hth | numfar, the dance of bitterness!

Everyone over on

advent_atlantis is having fun talking about the things they love about SGA, and I am over here being sad and angry because I can't think of ten things. I can't. I don't have ten things. I have, like, *forty* things that piss me off, but not ten that make me happy, and this is an uncool way to feel about one's primary fandom.

I think I started to get really sucked down last week when I was putting off writing by going through the vid folder on my computer, and I watched "Hello" for the millionth time (I have no link handy, but go to

merryish and find it!), and the thought occurred to me: *that's* the show. That's the one they should be doing, all dark and slick and gorgeous, with these embattled refugees under seige from terrifying, blood-sucking insect-aliens on one side and the incomprehensible technology they need to survive and can't totally control on the other. And there would be action and gallows humor and people who loved each other like they were the last people on Earth, which they would basically be, and it would have that edge-of-the-universe Wild West feel but with geeks and Regular Guys from our own reality out there just trying to be smart enough and mildly crazy enough to hang on with teeth and toenails against everything from human evil to the laws of physics. It would be the beautiful, beautiful love child of CSI and Battlestar Galactica, or possibly West Wing and Firefly.

Somewhere in my head, that's the show that exists.

Part of my bad mood is that it's summer rerun season and I have a lot of time on my hands, so I'm re-acquainting myself with all my old favorite shows -- Buffy and Due South and Sports Night, and I'm finally getting through the nine thousand episodes of Homicide we have in the house that I've never watched, and I'm just kind of in outrageously bitch-snob mode where I'm not appreciating the *special* charms of shows whose chief ambition is to fuel their own franchises. I want Atlantis to *want* something, to be about something, to have something to say to me. If they would just give me one fucking episode that's supposed to *do* something to me, one single "I Only Have Eyes for You" or "The Deal" or "April Is the Cruelest Month" or "Shadow of Two Cathedrals" or "Flesh and Bone" -- even a "Donut Run" or a "Duane Berry" -- I would forgive so damn much.

And some of it is just doing so much writing myself lately, and being reminded how much of what you write, when you're the writer, isn't about your execution, but about the decisions you make. You do ten different things in every scene, and you either *know* why you're doing it that way and not another way, or you just throw words around and hope you hit something, and SGA bears all the marks of something that's written with the second method. And it pisses me off, because these people have the greatest fucking job on earth. They get to make up stories for a living, and they are blowing it. They're not being writers, they're just being dumb fanboys throwing bullets and bimbos and faux-aliens in funny hats at the screen and hoping we'll keep watching, and hey, maybe if we don't, the SG-1 fans will take over for us when they transplant all their fucking characters in, like this is the goddamn Muppet Show and Carol Channing will be on next week.

Anyway, in the spirit of my rage and pissiness, here's the list of things that SGA could, but won't, do to impress me:

1. Promote one goddamn female character to minor-but-significant status, on the lines of a Zelenka or a Lorne. I like Novak and I love Cadman, but if they need to start from scratch, so be it. This woman MUST NOT be in charge of anything in particular, because I'm not a *cruel* person, I don't intend to keep forcing them to write Strong Independent Leader Women until they learn how to do it right. Just a woman who's part of the mission and has her own skill set and a sense of humor and some acting chemistry with one or more of the leads. This woman also MUST NOT have a romantic subplot with anyone important for at least two seasons, preferably three. This will give them time to figure out if there's any useful reason for her to have a romantic subplot, or if it's just a knee-jerk temptation to sex up the show because that's what women are for. (It can only be Katie Brown if she stops looking like she's about to get startled and faint, and it can only be Heightmeyer if-- No, it can't be Heightmeyer, because therapists suck on practically every show. Have these people ever actually *met* a professional psychologist before? Anyway, not the point.)

2. Send the team to some planets that are actually inhabited by somebody weird and interesting. (Bonus points if the aliens try to Make Them Do It, because how hilarious would it be to see them try to get out of that in canon? Even knowing that the episode *would* end with them finding a way out of it, it would be so very worth it.) For "weird and interesting," read "not Europeans circa Year Whatever, AD who happen to own a quirky piece of Ancient technology." If they can't just make shit up, at least steal from one of the ten gazillion other cultures in the history of Earth! (That's what most of us who pretend to be making it up are doing, anyway.)

3. Quit making them trust people they don't know. The next time a plotline revolves around one of our heroes taking candy from strangers in the Pegasus Galaxy and finding out at the second commercial break that they were being deployed as the tools of far smarter people who've lived here longer and actually know the score, I will throw something through my television screen. I swear to God I will not be responsible for my actions.

4. Severely curtail contact with Earth. I'm not totally opposed to the Daedalus, although I think an extended plotline dealing with its disappearance would provide good stuff. In the Wild West analogy, the Daedalus is the Wells Fargo Wagon or the Pony Express, or possibly the slow boat into Ellis Island. They can continue to use it, and even build some interesting plots around it. But it has to be *gone* some of the time, and even some of the times that they really wish it was there. Also, no goddamn crossovers. I know the Ori are crap villains and the SG-1 guys are probably bored as fuck, but that is *no excuse.* If we MUST, absolutely MUST combine forces, how about Rodney and Teyla and Zelenka go to *Earth* and save people over there? Why do *our* guys have to look like the chumps who are always calling for backup?

5. Let Rodney fucking shoot something. "Coup d'Etat" is way, way too fucking late in the run of the show to be making funny jokes about how Rodney almost sort of maybe would have shot something he aimed it, if he hadn't missed. If they really do let him in the field with a P-90 at his side when he can't hit the broad side of a barn, they're all idiots. Rodney's a combat veteran now. It should be a nonissue that he can fire a gun with a reasonable chance that the bullet will strike the person he's aiming at. Also, this person should not be Sheppard. Which you'd think would go without saying, but, "Long Goodbye."

6. Give Teyla a bimbo of the week. Okay, himbo, because I definitely don't trust these people to do girl-on-girl without icking me the fuck out with their late-night cable vibe. Why can't she go to a planet with a hot guy in distress and make eyes with him, and hey, what the hell, maybe even get laid?

7. Stop wrapping up the episode with a "What have we learned?" convo in Weir's office between Elizabeth and Sheppard. Just...resist the urge. Do not do it. There is no information that must be conveyed in this setting and cannot possibly be staged in a more entertaining way.

8. Let someone in the Pegasus Galaxy, native or transplant, have a genuine religious conviction that is not a misinterpretation of the effects of Ancient technology or the insidious plot of a controlling alien and/or semi-megalomaniacal Ascended being, and that you also do not ridicule by dressing them in pink and making them weasely and dull. Christ, even X-Files managed to have a character with religious sentiments that received some moderate amount of respect, and X-Files is pretty much a low-watermark for theological sophistication. For extra credit, have a military chaplain on base, like the actual military puts in actual bases, particularly when the troops see, you know, horrible mind-bending violence and looming, unnatural death. Note: do not make the chaplain sanctimonious or weasely. Or wear pink.

9. Give Teyla or Ronon a plotline that actually hinges in some way on the differences between their worldview and the Earthlings'. This will, yes, involve making something up about the Athosians and/or the Satedans that makes them different in some fundamental way from Earthlings in cool barbarian leathers. Even Star Trek could occasionally manage this job, although they usually had to make characters non-human before admitting they might not think and act just like us. Try. Try hard. Take a night class in anthropology, if necessary. Resist the urge to have anyone convert anyone else to the wiser and better way of doing things. Just let people not all be exactly the same. Let them be hard to understand, and love them anyway.

10. Whatever they are planning to do with Ronon this season that will offend and annoy me, they MUST NOT DO IT. Abort, abort! I don't know how much disappointment I can handle, and I have two long WIPs that revolve around shit I made up about Sateda that I will be consumed with rage and despair if I have to discard in order to accomodate some dumbshit theory they thought was clever but actually wasn't. In the case of Ronon, they should think of me as their public defender; they must say nothing, and let me do the talking.

There's my freaking top 10 list.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Note: do not make the chaplain sanctimonious or weasely. Or wear pink.

You may be embittered and totally infuriated, but you still make me giggle.

As my mother always said, you might as well laugh as cry *g*

You win at life.

shakegirl and I have talked about #8 at length. (It probably doesn't help that she's going into the ministry and we were both really involved in spiritual matters on our college campus.)

My #1 is for them to hire female writers. Seriously, it's an all-boy crew and I do believe that's where they're failing with the women. (Not that men can't write women or that some women can't write other women, but having women around helps.)

All that said, I'll put up with a lot of crap from SGA and keep watching.

They really should hire female writers, but I have to admit, it would probably be hell to be the female writer in question. That whole franchise is such a boy's club, I can just imagine the amount of stress involved in trying to hammer some sense into their heads.

#8 has given me the creeps for many years with SG-1 -- I suppose part of it is the baggage of being based on the movie's false-gods storyline; as long as you have the Goa'uld, you have that element of cynicism about human religious history built in. Still, to me, that would be all the more reason to get in there and do something interesting and complicated with the theme. But that's me.

And in spite of my complaining, I haven't stopped watching yet. *g*

I would love to have that position, because I'm a masochist like that.

that would be all the more reason to get in there and do something interesting and complicated with the theme.

*nods* Though that would also require deep thinking, and that's not something Stargate's known for.

I want Atlantis to *want* something, to be about something, to have something to say to me.

Man, as much as I *love Stargate SG1* and really like all the new characters and what they've been doing with Sam in S9 -- I have to admit that when I heard that it had been renewed for S10 I just went, "DAMMIT." Because I want them to start PAYING ATTENTION to what they're *doing* on Atlantis. Because sometimes, yeah-- you can tell, they're just NOT. The focus is not there, the intensity is not there.

I think "Michael" might come closest to the type of episode you want to see ("you need a name-- how about *Mike*!" is the one moment in all of SGA that I find to be *actually* chilling) and then you're like "Great, what next? Let's go really dark!" and you get TLG and Inferno. ^_^

And, I mean, not every show can *be* early Buffy or early X-Files or Due South. And even your most avid Stargate SG1 fan will admit that it took at *least* a season and a half for the show to really start getting *good*. And there's a certain charm to SGA's silliness at times that I like. But, all that said... yeah, it's hard to see that potential being so *there* and yet it's totally not being taken advantage of.

I like "Michael" pretty well, but it makes me nervous, too. I'm afraid they're going to mistake "adding some depth to the show" for "make everybody all mean and creepy." In spite of season 2, none of my hopes and dreams for the show really include torturing anybody else. *g* There's an art to having characters do bad things without making them seem like bad people; it's masterclass, and I'm not sure these writers are up to it. Even Joss couldn't always hold it in balance, and he's a fucking genius; I think it would behoove these guys just not to go there.

I don't know what it is about SGA that agitates me so much; there are other rather pedestrian shows that I enjoy just fine. I like SG-1, and I don't think it's much but a fun adventure show. I like Supernatural, and it's pretty much a big ball of cheese with monsters. Usually I'm all right at taking things for what they are, but something about this show gets under my skin just enough to make me depressed about the Might Have Beens. It's probably the fault of fandom -- you know, I have this constant unresolved question of, even given that not every show can be a work of genius, how can the professionals possibly be that much less creative than the amateurs? I mean, it isn't the first time, but in SGA fandom, the gap is particularly wide.

Yes to all of that. YES YES YES.

Additionally, I'd like to see them start taking all the characters more seriously--from Teyla and Elizabeth all the way through to John--because, for real, right now they are walking and talking paper dolls half the time, and it makes me nuts.

I sometimes think they've all learned their lesson from Richard Dean Anderson and they're determined not to get us so attached to any character that they can't swap him for somebody else if the actor should want out of his contract. Heck, they've already done it once, and I'm the last person who's in any position to complain, but it is kind of sad that they don't want us to like any of the characters more than we like the Gateroom set, because the latter is the one they own and can fall back on.

I would agree with you completely, except . . .

my last fandom was Smallville.

Expections managment, that's the ticket to happiness! I will read all your stories and worship at your feet even if their version of Sateda makes you feel all jossed and unloved.

But strangely, the fact that Smallville was every bit as much of a colossal failure -- and God knows it was -- doesn't make me feel any better. It sucks every time.

I would just really like to have a fandom again where I wasn't constantly reminding myself not to hope for very much.

However, lacking that, I will accept being read and worshipped as a pale substitute. *g*

Oh. Oh, hm. Actually, I have no idea how I would cope if the SGA people did all that and SGA became a show that reached me in the same way that e.g. Buffy did at its best. Because, really, I'm in this fandom for the fandom - I'm fannish about these characters and this world, but, I'm starting to realise, for both of those as constructed by fandom writers not by canon. Which is all about:

these embattled refugees under seige from terrifying, blood-sucking insect-aliens on one side and the incomprehensible technology they need to survive and can't totally control on the other. And there would be action and gallows humor and people who loved each other like they were the last people on Earth, which they would basically be, and it would have that edge-of-the-universe Wild West feel but with geeks and Regular Guys from our own reality out there just trying to be smart enough and mildly crazy enough to hang on with teeth and toenails against everything from human evil to the laws of physics.

*happy place* Yes, that. So much. And while it would be just so amazing if the show got it together and did that - or at least hit all the items on your list so that the extent to which it doesn't do that isn't so embarrassing - I don't think I need it to. The only thing that makes me actually grind my teeth about canon is the treatment of the alien cultures and characters, because it would be so cool and so easy to do something, anything with the set-up they have and they just aren't. But on characterisation and plot, I'd be reasonably happy if they just didn't break anything that fandom writers couldn't fix.

And there are days when I feel the very same way, really. I love fandom -- I love this fandom, and I love fandom in general, and it's certainly true that it's often the flawed shows that inspire the most ingenious work (often, but not always: my own best stuff was my Buffy fic, and as much good Sentinel and Highlander fic as there was, there's at least as much good Due South and early X-Files).

But at the same time, I'm not one of those people who came to fandom *for* fandom. I love it, but I came because I love television. I love the medium, the way it can use words and bodies and light and music, the way it can switch up moods and ideas while retaining an essential continuity, the way it comes closer than any other way of telling stories to actually mimicing the way people live -- embedded in their environment and changing both abruptly and gradually over the course of time. I *love* good television, and for me fandom isn't a substitute for that. I mean, it's another thing I love, but it's its own thing. The fandom makes me happy, but the show makes me sad, and neither feeling really makes the other go away. It's kind of a weird tension, actually -- which is why I'm cranky *g*

I think having the Ori clash with the Pegasus galaxy could be really interesting, because I bet if the Ori showed up there with their priors and were all "Hey, were are the ascended Ancients who were not down with the non-interference policy after Ascension. You just have to worship us and we'll zap the Wraith for you." they'd be really popular, really fast. After all we've seen some people who worship ascended beings already, and even if the Ori are kind of oppressive it beats being eaten. I guess the Atlantis expedition would have an even harder time than the SGC to convince anyone why they should fight the Ori instead of cooperating.

See, now, that would be interesting. If Atlantis offers Freedom on the March and endless hopeful promises, and the Ori offer safety, what do you choose? That would be a great conflict, and it would fulfil my #9 nicely, because I could see our native main characters having siginficantly more trouble making the decision that our immigrants see as obvious. Wow, I should stop calling the Ori bad villains -- they're great villains, just not in the galaxy they're in *g*

Yeah. I mean, if I had the choice between the Wraith (during an active period) and the Ori I'd probably choose the Ori. Okay, so iirc according to the SGC they drain life energy in some unspecified way, but it's not as if there aren't any older people in their galaxy, so I'm actually still not quite clear on what they take. And the other Ascended say that the Ori actually trick their followers and prevent them from Ascension by their path, but since I don't see the Ancients telling me how I could become an energy being myself and actually help any time soon, it doesn't seem that great a loss. The enforced praying would be a nuisance, but as long as they'd be content with the hour of worship per day and don't completely micromanage their communities (as long as there's no crusade going on), well, the "die free" thing never had a great pull for me, mostly because of the dying part. I'm just really not the heroic type. I'm pretty sure I could arrange myself with the Ori. Not that I see myself as a zealous collaborator type, reporting the neighbors to the priors or anything like that, maybe I'd even look to carve out niche freedoms like the underground in the Ori home galaxy, but mostly keep my head down and hope to be left alone, and still think that would be better than being culled by the Wraith and have freedom as prey.

I'll second number five. In Season One, we see him fire clip after clip into a Wraith and not missing. I know that his gun was supposed to jam during Siege but that the directors decided it wasn't dramatic enough so he ejects the clip. It's a fandom thing that drives me crazy, but I hadn't realized the show was doing it too.

They've always had trouble deciding to what degree they want Rodney to be comic relief and a plot device, and to what degree they want to treat him as a serious heroic character, Sheppard's counterpart on the science staff. I think it's complicated by the fact that Hewlett seems to really enjoy doing comedy and push for the wacky storylines, and given how much the whole staff seems to like both McKay and Hewlett, it's probably hard to resist trying to make him happy by introducing more of that kind of stuff.

Thank you. You articulate this SO well, and I feel slightly less guilty for not having watched the last five eps of Season 2 yet because this post explains exactly why I haven't.

Also, Dark!SGA would be so incredibly hot...and two or three years without the Daedalus would make me a very happy fangirl.

Well, you know, in spite of my bitching, there's some good stuff in those last episodes -- you should watch at least a few of them. Michael and Allies bother me in various ways, but there are things I like about both episodes, too. And Inferno is probably my favorite episode of the series; it's just a straight-up weekly adventure, but nobody is a moron, everything fits together, there's some humor and some sweetness. It's just extremely solid and entertaining and not at all lazy -- at least watch Inferno!

Avoid Coup d'Etat like the plague, however. I kind of think it's the one that finally broke my spirit.

lol, oh man, I totally agreed with some of your points here.

I've spent entirely too much time out of my life thinking about this stuff *g*

That's the one they should be doing, all dark and slick and gorgeous, with these embattled refugees under seige from terrifying, blood-sucking insect-aliens on one side and the incomprehensible technology they need to survive and can't totally control on the other. And there would be action and gallows humor and people who loved each other like they were the last people on Earth, which they would basically be, and it would have that edge-of-the-universe Wild West feel but with geeks and Regular Guys from our own reality out there just trying to be smart enough and mildly crazy enough to hang on with teeth and toenails against everything from human evil to the laws of physics.

Here! Muthaf**king! Here!! This is the show I thought it was going to be after watching the first few episodes (actually just 1&2) and it quickly became apparent that it had all been a big tease.

And now that they are moving away from storylines about the wraith... sigh, you do the math.

Why are people so afraid of making tv that actually makes you feel something, deeply. That allows characters to actually interact instead of taking quick swipes at each other in order to move the plot along. When I watch this show I get depressed because I can't stop thinking about all the missed opportunities to really make something great. Like the scene where Sheppard and Teyla argued about going back to save her friends (S1) or when Teyla put a drunk Ronan to bed after he found out about the survivors from his home world (S2), both scenes could have been so much more impactful had they been written (and directed) with some subtext. (And don't even get me started on Michael)

It's unfortunate that the writers and producers (that already have a hit show with this particular formula under their belts) were not willing to take a risk and go in different direction.

BTW - Point 4 is dead on.

I try to remind myself that not everyone *wants* television that shakes them up. Some people just want to come home from work and watch something easily digestible and unwind-inducing, and that there's not anything wrong with that. My father, for example, is a fantastic, intelligent man with two PhDs and more decades of fan-love for science fiction shows than I've been alive, and what he wants from his tv is that it be shinier and more fun than real life. He's never understood my love of being traumatized by prime time television *g* So, you know, I do get that it's cool to have different needs from a show, and reading advent_atlantis reminds me that some people enjoy SGA for the very *same* reasons that I'm frustrated by it. Still, it's hard not to feel let down that it's not all about what I want. *g*

I actually like both scenes that you mentioned just the way they are...what bums me out is that they evaporate as soon as the tape stops rolling. They don't set anything in motion; we don't then get to start off down the road of seeing the friction between John's military mindset that focuses on mission objectives and strategically choosing your battles and Teyla's mindset of saving lives in a galaxy where every life counts because there are never enough survivors to guarantee a future. We don't get a plotline about Ronon's divided loyalties or why he chose to remain among strangers rather than rejoin his own people, or what that decision cost him in terms of opting to be a perpetual minority/foreigner in his own home. SGA isn't too bad at finding the interesting places to poke at, but then they don't develop these fleeting thoughts into anything more than faintly interesting. More missed opportunities.

I can understand how a lot of people love the show for what it is, but I find it so similar to the “formula” of SG1 that I would have liked to see SGA taken in a different direction. I'm not asking for it to be as dark and desperate as BSG because it's a different kind of show, but I wish the reset button at the end of each episode wasn't so thorough.

Letter's from Pegasus was on a couple of nights ago, and the friction in that scene just didn't jive for me. It felt forced and frankly Sheppard was out of character. In the first episode he was willing to risk everything to get onto an alien hive ship and save his people and suddenly he was adamant about "smart" protocol. What's the reason behind this sudden turn around? And why is he is being so rigid? To be honest I can probably come up with a few explanations on my own, but none of them were properly shown or hinted at during the episode.

I feel like the ideas/intent behind scenes like that one are interesting, but the actual execution is rarely "there" for me. But maybe moments like this would ring truer for me if (as you pointed out) they had some follow through.

Anyway, I understand that it's not as cut dry as I'd like it to be, and television is a volatile market. The show wants to please as many people in as many countries as possible, which unfortunately means if it ain’t broke…

Maybe the third SG series will be the one I’ve been waiting for

One of the explanations I've heard that makes sense of Sheppard's characterization in 'Letters from Pegasus' is that he is still all about saving his people, but the expedition is 'his people', not Teyla's friends. It's more important for him to get intel to Atlantis to help save his people there then to wait around, at least until they get trapped, and have no choice but to wait around and help anyone who comes by.
*shrugs* It helped me stop tearing my hair out, anyway.

I agree with you entirely. I have always thought that I would love to see Atlantis made in a similar manner to BSG. Something gritty and hard and real. While I love the show, it would be so much better if it were tough and meaningful and made an attempt at character development and emotional continuity in the hostile Pegasus Galaxy.

And I especially agree that Teyla should be allowed make eyes at a himbo!

These little things go a long way, you know? I mean, I realize that tough and meaningful and development and continuity can be hard work, but can't they humor us with the *little* things? I just keep wondering what it says about their sense of Teyla's character that she's not been allowed to have *any* sexuality at all -- not a babe of the week, not a dead ex-boyfriend to avenge, not anything that doesn't somehow relate to them toying around with *Sheppard's* sexual and emotional life. Sheesh, at least we know that Elizabeth *once* got laid.

I can forgive a show for not being a staggering work of heartbreaking genius, but I swear it keeps me up nights wondering why they make these oddball minor choices.

I must admit, I love my show in spite of the actual show, rather than because of it. With SGA I have to ignore the glaringly obvious holes in story-lines, condescending scrips and dull as dishwater extras. And what they do to the show's women makes my ass twitch. Like I said - it's an in spite of situation.

I'd still trample over the elderly and infirm to actually watch it, you understand. Me and my show are definitely in the Honeymoon stage, as yet. But yeah - let's not be obtuse about this - the show would definitely benefit from a few of my favourite SGA fanfic authors getting in there and kicking some lazy SGA scriptwriter butt.

For heaven's sake, they have all these wonderful actors who could do so much, and they make them have 'moral of the week' on the balcony, rather than taking advantage of the late night slot and just riding the core darkness of Pegasus to its natural, twisted conclusion.

So, yes, I do agree with a lot of what you've said.

Umm...I really have to point out that I *love* my show. For all that I'll happily bitch about it and pick it to pieces. I guess I have hope in my heart that the SGA Powers That Be will come to their senses and at least *try* to give us something a little closer to Merryish's 'hello' vid.

And my dark secret is that I love it, too. I mean, I'm all atwitter for third season, even as I mutter darkly about how it's going to suck. It wouldn't break my heart like this if I didn't love it.

There just comes a point where I get all exhausted and irritable from the effort of trying to make excuses for every dumb thing they do. All I want is for them to turn out a product I don't have to feel ashamed for saying I like.

ANd maybe if their actions had consequences. If they thought about the consequences of their actions. If they, oh you know, changed and grew as people.

I would not spit in the face of that, either, I have to say. I'm not as keen as some people are on needing to see characters punished for their moral transgressions, but it would be nice if *some* of their bad decisions led to them deciding not to do that anymore.

a.) I hate to say it, but SGA is essentially a show whose height of ambition is to amusingly regurgitate old Trek plots, and that's pretty much it. It is a slacker and likes it that way. I'm just saying: they're comfortable in their niche, and are OK with providing their audience with cheesy sci-fi comfort food. (I'm not absolutely sure about this, but SG-1 and BSG pull in the same ratings share, and SGA is slightly behind both of them, but not by much. I think the PTBs are well satisfied in a "don't fix what ain't broke" sort of way.)

b.) If every show were as ambitious and beautifully written as Buffy, I would die of spontaneous joy. But I think it takes a singular kind of mind behind the show, a person with a voice, not just to write kick-ass episodes, but to shape the vision of the show. SGA lacks this utterly. It has no distinct anything.

c.) Frankly, I would just be happy with episodes in which none of the characters acted in a way that was egregiously stupid -- "The Long Goodbye" in which everyone happily let an alien entity invade Sheppard? DUMB! Really, the extent of my hopes. I don't even care that they've reduced the Wraith into laughable puppet monsters, or made me shudder with their faltering attempts at romance (I figure it's one less thing they could screw up). My highest hope? That there are more episodes like "Grace Under Pressure"; I was pleasantly surprised at how neatly everything tied dramatically together at the end. Plot point A led to B and it was all neatly tied together by C -- Rodney's self doubt plus the uncertainty of his hallucinatory state made him hesitate when John shows up to save the day. That lovely moment of doubt was paid for by everything that had gone before it in Rodney and Sam's interaction, paid for in careful character building, and was worth the price. That was just an overall kickass episode -- it made dramatic sense, and I just hope there are more like it next season. Hope, but don't expect.

a) And I keep trying to tell myself that's a reasonable choice to make, but there's just some part of me that doesn't get that. I can't *imagine* having a worldwide stage like that one and all the resources they have, and not saying to myself, okay, I'm not Joss Whedon or Tom Fontana or Aaron Sorkin, but what could I do with this show to make it as addictive and unforgettable as possible? I can't imagine being satisfied by saying, well, the ratings are reasonably good. I know there are people who can, and there's not necessarily anything wrong with seeing your job that way. Or at least, that's what I keep telling myself.

b) I know that Buffy is extraordinary; I'm really not asking everything in the world to rise to that level. There's always going to be a bell curve -- a few amazing shows, a few dreadful ones, a lot of reasonably watchable shows. I'm just not sure I think it *does* take a singular mind to approach something with the intention of making it special. That doesn't mean it'll always work out; I like BSG and I *love* Veronica Mars, and I think they're both good shows, but there have been plenty of times during the second season of both when I threw metaphorical rotten fruit at the screen and called the people in charge big, honking losers. They've blown it; most shows blow it from time to time. Christ, Joss blows it; I saw 7th season Buffy and 4th season Angel. Not living up to your highest goals is human weakness -- hell, the human condition -- and I'm pretty sympathetic to that, as a rule. Not *having* goals is just wasting your life, and it's painful to watch.

c) Those are indeed the episodes that make me happy enough not to hate the show completely. When they bring their A game, they do good action-adventure with a really endearing personal touch. I like Grace Under Pressure, I like Inferno, I like 38 Minutes. They're good at making characters likeable enough for us to genuinely worry about them when they're under the gun, and when the writers don't blow it by forcing the plots to hinge on inexplicable stupidity that would only happen if these people knew they had to go the full hour before they could get off screen, they turn out solid work. They're capable of solid work. That's what makes me depressed, because I think they'd probably be capable of more if they were willing to go there.