Aug 21, 2008 12:11
I can't say that I'm surprised, I've felt like this has been coming for several weeks from reading between the lines at Mallozzi's blog, Jason Mamoa's statement about wanted to leave after 5 to avoid getting bored, and the chopping and changing of the cast.
I'd think I'd like a new show - if and only if it was written by different writers.
Unfortunately I don't think that the current SGA team and the writers of the latter 4/5 seasons of SG1 ever reached the heights that early SG1 scaled, preferring instead to dumb the show down, repeatedly 'homage' (lazily crib) old sci-fi tropes and popular movies, and to try more and more to transform it into a pale imitation of Star Trek (failing to spot that in the early days part of the huge appeal for fans (myself included) was in that it WASN'T Star Trek.
Sadly I feel sure that any new show in the hands of the current incumbents will continue to champion Treknobabble bullshit technology over wit and characterisation, will fail to build a coherent and internally consistent universe, preferring instead to whip convenient baddies out of thin air and then discard them immediately and will have lead characters who will remain undeveloped and nonsensically one dimensional after 4 or more years. I would lay odds that the writing and production team will continue to be 100% (white) male and will continue to show a universe where 'we come in peace, we feel a completely unjustified sense of entitlement to move in & take over a city/spaceship/technology/planet, claiming it as ours through a tenuous genetic link going back millennia, shoot to kill anyone dissenting' has replaced the wonder of exploring an expanding universe where humans are the 'little people', and being the schoolyard bully doesn't get you very far at all.
The best thing for me about SGA has been the fandom and fanfic. The universe and characters fandom painted were many times more appealing than the 'official' versions Unfortunately the non-fandom audience did not have fandom to paper over the deficiencies of the characters.
SGA has bored me this season (obsession with gadgets, crap (and worse, *boring* villains, absence of character development of main cast) and Continuum disappointed me due to it's lack of depth, lack or coherence and the insulting habit of the writers of ignoring well-established canon, even as I welcomed the return of the characters and actors. I honestly think that the various shows' ratings and general appeal will never scale the heights again unless the production team go back and understand (and stop changing!!) what made it a hit in the first place.
Apologies for boring anyone who doesn't care! :-)