Wherein I Pimp My Roommate's Coming Essay Like A Hard Hard Thing.
Wherein I Pimp My Roommate's Coming Essay Like A Hard Hard Thing. And I Declare White Bread & Mayo Isn't Always Everything.
The roommate was going to write (and actually did write) an essay about how to figure out if you like a character of color. In the end, she couldn't find anyone who could moderate for her so she pulled the essay which was ( Read more... )
The roommate was going to write (and actually did write) an essay about how to figure out if you like a character of color. In the end, she couldn't find anyone who could moderate for her so she pulled the essay which was ( Read more... )
I've been thinking about how to respond to you for a couple days now. I've other things going on and then I had a brain fugue.
I'm not sure I want to get into Kevin Sorbo ruined my show. Because that's not the point of this post and that could take me forever. My disappointment was and is keen.
The verbal sparring as the background of SGA, however, is something I can address and I think it's one incredibly insightful point of view into the show's composition and how and why they ended up replacing Ford with Ronon.
My problem with that, however is that it means the show writers were just as caught up in the same trapping modes of thinking as fanfic writers. They obviously knew at some point before creating Ford that they were bringing McKay over. And the writers for SGA have worked in SG1 and they know McKay's character. So they already knew there were going to have to come up with a cast to contain and match him.
But even after casting and the first couple of scripts Ford was still all in the hands of the writers. They created this sweet, amiable, likable guy and then didn't do anything with him. I could understand if they tried to give Rainbow a couple of zingers and he didn't pull it off. But they didn't. They didn't try to show the character even trying to rise to the occasion and meet the atmosphere of verbal sparring.
And since they kept Carson who rushed about doing things a geneticist doesn't do, I don't believe the writers would have had a crisis thinking up other ways Ford could round the team off. With all his expertise in guns and explosives why couldn't they have made him a commando? Their secret stealth member of the team? Why not make that amiable, sweet, lovable exterior hide razor sharp tactical genius?
Ford was a part of SGC before being assigned to SGA. He had to be the cream of the crop to get tapped for that. But they weren't treating him as such. They weren't treating him as part of a carefully chosen and balanced long term semi-colonization, semi-military resource expedition.
Ronon Dex, however, a tall, pro-testosterone and masculinity, bulging with muscles character, gets a background of black ops commando among his people. He gets to be a Runner.
Tell me what stopped the writers from having Ford separated from Atlantis for a couple of months and become a Runner, maybe even bump into a couple other Runners and gain inside information Atlantis could then use? They already had Teyla for Pegasus info.
So why not?
I begin to believe it's because as far as the producers were concerned, bulging black muscles worked in Andromeda, and bulging black muscles worked for Teal'c's storyline (let's not think of Sisko or Worf in DS9). It's incredibly disappointing to think that's all they could find to do with a black character; create one with no relationship to today's racial climate, and have him do heavy lifting.
I suppose I shouldn't be so disappointed that fanfic writers follow suit. Except that fanfic is often about introspection and the act of writing slash specifically is all about gender and sexuality issues if not actual queerness, so these should be people able to see and think about more; But they don't.
Do note I'm not even getting into scifi fans being the most intelligent and issues aware viewers/consumers cause right now ... yeah, I'm not getting into it.
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I definitely agree that they could have given Rainbow more to do. I mean, if nothing else a straight man in the midst of a bunch of mouthy snarky folks can be the funniest one of the bunch.
I wasn't as annoyed by the replacement of Ford by Ronon as I was with the whole Lost Boys/Wraith-serum abusing storyline in general. I can understand not necessarily wanting to keep Ford as a main character, (I think Rainbow is lovely but he seemed to be the weak link acting wise), but he didn't have to be disgraced and then abandoned like that. Why couldn't he have been like Commander Lorne or one of the Kawalsky/Feretti/Makepeace types from SG-1 and lead his own team largely off screen.
Lost Boys was pretty much Ford as a runner, and I hated it, to be honest. What happened to that sweet, competent character? Wraith-serumed-Ford was a flipping idiot.
...
His wraithy-face thing was kind of hot though.
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Is Lost Boys the one where they find out he's been Wraith-Serum Dealing and all hopped up?
The arc to make something happen to him to do with the wraith and have him deal with that, could have been Ford as Runner that I'd have enjoyed. A way to keep the sweet boy conflicted with new instincts or new attitudes.
Yes, I find the conflicted ones hot and interesting. Have I not said I'm Batman's Bitch? *points to icon*
But I was really excited at what might happen with Ford.... And then it became "OMG, Ford's on Crack! Oh Noes!" and I was so damn frustrated/disappointed I was like a mystic cat spitting acid. Hiss hiss every secon. And where I spit no grass would grow.
People with some stretch do write Ronon as a sweet boy who was serving a compulsory term, or at least wasn't a lifer in his planet's military. But with Ford, we could have seen him running. We could have seen that the reason he was running was because of the tracker and so he had to leave clues and notes for Atlantis so he wouldn't be bait to a trap for them. And and and!
Y'know?
Same Sweet Boy. All New Circumstances.
I couldn't believe they wouldn't bring him back in some mention. Because even as effed up as his storyline was. They essentially created a 'Vampire'. Ford the sweet boy had become someone who hunted the Wraith. A figure to scare little Wraith children.
His passage in the Pegasus Galaxy should have impact.
There are many reasons I'm disappointed in the writers of SGA. Ford just really brings out their lack of scope. There are amazing things you can do with a character who's only mentioned or involved some of the time; O'Brian on TNG before transfer to DS9, Quark, Madeline in La Femme Nikita.
And the same way McKay made for a great Anchor/Spin off - Joe who? Ford could have made a nice little 'Runner: Adventures in the Pegasus Galaxy' so they'd still have two shows.
But meh.
Meh I say.
A wasted possibility is a wasted possibility. And at least they got me mad enough to write about black folk in space.
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And you writing is always a silver lining. :-)
(Hope this doesn't show twice...computer has issues...)
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Swear to God, I'm writing this AU. As soon as I get all the personalities of the rest of his new team worked out, so I can give them a push and let them spin.
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