Saturday, July 16, 2005

The Thirty-Eight Minute Wormhole

If you don't know what the title refers to, or if you think that the biggest news last night was the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, feel free to read on, if you wish.

If you do know the title reference, then be warned, there are possible spoilers below. I'm going to explain things to the mundane, then discuss the shows. If you haven't seen them yet, you might not want to read any further. Though, really, there isn't much here you couldn't figure out on your own.

Back in my youth, there was a rule that at most one Science Fiction story could be shown on television at one time. Thus The Twilight Zone never overlapped with Star Trek. OK, there were a few shows which tried to cash in, like Lost in Space, Men into Space, and even My Favorite Martian, but they weren't really science fiction. (Men into Space was more like "Blue Angels With Rockets", a techno-thriller kind of film. I loved it, but it wasn't SF.)

Post Star Trek, we got a bit more SF on TV: the dreck Space: 1999, the really-cheesy but great back-story Battlestar Galactica, and, when the local PBS station could afford it, Dr. Who. Then came Star Trek: Next Generation, followed by Deep Space Nine, Babylon V, Buffy, etc.

But science fiction on TV really arrived with the SciFi channel. I know, they run a bunch of grade C movie stuff, but they also run SciFi Friday, which features Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica (Mark II, with glowing-backbone female Cylons). These shows are generally as well written as an average Star Trek episode, usually pay more attention to continuity, and have a whole lot bigger budget.

So last night they kicked off the new season for all three shows. SciFi has a strange release schedule: the shows will go on for a couple of months, then they'll show reruns until January, when they'll show the rest of the season. In Britain I understand that the series will start in September and show straight through, so though the UK won't see these shows for a few weeks, by November they'll be ahead of us. Hence the spoiler warnings.

For the past few years a friend of mine and I have been discussing the shows by email. Generally I give a few thoughts on each episode, crack a few jokes, and go on, while he gives a reasoned review of the episode, including how it fits in with his worldview.

Pity you won't get that here, you just get me cracking the jokes. But OK, if he wants to respond, he can, in the comments below.

For what it's worth, last year I liked SG-1 best, followed by Battlestar, and then Atlantis. I can go into the reasons if you like, but that's my prejudice as I look at these shows. This year, though, SG-1 has major cast changes, so my opinions might change.

OK, if you're looking for the possible spoilers, they're just below the line. Don't say I didn't warn you.

  • Stargate SG-1:
    • Beau Bridges: (who looks much worse than his Dad did at the same age) tries to be a tough guy. But he's not, so far, he's just moaning about how good the SGC people are, which means he can't yell at them. That never stopped Hammond. This guy needs some character development. How come the President answers HIS phone calls? And who is #1 on his speed-dial?
    • Claudia Black: (sorry, I don't know the new character names, yet, so we'll have to go with real names): I liked her character in the tryout last year, and she'll be OK as Daniel's love interest and gadfly. However, she should get a new dress designer. The current outfit just emphasizes the fact that there's not all that much up there. Also (and more importantly?), as portrayed this week, her character is basically stupid. She actually believes what people tell her about devices they've stolen, and she can't think more than 30 seconds into the future.
    • Other Farscape refugee: This is the star of the show? We'll see when they give us a longer-than-10-second opening. Looks too much like Daniel, as Claudia pointed out, and tries to act too much like Jack, without the essential post-MacGyver cool factor. Also, I'm not sure from the flashbacks why he got the Congressional Medal of Honor, and not any of the other X-302/303 pilots that were holding off Anubis. Wasn't he just doing his job, like all the rest?
    • Daniel: Thank God he lost the beard. His rather intimate relationship with Claudia could be fun. It was last year, anyway.
    • Teal'c: Hopefully he'll get more to do than shoot bullets at walls and try to hold up collapsing ceilings. He's supposed to have some conflict with
    • Lou Gossett Jr.: Why is he slumming here? OK, Isaac Hayes did it last year, but that was only for a couple of shows and he's basically got no career anyway. What possesses a Movie Star to appear on a cable SF series? They'd better do something good with his character.
    • Jack: He plays chess? He's good at chess?
    • Carter: Tapping is on post-maternity leave, supposed to be back full-time in a few weeks.
    • Villains: Don't have any yet, so it's hard to tell.
      <Wholesale Speculation>
      It is interesting that Merlin is an Ancient. This means that the Ancients were backing the Celts at about the same time that the Asgard were backing the Norse. This didn't lead to conflicts? Could this explain the rise of the Goa'uld? Battles among the four races. Come to think of it, this could explain why we never see the Furlings. The big four fought amongst themselves, and the Furlings were wiped out.
      And why do the Nox hide? Are they hiding from the Goa'uld? Maybe they're hiding from the Asgard.
      And who created that plague that wiped out the corporal Ancients? Could it be, ..., I don't know, ... maybe ... the Asgard? You'll notice the Asgard are the only ones of the big four still running around the universe.
      OK, probably not.
      </Wholesale Speculation>
  • Stargate Atlantis:
    • Speaking of Asgard, we're corrupting one here. By the time this season is through, Hermiod (bad choice of name, unless they're going to get Preparation-H as a sponsor) is going to be chucking nukes into stars just to watch the pretty light-show. And why does he curse under his breath? Does anyone on the Daedalus understand ancient Norse? Come on, it's not like Daniel Jackson is there.
    • It would have been interesting to have Dueling Colonels ("I get to draw and quarter Sheppard." "No, I get to draw and quarter Sheppard.") but I guess that would get old fast so they had to get rid of one. Interestingly they kept the one who seems easier to get along with. Maybe he's a pal of Beau Bridges.
    • Plot: Did the Wraith really believe that explosion? They didn't even come down to check. And does this mean that the Atlantis team has to stay hidden for the rest of the season? After all, once they blow up another Wraith ship all of the hive will be back.
  • Battlestar Galactica:
    • I don't know. But then, I never know about this series. I'm guessing that Adama is going to be out of commission for a few more weeks, so we'll have some conflict between Tigh's sense that he's unfit for command and his wife's pushing him to take control. We've also got to reunite the cast, which is now spread over half the galaxy.
    • I see how the Cylons were able to win the first time: Our heroes cable together a network of three computers, on a presumably shielded spacecraft, and a Cylon virus is able to break it down in minutes. The virus must have been left in the computer's OS, just waiting for a chance to do mischief. And no ones gone through the code for the last 20 years. Or else, all the programmers are secret Cylons.
    • I keep thinking about writing an SG-1/Galactica crossover. Except that Sam (or even Rodney) would figure it all out in about 5 minutes, and Jack (or Farscape Guy) would blow the Cylons to smithereens a few seconds later.

Stay tuned next week, boys and girls