Dark Darkishness and the New Dark

So, this isn’t actually a critique of the Stargate: Universe, but of the coverage of it and hype surrounding it. I mean, on some level, I’m kind of irked because it feels like the SG braintrust (not to mention the folks at “SyFy”) looked at the success of the dark and brutal BSG and decided they wanted more of that. But I suppose it’s a valid creative path to take, responding to something popular and critically well-regarded. Artists do it all the time, after all, and as crass it may seem, it could also be considered a valid artistic response.

Unless they have robotic sleeper-agents in their midst, in which case I probably will declare it crassly derivative.

What I have a problem with, specifically, is coverage like this, which gushes about how edgy and dark the new show is, especially compared to the prior installments. Specifically, language like: “oh yeah, they kill people” and

Gone is the Stargate pattern of the crew getting themselves crew in danger with a freak-of-the-week problem, jokes, a sign of strength from the burly crew member, technical jargon, jokes, and then the leader saves the day with a wink and a smile.

Seriously? Seriously, Meredith Woerner, what fucking show were you watching?

In the pilot of SG-1, an Air Force security team is wiped out in the first few minutes, the surviving member is killed when she’s deemed an unsuitable host, two key characters from the movie are made hosts (a fate, we’re told, worse than death), and another key character is shown to have been made into a host unexpectedly. The pilot ends with that revelation, and then he’s killed in the very next episode.

So which of those didn’t die, or whose death was “rarely permanent”?

Now, I get the idea that there is an innovation of sorts in heightening the stakes by letting us get to know and care for some characters before their untimely demise, prolonging things for several episodes or even most of a season. But let’s be serious for a second. They’re not all going to die. Not if they want to keep the show going. There is going to end up a core of characters that is more or less untouchable. Unless they’re keen on tossing away any possibility of building a fan following in the interest of currying critical acclaim.

But then, even BSG got to the end with a huge percentage of its initial principle cast alive and well.

So, again, not really concerned about SGU itself (other than the aforementioned issues), but this retroactive infantilizing of SG1 and SG:A is kind of dismaying.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.