SGA, DW, and other stuff
First off, I feel like a bad fan. I finally watched Dr. Horrible and while I liked it and enjoyed the music and the acting, I don't actually know what all the fuss is about. It was amusing but I doubt I'll watch it again. Can someone clue me in on why it's so special? It's probably just me....
Doctor Who-- Turn Left . Again, I'm left kinda meh. Every season seems to have a ep where the Doctor isn't in it much and this one must be it. It was interesting to see where things would have gone if the Doctor hadn't been around to fix things, but I've seen this device so many times before, and to better effect. With It's a Wonderful LIfe the bottom line is a happy one; with Turn Left Donna sacrifices herself to save the Universe. I don't really like where they're going with Donna. She been a pistol and fairly shrill and while I don't care much for that, she's been different and I've enjoyed the different dynamic between her and the Doctor. And it was creepy to have Rose hanging around, manipulating Donna with the endgame of getting her to kill herself (because it did seem like she knew that would happen.) Sometimes I think writers want to do something but chicken out by adding weight to the argument. For instance, Rose loves the Doctor. She loves him enough to go across dimensions. When she finds he has died, is her love so relentless that she would sacrifice another companion to get him back? Is there a malignant jealousy in her that would motivate her? But if you throw in a darkness that will destroy the Universe, then both her and Donna's actions are just noble. And now I'm guessing Donna's last name is one of those name foreshadowing things. Great. Not.
Next, SGA's The Seed Mullie wrote this, didn't he? They really should just let him work in the office and keep him away from the word processor. His scripts tend to be by formula and filled with predictability and clichés. None of the characters shone and in fact were distilled down to caricatures. Ronon was brave but dim and got captured. Teyla was hijacked by a fussy infant. And we got Heroic!Sheppard. Keller continues to be laughable in her role as CMO. Hello? You are in another galaxy. If you wake up excreting slime, get a sample and get a scan! Yeah, the writers need to keep telling us how great she is because all they do is show us how incompetent she is. And was it me or did they cut to a reaction shot of McKay every time she was in danger or did something clever? Ship much? Yech.
And now this is canon how the wraith ships are grown? Are they sentient then like Moya because Keller was being taken over by another personality. While this is a curious idea, it was poorly thought out.
It was very nice to have Carson back. He just has a lot of warmth and exudes competency and he really fills a niche on this show.
I'm gonna say Woolsey will be positive change to the show. I don't like him--much--but he will be a source of conflict and conflict is good for a story. The new table is fine by me; I like that Sheppard and McKay will be sittng across from each other, where they can communicate by micro expressions and gang up on Woolsey. *g* In fact, I really liked that one scene; Teyla and Sheppard were getting nowhere about the newly human Athosians being relocated, but abrasive McKay went to the extreme decision--just keep them locked up forever. He actually got Woolsey to move more in the right direction by being extreme.
As for Carter, I think they could have brought her back with a transfer instead of inferring she was being pulled for not doing a good job. And as always, the writers have to have a character tell the viewers that Carter is great. I really have a button about that. On the meta level, now that we've seen the Carter arc in Atlantis, I find she didn't bring anything to the production. Thank god they didn't have McKay slobbering after her, and thank god they didn't have her showing him up on the technical stuff. Looking back, I'm trying to remember scenes with her in them. I remember Trio, I remember her pulling that photo of Jack out of her luggage, and I remember her getting fed up with Zelenka in an elevator. That's a pretty blah showing. I think because Tapping had a second year on her contract, they had to play her since they were gonna have to pay her either way. I don't think the stories support that the writers needed her for any story lines.
So, we get a medical emergency and people worry and then finally they kill a huge growth immediately with one small shot. None of the characters showed how brilliant they were. Sheppard crashes a jumper into city in a painfully brute force solution. All that talent and this was the fix? If he was a fanfic writer, I would have skipped to the end by about three pages in.
I think I've heard Mullie was only gonna write one ep this year. Is that right or just me being hopeful?
I really hope the stories get better.
The only show that continues to delight is The Colbert Report. And most of my tv viewing of late has been science programs. I'm sure the influx of knowledge about climate change set off my little rant last week. I was feeling a bit panicky about the future. But did you know that the hole in the ozone layer is shrinking? We can fix things if we figure them out quick enough (and aren't greedy enough to ignore the problem.) But I do continue to think really bad times are in the future--and that's aside from any future episodes of SGA written by Mullie.