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[rabbitwrath]

The thing about Stargate: Atlantis - if they had intended to make cut-off-from-earth, lord-of-the-flies sci-fi epic charting the slow, chilling descent into self-justification and general amorality, it might have been a very good show. It did indeed do exactly that. Instead, it was disturbing, because it's very obvious that the writers intended no

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[rabbitwrath]

Oh man, tell me about it. I only read DH once, to know how it all ended (and was that ever a mistake; note to self - next time just stick with the fanfic) and I have no desire to read it again, because I didn't even recognise the characters JK wrote into it. I like to think she wrote it after having been woken up by frantic publishers every night for five years and had gone insane from sleep deprivation. (that could also explain the grammar)

I'm bothered really because fiction of any sort is only a reflection of the society that spawns it. Star Trek is an excellent example of this - the original series was fairly bursting with all the optimism and arrogance of the post-war, newly prosperous sixties. A few decades later we had the next generation - mid-eighties to mid-nineties - a much more complacent, self-absorbed and insecure story. Voyager was was dark and insular, a hopeless struggle, us-against-the-universe; and then there was DS9, which had some good moments, but was sci-fi in name only - it was mostly an excuse to put current world issues in spacesuits.

Working from that context, SGA: Atlantis does not say anything good about us. But this has been far from a comprehensive analysis, and I hear that there are complex and multilayered sci-fi shows hiding out there. I will investigate!