"Your planet has an interesting, if somewhat limited, gene pool."
For years I've been patiently explaining to my brother that I'm probably never going to like Star Trek (despite his best efforts to get me to watch Deep Space Nine) because I'm just not really attracted, for whatever reason, to shows all about geeky characters exploring the galaxy.
And now I'm going to have to eat my words.
Because yesterday I sat through eight hours or so of the Stargate marathon on SCIFI. After the first two episodes, I set up a Season Pass on the Tivo... and put the first two seasons into our Netflix queue.
By all rights, I should not like this show. The concept is deeply (deeply!) silly. I remember renting the movie as a teenager and being surprised by liking it, but at the time I pretty much chalked that up to James Spader looking pretty hot in reading glasses. Kurt Russell never did anything for me, but MacGyver's not looking too bad these days, is he? Speaking of which, when did Ben Browder get so hot? I thought he was just kind of average-looking before: handsome, but nothing special. To be fair, though, I never really 'got' Farscape. Abstractly, I appreciated the production design, the acting, the muppets and the sheer, gleeful weirdness of it. But overall I was kind of 'meh'.
Stargate, though, is so self-consciously campy, it's almost impossible not to like it. It's thoroughly charming. I totally get now why it has such a big cult following. A few episodes of wacky, amoral, Nick and Nora Charles-meet-Indiana Jones hijinks and I was (a little grudgingly, I'll admit) hooked. I'm thoroughly confused by the backstory and honestly have no real idea what's going on -- and they certainly don't offer any exposition within the episodes themselves. It's like 'Confuse-A-Cat'. I'm totally perplexed, but not in a bad way. I'll just wait for the DVDs and see if I can finally learn to tell the male leads apart or figure out why all the bad guys are nouveau riche eurotrash, or how the bastard love child of Rutger Hauer and the guy who plays Sark on Alias makes stuff blow up with his mind, and when, exactly, Lou Gossett, Jr., became such a big fan of religious genocide.
I think it'll be fun.
And now I'm going to have to eat my words.
Because yesterday I sat through eight hours or so of the Stargate marathon on SCIFI. After the first two episodes, I set up a Season Pass on the Tivo... and put the first two seasons into our Netflix queue.
By all rights, I should not like this show. The concept is deeply (deeply!) silly. I remember renting the movie as a teenager and being surprised by liking it, but at the time I pretty much chalked that up to James Spader looking pretty hot in reading glasses. Kurt Russell never did anything for me, but MacGyver's not looking too bad these days, is he? Speaking of which, when did Ben Browder get so hot? I thought he was just kind of average-looking before: handsome, but nothing special. To be fair, though, I never really 'got' Farscape. Abstractly, I appreciated the production design, the acting, the muppets and the sheer, gleeful weirdness of it. But overall I was kind of 'meh'.
Stargate, though, is so self-consciously campy, it's almost impossible not to like it. It's thoroughly charming. I totally get now why it has such a big cult following. A few episodes of wacky, amoral, Nick and Nora Charles-meet-Indiana Jones hijinks and I was (a little grudgingly, I'll admit) hooked. I'm thoroughly confused by the backstory and honestly have no real idea what's going on -- and they certainly don't offer any exposition within the episodes themselves. It's like 'Confuse-A-Cat'. I'm totally perplexed, but not in a bad way. I'll just wait for the DVDs and see if I can finally learn to tell the male leads apart or figure out why all the bad guys are nouveau riche eurotrash, or how the bastard love child of Rutger Hauer and the guy who plays Sark on Alias makes stuff blow up with his mind, and when, exactly, Lou Gossett, Jr., became such a big fan of religious genocide.
I think it'll be fun.