...and this is what geeks do: we get together on Friday nights and order Chinese food and drink wine and watch Sci Fi Friday on the Sci Fi Channel, the official cable network of geekdom.
Except tonight, my geek buddy is off galivanting and it would be treason to watch Sci Fi Friday alone, so I’m taping the Stargates and we’ll catch up another night (complete with takeout and wine). And so I’m sitting here blogging about it instead of eating dumplings. So don’t tell me what happens on tonight’s episodes.
Now, I just can’t get into Battlestar Galactica, as much as everyone keeps telling me it’s the Best. SF series. Ever. But I am loving the new direction SG-1 has taken. I was extremely leery of the changes, cuz I loves me some Richard Dean Anderson, but the show had gotten moribund and the new cast has clearly inspired the writers. Ben Browder is fantastic as the new leader of SG-1, and he’s filling Jack’s snarky shoes without overtly attempting to be Jack. And anyone who says that Claudia Black isn’t a goddess is delusional.
As much as I miss Jack and Sam and the old team, I love how reinvigorated the show is. They’ve barely gotten going with Browder and Black (who had fiery chemistry on Farscape and now have a fiery but completely different kind of chemistry on SG-1; it’s so cool to see a pair of actors who mesh so well together onscreen -- seriously, it’s on a Tracy-and-Hepburn level), and already the new SG-1 as good as the old SG-1 was at its best. I particularly love the sense we’re getting of a galaxy in turmoil now that the Goa’uld have been removed from power, and I’m seeing some sly parallels with the situation in Iraq: bad guys are always bad, but sometimes things can be even worse when you remove those bad guys; the now-free Jaffa seem to be floundering around as much as the now-free Iraqis are. And of course, the overtly religious nature of the conflict with the new Big Bad Villains, the Ori, is a direct parallel with the philosophical conflict with fundamentalistic Islam (I’ve always adored the show’s anti-religion stance, but now it seems even more relevant and immediate). I can’t wait to see what the SG-1 writing team does over the next few years.
Stargate Atlantis, not so much. The Wraith are lame bad guys, and no one seems to have a grasp on the characters: not the actors, not the writers, with two exceptions. I keep watching the show because Rodney is adorable (in that cranky, geeky way) but obviously has no idea how adorable he is, and my geek pal and I keep hoping that some nice geeky girl on Atlantis will let him know how adorable he is. And my geeky side that appreciates and is fascinated by actors is really intrigued by what David Hewlett is doing with the character of Rodney -- he’s the only actor who seems like he’s there in the moment the way that really great acting demands, with the exception of Paul McGillion as Dr. Carson Beckett. So that allows for some potential for fun. Mostly, though: borrrr-ringggg.
(Apparently, Hewlett is a total computer nerd in real life, and how hot is that?)
In non-Sci Fi Friday news: Is it me, or is the new season of The 4400 just not as intriguing as the miniseries was?
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