Movie and Television Reviews

I hadn't regularly watched a TV show in probably 18 years (Cheers? A-Team?) when a fellow soldier approached me in Iraq with the Stargate SG1 season-one DVD box.

"You look kind of bored. Check this out."

Hook, line, and sinker. I eventually watched every episode, sticking with the series through several "jump the shark" moments: the loss of Daniel Jackson, "Space Race" (second worst episode after the one where the kids lose their memory), the introduction of supernatural elements like "ascension," the Ori thing that never really worked. Through all of that, the show maintained its sense of humor, great characterization, and solid story lines.

Stargate Atlantis was a great show through and through. Loved every episode.

Because my wife and son shared my enthusiasm, Stargate means family, hot chocolate, fun, domestic warmth.

Now we have Stargate Universe, and I, with deep regret, have made the decision not to dive into this wormhole.

The producers of Stargate, in trying to mature the franchise, managed to lose everything that makes the first two series great while adding nothing but eye-rolling pretension.

The last episode of Stargate Universe I saw was "Light" (eye roll: the first episodes have one-word, "elemental" titles).

"Light" is the worst sci-fi episode I've seen in a long time, even rivaling the space junk that makes up the last two seasons of Battlestar Galactica.

The drama is thick, yet nothing much happens. All we get is longing stares that come before, during, and after characters make "tough" decisions. The direction is lugubrious. The treacly piano music too sappy for a Hallmark channel special on a family dealing with [insert disease].

Destiny is going into a sun and the captain has to choose the survivors. He picks a pilot, a medic, and holds a lottery for the rest of the seats.

Yeah? So what?

That happens every week in SG1 and Atlantis, in the episodes where the whole earth doesn't face extinction. Indeed, certain death is downright mundane on every sci-fi show, and you don't see anybody else making a big deal out it. Sure, Captain Kirk might agonize (for a few minutes!) over sending Spock on a suicide mission, but there'd be other stuff going on, and nobody would complain: Heck, they'd be fighting to take his place.

Any conflict in this stinker? Well, one guy protests, but Greer puts him down with one blow. That's it. The rest is people holding hands and talking into a camera.

Yes, saying their final goodbyes. Stargate writers already used the "saying 'goodbye' into a camera for posterity trick" in Stargate Atlantis. It's kind of funny there. It's also somewhat touching because we already know the characters. In "Light," it's derivative and fails to stir any emotion at all.

In the most blatant example of sci-fi cheating since the resurrection of Spock, Nicholas Rush happens to stow some "communication stones" aboard the Destiny before the planet they were on blows up. I guess the U.S. Air Force just leaves rocks capable of calling people at the edge of the Universe in the scientists' lounge. OK, well, what do the writers plan on using these stones? They're going to let crew members visit their families so that we can have further buckets-full of melodrama.

Then, there's the "groundbreaking" stuff. It's race in Star Trek. "Strong women," next. Both sexes showering together in Starship Troopers and BG. In 2009, ground-breaking means homosexuality. Actually, in sci-fi, it just means lesbianism. Recently, we've had lesbians in BG and Firefly.

Why?

Well, who watches sci-fi? That's right, young guys. Strait guys don't like to see male homosexuality. Solution, lesbians. You get your progressive, groundbreaking, PC cred while titillating most of your audience (and probably not even that- guys might like to watch lesbians, but which one reads about their relationship ups and downs?), and turning off few.

Call me whatever you want, I don't like it in my sci-fi (and, no, I don't think it's like the racists who didn't like Uhura). This is especially true if I have to watch gay relationships develop and wane. And, triply true if such relationships are the centerpiece of the show. And edge-of-universe true if the show has no other redeeming qualities.

Thanks for the memories, Stargate. It's been one heck of a ride. I must be getting off now.