Farscape & Stargate SG-1 New Seasons Tonight
marekk writes "Frelling A! The fourth season of Farscape, arguably the best Sci-Fi currently on television premieres tonight on the SciFi Channel. You can catch the premiere episode, titled "Crichton Kicks" at 9PM CST. Afterwards, you can watch the premiere of Stargate SG-1's sixth season, "Redemption"." I've been watching the SG1 season 1 box set and am
impressed. Its a solid show, and I'm looking forward to season it without the
benefit of syndication lag, even if there are problems.
As for Farscape... well, Duh!
To put a real serious rant here....
I've been a SG-1 fan from the beginning. The cultures are thought out, the government reactions to the cultures have a certain "truth is stranger than fiction" ring to them. The Air Force was on the one hand treating the gate like a hole to be plugged up, and on the other hand wanting to exploit what it could find on the other side.
But my favorite aspects are...
1) No captains chairs. No bridges, no ship to ship bantering. Don't get me wrong, I liked Star Trek the first for this, and TNG did it right but SG-1's lack of it was refreshing.
2) Earth is the star in every episode, terribly outnumbered, flawed, and childishly ideolistic, and the series is ready to show that.
3) Episodal. I think anyone who wants "story arc" really wants to watch a soap opera. Really they do, except they don't get the geeky "holier than thou" satisfaction of telling people they like daytime television.
Now, whats wrong with this picture? I've recently watched some taped season 5 episodes, and guess what. Here's what must have happened, a bunch of out of work writers that filled such shows as Babylon 5 and Star Trek DS9 with charectar drama (read paralysis by analysis), story arc (read soap opera), and captains chairs with lots of ship to ship banter have rewritten the SG-1 universe. It has to be.
One episode the major science words were "Miosis" and "Mitosis" used in a way that made me think they never got past JR High biology. Another had the Gould in a captains chair saying "I'm the great God Osiris, I have nothing to fear". Yet another had a symbiot telling Capt Carter that his former host loved her, I mean really loved her, like really really loved her.
So I say, "Oh well". What ever these writers are the keep getting jobs can do what they want with SG-1, its basically ruined now. At least we had such episodes in season 5 as "the Tomb" and four other seasons of fun episodes.
General Hammond looks bored now, nothing for him to do now that SG-1 has taken off on their own (and everyone seems to have forgotten all the other SG teams up to like 24.) Retire General Hammond, and I'll share some beach sand with you remembering the days of good science fiction that took research and thought to write.