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Well rescuing Rush happened fairly quickly, surprisingly quickly and now we have our thus far Big Bad in the Sorting Algorithm of Evil.
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The plot was pretty much guessed by everyone ahead of time. This episode was a plot-bridge. Nothing spectacular about it. Even the space battle was a little underwhelming after all the buildup. The aliens look nice and alien though for once. That's something to appreciate.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I really liked this episode, but the civilian conspiracy has me groaning. It's the American military - they're used to having civilian supremacy. Why not slap on your big girl pants and try talking to Young about setting up a civilian authority to govern the "colony"? He'd probably welcome having one less thing to do. I swear, the civilians on this show are too stupid to survive.
I'm not even watching the next one; I can already see that it's going to make me angry.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
The trope is that the American military is actually constantly at odds with the civilian oversight and generally this is truth in television just because you have it doesn't mean you have to like it, look at Battlestar Galactica the military there absolutely hated the possibility of proper civilian oversight why would it be any different for the US military especially when it means less authority in an emergency?
And this has ALWAYS been the case in the Stargate Verse' never has the IOA ever done anything that the Stargate program or the Atlantis expedition has ever been pleased by and they [the Stargate and Atlantis programs] are clingy complaining sycophants who will never ever be grateful for any concession they make. The moment the IOA can shut out their shrill, tremulous voices the happier they will be for it.
Obviously she already discussed this with Young and raised the issue and got shut down.
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If they don't show me, tell me, or at least hint to me that something happened, I contend it's not obvious.
And Stargate has always loved to call up the President to solve their problems when it gets dicey. Or Thor. I maintain they adore civilian supremacy. It's the best way to deal with other civilians.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Blayne Bradley
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Except they don't and yes it was on screen, Young and the girl have spoken to each other several times with her trying to get more authority each time.
They absolutely hate civilian supremacy and the IOA and would just prefer to stick with the President and the military chain of command with the joint chiefs.
They have never once showed any appreciation for the IOA and were forced to allow them or face budget cuts.
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I admit I haven't seen all the episodes, but hasn't she mostly tried to butt in and tell Young how to run his away missions? Because that I would consider the military's perogitive.
I don't know that I've ever heard her or anyone talk about establishing a civilian government for their colony for the duration. I think that would ease a lot of the tensions.
If only they had a politician on board. Someone used to seeing a need and stepping up to lead people to a better future than they know they're capable of. Someone well versed in making compromises and smoothing tensions. Too bad they got stuck with Cloe instead. Seriously, could they have saddled the show with a more pathetic character? Hot shot polysci grad my foot.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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She's pretty much the damsel in distress, the SGU version of Voyager's Kes (and about as interesting).
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Mixed history. In SG1, Stargate Command was frequently coming to blows with the IOA for a variety of reasons. On the whole, they usually got along pretty well with the domestic presidential leadership though.
Also, you have to consider Stargate Atlantis, which was a colony run by a civilian governor who controlled both scientists and military personnel. Weir was in charge for years, followed by Woolsey, and other than a couple hiccups here and there, they never really had a problem.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I think the important difference here is that Weir was an extremely accomplished diplomat and generally capable leader, and the commanding military officer in the initial Atlantis expedition died very early, leaving no military personnel in that galaxy with anything remotely comparable to Weir's credentials to compete for leadership.
Now compare that to the Destiny crew, where the ranking (and, I think, only) IOA person is an accountant who has shown fairly lacking leadership qualities when she did get some power (giving Rush too much freedom which wound up with someone sitting in the chair and being seriously injured, and going on a crusade to convict Young of murder despite lacking substantial evidence come to mind as examples of her poor leadership). If, for example, the Senator had survived the first episode (or there was a character with similar qualifications and experience to Weir at the start of Atlantis), I think we'd have gotten a much more interesting power play. I could see Young agreeing to share some power for the sake of morale, etc. if there was some reasonable choice among the civilians regarding who to share it with.
Posts: 187 | Registered: Jan 2005
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I'd like to see an episode where the scientists go on strike. The military, especially Greer, has made it clear in the past that when push comes to shove, they're fine with tossing the civilians overboard if it means survival in a pinch.
Why should the scientists be responsible for getting them out of jams on a constant basis when the military, the ones with the guns, sit around until it's time to shoot something? Them going on strike; refusing to operate the ship, or grow food in the hydroponics lab, etc, would be an interesting power play. A lot more interesting than actually trying an armed revolt.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Exactly. I seem to remember the average IQ of a research scientist being a 140. Even third tier Gate scientists should do better than that to get handpicked for a secret government project. So why do they all act like a bunch of complete morons who've never even heard of civil discourse and non-violent protest? Not one college educated character on the ship has even heard of Thoreau, King, Ghandi, Mandela, etc?
Plus, would it be asking too much if the scientists started acting like it occasionally? When faced with a new situation, could they identify some variables, compare it to known situations, and form a hypothesis before the military goes charging off to save the day?
The show's starting to come off like military fanboy fanfic.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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I like the fact that everyone on the ship is only barely competent, with the possible exceptions of Rush and the fat kid. The show has lamp shaded this several times. Sure, the scientists could be *smarter*, but none of them are heroes, nothing like it.
Has there ever been a drama in which the main characters were *not* the best at what they do? Of any genre? Some of the detectives on Homicide: Life on the Street weren't so smart, but other than that...
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Well, again, I think the scientists are actually doing ok, given what they are. In the most recent episode, the guy they had running the communication stones was only a few steps above a Best Buy Customer Service rep, practically by his own admission. These are not the best and brightest, and I think the show is all the better for it.
No one is ever going to try and argue that Young is as good a Captain as Picard, or Kirk, or even Mal Reynolds; he's holding all this together through sheer force of will, not through any particular skill or display of intelligence.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Foust: No one is ever going to try and argue that Young is as good a Captain as Picard, or Kirk, or even Mal Reynolds; he's holding all this together through sheer force of will, not through any particular skill or display of intelligence.
So let Lt. Scott take over, after all the show opened with him on an alien planet that he had to board a space ship to get to, surrounded by people trying to open a portal to unknown parts of the universe and he was much more interested in any booty he could find. Sounds like a new Kirk to me and the enterprise always came home from a mission.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Foust: Well, again, I think the scientists are actually doing ok, given what they are. In the most recent episode, the guy they had running the communication stones was only a few steps above a Best Buy Customer Service rep, practically by his own admission. These are not the best and brightest, and I think the show is all the better for it.
I was unclear there. Was he saying in general he's just a tech, or that when it comes to the alien device we haven't fully unraveled he's really just a tech?
Maybe I'm wrong and the military hires tons of civilian contractors for everything, but it seems like random tech boy would be a military specialist. If you're going through the hassle of getting someone from outside, I'd think they'd save that for folks already trained in their fields and good at what they do.
If Carter's the best and brightest, she's probably supposed to be somewhere in the 170s or 180s IQ wise. McKay and Zelinka would be a step down in the 160s. So even the third tier scientists out studying the ruins and trying to make the device work should be in the 140s and 150s, right?
I mean, who hires Joe Average to go out and catalog alien ruins? You get the archaeology grad students to do it for their summer internship so they work cheap. And since they're all going to be scientists, they should be as smart as scientists and familiar with the scientific method.
I just feel like the scientists are being treated as background props and plot devices, and it annoys me. Sure, I loved watching Carter and O'Neill blow stuff up on a fairly regular basis. Daniel shooting two guns at the Jaffa while he thought he was dying was one of my favorite moments. I want great military shoot em up moments in the show. I just don't want to sacrifice all my cool science plot points to get them. SGU is seriously lacking in the balance that made SG1 so much fun, in my opinion.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:I just feel like the scientists are being treated as background props and plot devices, and it annoys me.
What about Rush and the fat nerd?
I kinda think you're just complaining that this show isn't more of the same.
If this show shaves off its boring edges and distinguishes itself a bit more from BSG, I really think it could become a full on classic.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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The character's name is Eli. And yeesh, he's not all that fat.
quote:The aliens look nice and alien though for once.
Seriously? They're Asgard that have been put on the rack, given some kind of face-fluttery bits, and soaked in blue water a while. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Im still waiting for a genuinly non-bipedal sentient alien race, it seems as if the rules for intelligence in scifi are all about having two arms and two legs. Even Jabba was remotely bipedal, I get tired of seeing aliens that really just look like messed up humans.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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SG1 had lots. The goa'uld were little parasitic snakes, that just happened to take the bodies oh humans. There was an episode with a crystal, and one with sentient water. In SGU they already had that sand like thing. I think the stargate universe is actually pretty good about making their alien races alien.
Posts: 49 | Registered: Sep 2008
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Parasitic alien life forms have been done over and over since the face-huggers. I will give you crystal, but the water one is kinda lame IMO. And the sand thing was one big mess of "WTF was that?" What I want is a truely non-sapient life-form that we cannot relate to anything on Earth. Maybe even a creature that exists in space only with no distinguishable connections to planetary evolution (without being a living planet/asteriod) I just dont think everything has two of everything and fits our mammal, lizard and bug categories.
My favorite alien race was the Q, post-corporeal and beyond technology and seemingly bored by all of it.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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SG1: Milky Way or Pegasus Replicators, ascended Ancients and/or Anubis and/or Ori B5: Shadows, Vorlons ST: Founders (and your one-offs Data's Crystalline Entity, the silicon bacteria that called people bags of mostly water, the things that stuck on the ship when Geordi created a holo-Brahms, Voyager's swarm, "God", etc.) Actually, if you count machine intelligences, even if you eliminate ones of human origin, there are a lot including the Cardassian missile, V-ger, the whale probe, a bunch of emergent AI on holodecks (borderline), a bunch of androids in TOS, and the Guardian of Forever
Of course many have (or project as) recognizably humanoid forms. I think part of the difficulty is that anything that stays longer than a while needs to become recognizable in order to communicate some sort of plot
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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What, the space amoeba that gobbled hundreds of Vulcans for lunch doesn't even get a mention?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Watching so many supposedly intelligent people act so stupidly is grating.
The actions of all the military people on that ship, possibly expecting the starry-eyed Scott, are ridiculous. They're over-the-top violent, and over-the-top resentful of civilians. They're also devoid of logic. Young has little to no understanding of the technical specifics of Destiny, and constantly ignores the advice of people considerably more knowledgeable than he based on stupidly stereotypical aggressive military archetypes. The civilians for their part, are far too easily cowed into submission. Do they really think that the military would just kill them all off if they took a united stand? Who would run the ship afterward, given the utter lack of knowledge of how the ship works?
And for that matter, why don't they actually talk any of this out? I know the show would have less to actually do if they had an episode where the ship has a big heart to heart, but come on, I'd rather have that than this stupidity. They gain nothing by acting stupid and seething in private.
I suffered through a lot of ridiculousness on Atlantis with the hopes that this would be a more realistic show, but instead it's a ship of fools.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Huh-- I was thinking of putting this show back on my schedule. But I guess not.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Its still good, they just needed a reason to get all of the unresolved political tension (or UPT) out of the way to make way back to aliens and exploring the ship.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Huh-- I was thinking of putting this show back on my schedule. But I guess not.
I'm holding on to the end of the season, then I'll reevaluate for next year. Supposedly the second half is supposed to be a lot better. Several of the characters are quite excellent. And I'm hoping that now that many of the interpersonal issues have been aired, they'll start doing fun, interesting things.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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At the end, in the galley I thought Young would something that would help put them all on the same level and move-on after they just committed mutiny. It didnt even seem like a hard thing to do, and then I realized that is what Adama would do... and Young is not Adama.
Points for not following the same line of thought.
quote:Young has little to no understanding of the technical specifics of Destiny, and constantly ignores the advice of people considerably more knowledgeable than he based on stupidly stereotypical aggressive military archetypes.
But sci-fi captains do exactly this all the time. It was practically Scotty's sole role to be shouted at to do impossible things. I mean, for crying out loud, his response to this is a sci-fi cliche.
The difference between Young and Kirk/Picard/Reynolds/Sisko/McNeil/Admiral Piett is that for Young, on Destiny, shouting doesn't work. The fat nerd clearly barely knows what he is doing, and Rush has goals that conflict with the bare survival ethos of the military officers.
I don't understand why this is a problem. It is a huge plus for this show, and if they continue to play this aspect up, I stand in my conviction that this show could - could - become truly great.
quote:The civilians for their part, are far too easily cowed into submission. Do they really think that the military would just kill them all off if they took a united stand?
Young tried to murder Rush! The soldier that committed suicide was a violent bully. Greer was established as barely stable in the first episode - he was going to be court-martialed, after all. Why should they trust the military personnel? As far as I'm concerned, there are only two things that really maintain the audience's sympathies for the military personnel: they are our point of view characters, and the standard rogue-soldier tropes are being strongly underplayed.
They seem nice to us, the viewers, but seriously: if you were cut off from Earth and a military leader just tried to kill one of the leading civilians, would you be ready for heart-to-heart?
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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It's a fictional character. What's he going to do, throw himself down some stairs?
That actor was cast as, and the character written as, a lovable fat nerd, right? The guy who pines after hot tank top girl whose name I also can't remember? He was written as the fat nerd. Yeesh.
posted
Regardless of you referring to a fictional character it is just as offensive as say referring to a fictional character by a similar derogatory slur.
Also context, your context of 'fat nerd' seems insulting especially to those of us who are overweight otaku's.
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Incorrect? Are you serious? Do you honestly believe that David Blue would have been cast if he was, say, 30 pounds lighter? They're going for an archetype here. They specifically choose a "hollywood pudgy" actor.
Really, this vague push in American culture to include fat with race, gender and sexual orientation is tiresome.
That'll be my last word on the fat nerd topic, feel free to call me a jerk again or whatever.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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With every episode I despise Cloe more and more. I honestly can think of a single redeeming quality she might have. I don't think Young wasn't trying to kill Rush when he fired on the alien ship. He was trying to get rid of Cloe.
Posts: 212 | Registered: Nov 2006
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I like that she stood up to both Eli and the Generic-White-Soldier-Guy that she was sleeping with in taking Rush's side. Thats about it.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Blayne Bradley
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Ya she has character, I dislike her sorta unjustly only because it denies the Chloe-Eli ship but other then that shes cute looking doesn't appear to be either insane or dumb as a brick and seemed genuinely scared of what was going on.
Time will tell who will seem like more of a father figure rush or young.
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So, I think the trouble that we're running into here is that the show was based around a difficult premise, and the writers are having difficulty pulling it off.
The basic premise of the show (reiterated a few times in the first episode(s)) was "these are the wrong people in the wrong place."
Now if done right, this can work phenomenally: See Battlestar Galactica, where a bunch of people who had potential to be great (but didn't start that way) stepped up and grew and made the best of a crappy situation.
The trouble here is I think they're trying to hard to be "gritty" and end up just making people dumb.
Characters with definite potential: Rush - the genius scientist who doesn't have much in the way of personal skills and whos goals are contrary to most everyone else (Baltar) Eli - the smart but malleable young guy who's way out of his depth and isn't ready to stand up for himself yet Young - The military commander who wasn't even intended to be in charge of the well defined research base security, but now stands as the only character with any discernible leadership skills (apart from maybe the medic) TJ - As a combat medic she's the most experienced "doctor" type around, but was either transferring off base or possibly being discharged from the military entirely when this happened...
In theory there's some great growth potential here, but in application there's a lot of stumbling blocks.
I actually buy (to a certain extent) the "scientists" being dumb, at least in that almost all of them are way out of their element. What I got from the beginning was that this was a lower-tier research base with a very specific focus. Basically look at it as a SETI research group or something like that... while smart, these are likely going to be reserved, nervous people with very focused areas of expertise. Now take these people, inflict a catastrophic event on them and now say "ok, you're the tech guys, figure out how to run this Chinese submarine for an indefinite amount of time." They are going to be stressed out of their minds.
That being said, I agree with the critiques about the "civilians" in general not standing up for themselves in a reasonable manner. Rather than speaking up and throwing out suggestions for some kind of representative government, they just try to stage a mutiny? This is an emergency situation where (even once things were stabilized) death is potentially waiting around every corner and things like rationing are vital to the continued survival of the crew. As such, the individuals with experience in these areas and an iota of leadership (i.e. the military personnel) are logical to be in charge (in theory slowly ceding day-to-day authority to a civilian leadership).
The trouble is the civilian characters keep acting like idiots, and as a semi-reasonable reaction Col Young et al clamp down ever harder. Now this could make for good storytelling (imperfect characters making imperfect decisions) but it largely ends up just being painful to watch.
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:So why do they all act like a bunch of complete morons who've never even heard of civil discourse and non-violent protest?
Because they are only as smart as the smartest screenwriter on staff.
The whole point of the story is that they are not the best. They are the redshirts, background support staff and assistant scientists.
Posts: 305 | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Originally posted by aeolusdallas: The whole point of the story is that they are not the best. They are the redshirts, background support staff and assistant scientists.
I think this is my big hang-up right here. Does anyone actually find it remotely plausible that assistant scientists are roughly equivilant to random dude on the street intelligence wise? I remember my dad saying he went engineering instead of physics cause the guy with the Master's degree only got to sweep the floors.
These should be at least grad students working on their PhDs, probably as interns. Or full PhDs. They're also people who were hand picked by the military to ship to an alien planet and catalog artifacts completely unrelated to anything we understand. They should be, by definition, people well suited to assimilating new data and comprehending it.
I like Grimace's point about them being stressed. I'd like to see that played up more - it would add some nice drama. But the idea that the resonably intelligent college graduates would act like a bunch of back woods yokels is just preposterous to me.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Seriously, could they have saddled the show with a more pathetic character? Hot shot polysci grad my foot.
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