I thought I drew the line in the sand at Line in the Sand back with SG-1. Stargate does religion hella wrong. I mean back when it was about some baseline skepticism of aliens with good technology posing as gods, that was cool. I could even get behind the metaphysics of ascension and all that jive.
But, with Universe they harp on this crap way too much. Apparently the ship the people are on (Destiny) has a true mission to figure out some pattern written inside the CMBR (because nothing says magical God did it like background radiation having a pattern). Apparently this must have been "before" the big bang because it exists and therefore must have been added before. And then there's these episodes with a God-like alien created planet called Eden and a bunch of "is it real", "isn't it" crap about faith and about not being sure about various aspects. It's not a coherent central story and there's nothing uplifting about "faith" episodes. You can't be sure, isn't it wonderful. Blah.
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It's very eye-rolling. MY BABY IS ALIVE! I BELIEVE!
Oh such a goofy show. And now we get to enjoy Eli's angst due to losing the pretty girl who puts out.
Yeah, what the hell was that. Why is Eli suppose to be such a downtrodden fellow. From the pilot I thought he was the guy we were suppose to identify with. He seemed like a Stargate Fan fresh off an Ender's Game recruiting missing by Jack O'Neil himself. He was wooshed off to adventure, his problems were solved, and he was given a love interest right off the bat with Chloe.
Then, WTF. He never actually even tries or gets anywhere. And she starts shacking up with what's-his-face. I felt robbed. But, he ended up with a good friend in Chloe and I can live with that. And then they lined up Ginn. Who was smart, pretty, given some backstory, starting to be fleshed out, Greer played matchmaker and helped his buddy out. And then SHITBALLS!
If you're going to murder people, learn from Buffy and give us a season or so to fall in love with them first. Build it up so their relationship is the rock you can depend on even when the other thematic elements are all looking down. And then pop. At least make it slightly better to have loved and lost.
But, seriously, the plots might as well be random catfish alien appears on ship and repeatedly kicks Eli in the balls. Then leaves. Will they be back?
He's the guy nerd GUYS are supposed to identify with. Oh woe, I'm in love with pretty girl but she put me in the friend zone!
Which does make it more surprising that they killed Gin off so fast, when there was so much fanservice to be had.
I want the fat girl to get some from the hot guy sometime. Oh wait, there's never a fat girl. At least I have the big boobed soldier slut to identify with. Though I can never remember her name.
Yeah, there's a certain amount of creep factor there. There's also some mention in the online webisodes of using the Kinos to spy on soldier girl (Lt. James). With a line or two like "And the Col. warned all of us girls *smirk*" from the makeshift doctor girl. And protestations that it was really Reilly controlling it (which I think references part of the actual show but I might have blocked it out to try and think the best of it). I think she's the only strong women at all on the show and she's so background that it's hard to remember her name (which is a guy's name).
All the others tend to get alien diseases that they suffer from in silence until their agreed upon death for the best. Or get bombs strapped to their back, while they cry get saved by men and comforted by men back on the ship. Or get their babies mock aborted by alien-gods from alien-god created planets. Lt. James just hasn't gotten enough face time to be rendered rather sniveling.
It's a shame too, must of the rest of the shows tend to have rather independently strong female characters. I mean occasionally they kill Dr. Frasier for no good reason, but for the most part the plot has been this is the threat, we're in danger, let's deal with it regardless. With Universe its all angsty drama with women in trouble who need rescuing and vague religion laden plots, and occasionally plots driven by really stupid people being really stupid and the classic "hey what's this in our path" kind of stuff.
And in my last post, the "we" did refer to rather exclusively to men (which I did consider at the time). Men are without fail given a person with which to identify with. Even in those cases when the its not one of the more central characters. There's always some man with identifying with. Greer has a number of very redeeming characteristics. Eli. Dumbass science guy all above it, except when he goes all he-man killer and avengers the death of his love, with utilization of a herd of alien cows and absolutely terrible aim, and damn the consequences!
It's not like that many sci-fi shows have that much in the way of strong female characters (few shows ever do). Startrek TNG and Babylon 5 and even then they really don't even pass the Bechdel Test. Startrek does I suppose.
http://gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com/261238.html
We the (male) fans are suppose to identify with Eli. Female fans can identify with any of various enfeebled women, or extremely minor characters.
... or male characters.
I just was reminded of that doing the "15 Characters" thing on Facebook. I had a few female characters, but still mostly male.
My SO had one female character on his list, which I bet would be unusual for a cis, het dude.
As for SGU, they make it difficult to care for most of the characters. At least Eli could stand in for me and get pissed off at the idiot god talk. You must have faith! Faiiiiiiiith
15 is a lot of characters. I could see ending up with Buffy, Bones, Starbuck (new series ofcourse), Daria, or quite a few others. And actually a few on Grey's Anatomy. Britta on Community (which is far better than one would expect especially this latest season). Tamara Adama on Caprica (not enough of her and the show is now canned). River on Firefly (though, Mal and Simon would likely edge such a choice out). Peggy on Mad Men. Debra on Dexter. Penny in Dr. Horrible. Rory on Gilmore Girls. Lux on Life Unexpected.
I tend to watch a lot of shows (generally) with strong female characters. So there's usually more than a few to identify with. But, every show tends to have a good selection of positive male depicted characters, and often a better bunch. Though, my favorites tend to treat female characters as humans with feelings and dimensions, somehow the plots turn out better that way.
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