Exhausted

[thedeadlyhook]

So either the last couple of days of my allergies acting up big time were a warning sign that my resistance level was getting low, or they were actually early symptoms, because now I have a head cold. Dammit. Hopefully, I can get shed of this thing by Thursday, so I don't end up carrying germs with me as presents to everyone I'm hoping to meet.

Toys has been keeping a vampire's hours lately - he's asleep now - working all night on the never-ending illustration job, while I sleep poorly only for a few hours at a time thanks to my miserable sinuses, and man, am I tired. The chiropractor yestderday told me I am "wearing my stress" in my shoulders, and boy-howdy yes. Everything aches.

Some TV stuff to take my mind off world events.

Stargate SG-1
Disappointing. The highlight, honestly, was seeing Claudia Black wearing that Ren Faire dress, and that's not much of a highlight.

The problem with the current Ori story isn't just the mystical child plot (groan, where haven't I seen that one before?), but the fact that, as Toys put it, suddenly the followers of Origen are kicking the butts of the collected forces of Earth and their allies with superior space science in their super-starfreighters, when previously, their society had been protrayed as Medievals who burn witches in between Bible readings and trips to the tavern to get their tankards topped up by serving wenches. The earlier Ori arc seemed to be suggesting that the followers of Origen were kept socially backward for a reason - easier to control that way - but making them ultra-powerful technologically as well? Not so much. The SG-1 writers are trying to get one of everything out of this story - social comentary, and a big, splashy space battle, never mind if those two things go together or not.

And, uh, on said space battle? Yawn. Basically, all these ship-to-ship combats look pretty much the same: lots of rocking bridge action, sparking control panels, and officers shouting military jargon. Since Star Trek pioneered the artchetype, all anyone's really done to make it different is to add more realistic jargon, which in my book only ups the tedium - at least Star Trek jargon is funny.

There was one amusing prescient couch moment: When Vala's magic daughter asked her mother to give her a name, Vala smiles brightly and gives her mother's name. Toys chimes in with: "You know, you could do something funny there, like, 'I always thought a daughter of mine would have my mother's name. Her name was shithead.' And then have the little girl intone, 'Yes, from now on, you will address me as shithead.'" And then, lo and behold, later we hear that Vala's mother was indeed not quite the strong and wonderful role model she'd been pitched as. Heh.

Stargate Atlantis
I'm liking Atlantis a lot more than SG-1 lately, despite some real barkers last season (Jungle Girl's soloist turn in a ruffled prom gown? Shudder), because the Wraith are just hilarious. They coccoon people like the aliens from Alien, suck your lifeforce like vampires, assimilate human societies like the Borg. They hiss! And unlike the followers of Origen, I can buy that they fly super Hive starships.

Lots of funny dialogue in this one. Best line of the night was probably Shepard's response to Michael, the Wraith With a Human Heart's claim that "I was as deceived as you": "I dunno, I was pretty deceived." Kudos also to the brains-and-brawn Master Blaster dream-team of Rodney plus Ronon Dex! And everything more or less wrapped up in one ep! Nice.

Thumbs down, though, for the subplot with Weir. Ugh, can I be any less in the mood to hear about how civilian oversight of military action just gets in the way of what those important people at the top are doing? In the Stargate world, there's at least a level of fantasy in that certified geniuses are always stationed in those high positions, so of course they're always right, but it's only that earnestness that keeps this from feeling like propoganda. (Ironically, though, similiar thought-tracks in the far more cynical Battlestar Galactica ended up crossing that line, IMHO.) Dudes! This subtext is getting disturbing. Knock it off.

Finally, for those who haven't seen it yet, and need a laugh: Dave Chappelle and a 'New' Tupac Song. "I wrote this song a long time ago, a real long time ago..."

Comments

[tesla321.livejournal.com]

Although I saw the movie, and was pretty aware of the SG-1 series, I never watched it until I faithfully followed Ben Browder (and Claud)to it. As I watch, unfortunately, I'm still pretty much Ginger in the Far Side cartoon: Blah blah Ori blah Ben! Blah blah. But I did think it was hilarious that Vala started playing the Orspawn, and gave her the name of her horrid stepmother.

I was so disturbed that I stayed up watching Anderson Cooper live until 2 a.m. and didn't get to sleep until 3. Then the cats got me up at 8. Cats must be fed.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

It does bug me that they brought Browder and Black on board only to saddle them with a depressing plotline in which they don't get to show off their best skills. Daniel Jackson and Browder's character make a fun comedy team - let's split them up! Vala is funny and lightens the atmosphere! Let's stick her in peasant-girl garb and make her pregnant! Gah. I think the horrid stepmother naming scene was about the only really good moment to be had there, sigh.

I can't bear to watch the TV news on this stuff - I just keep checking the British papers on their sites. I tried CNN yesterday, but all the ads and the tickers and the commentators and the fake-smiley presenters just made my rage indicators light up. Cooper at least has some gravitas, thank god.

I think I got four or five hours of sleep, somewhere in there. And oddly enough, had the first Buffy-centric dream in a long while, about Xander and Anya. They were both funny. I wish I could remember it now.

[tesla321.livejournal.com]

You should go to YouTube and look up Anderson Cooper---especially his interviews on Colbert and Jon Stewart---he giggles. And, the two that are called "Ryan Seacrest flirts with AC" and "AC hates K-Fed" made me laugh out loud.

[asta77.livejournal.com]

My thoughts on SG-1 were Claudia rocks (not only did she look gorgeous, she had added a sense of fun that was lacking in the other performances) and Ben looked hot, as usual. ;) Granted I had guests and wasn't paying close attention, but the story seemed both all over the place and rather pointless.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Oh man, the story really was all over the place. I'm liking both Ben and Claudia fine, just not so much the direction of the story. And Browder did have that one good moment of steering the ship around Sam, which was kind of neat. Otherwise, gah, enough with the grimness! I think I'm just more in the mood for the funny right now.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

God those sparking bridge panels annoy me. Hasn't anybody thought that you don't need to run those things on high-tension current?

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I doubt anyone's even thought about it in those terms. It's probably just such a tradition at this point that nobody's stops to think why the panels would do that. Much less what it would mean for the ship if everyone's computer screen is blowing up in their face. Yikes!

[toysdream.livejournal.com]

Maybe one day they'll use their advanced hypertechnology to invent, I dunno, electrical insulation and seatbelts. One can dream. :-)

[toysdream.livejournal.com]

And then have the little girl intone, 'Yes, from now on, you will address me as shithead.'

Exactly. It's, uh, Celtic! Pronounced "she-theed"!

And man, the randomness with the Ori is bugging the heck out of me. They spend a whole season setting up their followers as superstitious peasants who are being mustered for a grueling crusade, and establish that the standard Ori operating procedure is to use signs and portents and plagues and miracles to bully the yokels into line, and then it turns out their battle plan is to overwhelm us with their awesome industrial power and advanced technology. I mean, the hell?! I'm surprised these people can even read, let alone build and operate intergalactic battle-fortresses.

Atlantis, though, has indeed suddenly turned awesome. Well, at least this week. :-)

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

suddenly the followers of Origen are kicking the butts of the collected forces of Earth and their allies with superior space science in their super-starfreighters, when previously, their society had been protrayed as Medievals who burn witches in between Bible readings and trips to the tavern to get their tankards topped up by serving wenches.

Actually, I don't think that's an incorrect assessment, but coming off seeing nine seasons of the show over the past year (stop laughing at me!), I made an automatic leap from the way the goa'uld treated their followers. The goa'uld held the advanced technology close to their chests, doling it out to others only when necessary. I just assumed the Ori did the same, keeping their followers in relatively easy-to-control backwardness and then imparting knowledge and handing out technology once they were ready to prepare for their big crusade.

I think I've gotten too used to seeing spaceships lit by torches and thinking that's a pretty normal way to go about things.

[toysdream.livejournal.com]

The goa'uld held the advanced technology close to their chests, doling it out to others only when necessary. I just assumed the Ori did the same, keeping their followers in relatively easy-to-control backwardness and then imparting knowledge and handing out technology once they were ready to prepare for their big crusade.

I've only seen a smattering of the previous episodes, but my impression was that the Goa'uld didn't really build most of their technology, but had more or less inherited it and used all these goodies to lord it over their subjects. With the current plotline, though, we've seen the Ori's followers actually building fleets of these battleships in their cow pastures and whatnot. Maybe the Ori can direct their medieval minions to build and operate space battleships hundreds of years ahead of their normal technology level, but that seems like both lazy writing and muddled symbology.

The thing is that you could actually get some really interesting stories out of the Ori shoving their followers forward a few centuries so they can launch an intergalactic crusade. Suddenly all their rustic little villages are remodeled into munitions factories, with the smokestacks and the black lung and the child labor and the mandatory mid-afternoon witch-burning break, and since the plot has already given us several chances to peek behind "enemy lines" we could actually see this happening and sympathize with the people involved. Instead, they just seem to be putting down their plowshares and tromping out to the quarry to assemble a few hyperdrive units, which isn't nearly as interesting. (grumble grumble)

I think I've gotten too used to seeing spaceships lit by torches and thinking that's a pretty normal way to go about things.

I guess anachronism is something of an SG-1 trademark at this point. :-)

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

my impression was that the Goa'uld didn't really build most of their technology, but had more or less inherited it and used all these goodies to lord it over their subjects

It's a bit of a mixed bag, actually, though in the very early episodes there was a lot of exposition to the effect that the goa'uld were just technological scavengers, so I know where you got that impression. The Ancients built the stargate system, and some powerful weaponry and technology that pops up at convenient plot-creating times, but the goa'uld seem to have done a fair amount of technological development of their own. (Aside from the gates, most Ancient technology requires the operator to carry a specific gene--this comes up quite a bit on SGA, although there's no good explanation for why the humans can come up with a gene therapy that allows many of them to operate Ancient technology, but the far more advanced Wraith never did.) The goa'uld had other devices, such as hand-held weapons and healing devices, that require the operator to have naquadah in their bloodstreams, as only hosts and former hosts do (this is why Vala can operate goa'uld devices). Goa'uld ships also don't seem to have anything to do with Ancient technology. At different times over the course of the show, goa'uld have also run sophisticated genetic research operations, created new weapons, and developed a virus to reprogram the gate network, so they're not technologically incapable. It seems to depend a lot on the individual; Baal, who I hope to see again this season, is a very clever and technologically-oriented goa'uld.

I know way too much about this show. *ahem*

Maybe the Ori can direct their medieval minions to build and operate space battleships hundreds of years ahead of their normal technology level, but that seems like both lazy writing and muddled symbology.

Welcome to Stargate. One of the things I've had to make my peace with to watch the show is that the writers often introduce really interesting situations, but it's always by accident, and they almost never actually explore them. I get the impression there's a lot of good fic out there that does. And it's probably why I'll never be serious about the show the way I am about a show like Farscape that actually DOES run with the implications.

[toysdream.livejournal.com]

It's a bit of a mixed bag, actually, though in the very early episodes there was a lot of exposition to the effect that the goa'uld were just technological scavengers, so I know where you got that impression.

Ah, there we go. I did watch a lot of the early episodes during the recent batch of re-runs, but I have no idea what happens in the middle, and I keep pestering my friends to explain this "replicators" business to me. I mean, they can't really look like Lego bricks, can they?

Goa'uld ships also don't seem to have anything to do with Ancient technology.

Do the Goa'uld actually build their own ships, then?

At different times over the course of the show, goa'uld have also run sophisticated genetic research operations, created new weapons, and developed a virus to reprogram the gate network, so they're not technologically incapable.

I guess once they acquired the use of opposable thumbs, the little wormy fellers became unstoppable. I like your suggestion that their technological progress is dependent on handful of innovators like Baal; it makes sense that an immortal entity would cultivate hobbies over the millennia, and in his case maybe it was super-science. :-)

I know way too much about this show.

Well, I'm glad one of us does!

One of the things I've had to make my peace with to watch the show is that the writers often introduce really interesting situations, but it's always by accident, and they almost never actually explore them.

(is crushed)

Gosh, that's a pity. Based on the episodes I've seen, I was giving them high marks for coming up with clever sci-fi ideas, but if they're really that lazy about follow-through then I might be in for a frustrating time. At least Atlantis, against all odds, seems to be spinning out its plotlines of Wraiths and magic retroviruses pretty successfully.

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

Do the Goa'uld actually build their own ships, then?

I can believe they build their own ships, because who else would build giant, tacky pyramids full of gold relief and lit by torches? I can't remember any canon explication of how much of the actual ship technology was goa'uld-originated, but I am sure the design was.

it makes sense that an immortal entity would cultivate hobbies over the millennia, and in his case maybe it was super-science.

They're all power-hungry egomaniacs, and there was a constant struggle for control among the system lords. But some of them were just dumb bunnies with armies, and some of them were quite clever; the truly scary ones tended to be the ones who, if they weren't innovating technology themselves, at least had minions doing it. It was very personality-driven.


Gosh, that's a pity. Based on the episodes I've seen, I was giving them high marks for coming up with clever sci-fi ideas, but if they're really that lazy about follow-through then I might be in for a frustrating time. At least Atlantis, against all odds, seems to be spinning out its plotlines of Wraiths and magic retroviruses pretty successfully.

Stargate is actually pretty good at building on its own mythology, and on previous technical innovations in the show, and they have some very good sci fi plots, especially through season 5. It's more the character stuff, and the fact that the writers set up these incredibly interesting societies and situations and then don't follow them up the way I'd like, that makes me cranky. In that regard, SGA is actually a lot worse.

[wickedgillie.livejournal.com]

Ya know, it's sad for me that just from reading your discussion here on SG-1 that you all obviously had more thought and insight into the Ori than the actual writers. Pity, that!

The only way I can watch it is to remind myself that it's not the same show, it's not the same show, it's not the same show. Ok, well, it's technically the same show, but er, not so much, lol.