watched BSG and decided they wanted to make that show, so watched and took notes and decided that what made BSG great was death, darkness and the shaky-cam. So what we got was Stargate with death, darkness and a shaky-cam.
Unfortunately, what made BSG great was not death, darkness and the shaky-cam (although, I do think BSG is one of the most beautifully shot shows on telly). It was complex, layered characters, intelligent writing and big themes with more hits than misses their execution. And well, the Stargate writers have never been that great at characters, and particularly not at character development, the writing was to much of a rip off to be intelligent and themes, umm, what themes? (can we shoot some bad guys now?)
And more unfortunately, in order to make it a new, 'improved' and 500% more serious Stargate, they had to do away with the elements that made the Stargate franchise so wonderfully watchable in the first place: the funny, the crack and the team-y goodness. Coz what Stargate is to me, it's funny sci-fi crack, filled with team-y goodness.
Plus, I can't seperate it from the rest of the Stargate Universe, which means that I can't sit back and watch the characters scrambling around for a double episode trying to fix a problem and not think to myself, 'just give Sam or McKay duck-tape and a crazy straw and they'd have that fixed in five minutes.'
Still, I found it didn't actively suck. And it was great seeing what SG1 is up to these days (for the record: Jack's gotten fat, Daniel's the host of 'Stargate for dummies' instructional videos, and Sam's in command of her own spaceship, and has Teal'c waiting for her in her quarters. Okay, I made up that last part, but somebody's got to be a rabid Teal'c/Sam shipper, and the lack of a Teal'c cameo was disheartening). And I actually want to see what happens next week, so I will probably watch.
