So, Stargate: Atlantis.

[bironic]

First, I ventured into the fic during the Great Fanfic Branch-out of December and January. Then I tried an episode to get a feel for the characters fuelling the fic (by chance, the one with Jewel "Kaylee" Staite as a half-Wraith; a good one to start with). Then moonlash_cc declared she would lend me the first two seasons of the show; I was going to tell her I wasn't feeling too fannish about it and that she really didn't have to go to the trouble, but then I watched a few more episodes, and read a little more fic, and when I saw her on Saturday I was all grabby-hands "Gimme!" because it really is awfully addictive and much easier to like than I'd thought, being a snob and SG-1 hater.

So! Now I'm up to 1.14 and having a ball. It's been too long since I had a new action-packed sci fi series with likeable characters to enjoy. Advanced technology! Space! Humanoid aliens! Danger! Isolation and acclimation! Melodrama! Intense situations fostering equally intense friendships and rivalries! Banter and hilarity! Ahh. And the colors are lovely, all blues and grays, and bright light on Rodney's wide eyes.

Rodney is immensely entertaining and sympathetic, with his unabashed egotism and condescension and warp-speed speech and fear and crooked slash of a mouth and atheism and occasional Canadianisms, and his knack for getting caught in sticky situations (Zapped by a Wraith stunner! Trapped behind a personal shield that won't turn off! Kidnapped by aliens and forced to participate in weird sex rituals! No wait, that last was fanfic. Dammit.).

John's just as great, from his dry drawl ("Atlaaaannis") to his tactical skill and talent with firearms to his careful self-containment and irony. I like him a lot more than I expected to. Sorry, not up for much more character analysis than this right now.

Zelenka is indeed as adorable as I'd hoped, whether he's snapping back at Rodney or playing "prime/not prime" or being all long-suffering when Rodney interrupts him and steals his thunder, etc. I demand more Zelenka.

I demand less Wraith. God, the Wraith are such a stupid alien race. I hate them and their white dreadlocks and red wigs and their over-the-top diction and body language. I liked John nicknaming his POW "Steve," though; always fun when a character undercuts another's pomposity. And they're useful for initiating capture/rescue and torture plot lines. But so is just about every other civilization our heroes encounter.

Elizabeth's favorite announcement opener, "This is Weir," sounds ridiculous every time. Other than that, she's a refreshingly well-adjusted female character. They could cut back on all the shots of her gazing into the middle distance as she makes a Tough Leadership Decision, though.

I don't much care for Carson, which is weird, since I usually go for the doctors with accents. He's kind of a non-entity. And why is Rodney always smarter than he is in medical matters (see "The Hot Zone"), despite Rodney's dismissal of medicine as "voodoo" when compared with the hard sciences?

moonlash_cc mentioned her belief that John has been coded as gay, and that the show screws with traditional gender roles in general (link plz?), and I agree, even having only seen a dozen episodes so far: You've got a woman running this joint scientific-military expedition quite competently; a male soldier uncomfortable with women who come on to him, dealing with women in positions of power without seeming to notice that they're women, taking Ford's man-crush on him in stride, and -- and, oh, there was a joke somewhere in there about liking men, possibly involving Ford, that he was very cool about; a female alien skilled in fighting; a male scientist teased for his "girlish" cowardice; and so forth. Which isn't to say that the show doesn't also buy into huge stereotypes and gender and genre clichés.

And lots of John and Rodney camaraderie moments. Most recently, the little back-and-forth mouthing they did in the jumper at the beginning of "The Defiant One" while trying to convince Elizabeth to let them explore the wrecked Wraith ship had me laughing. Also I want to watch the beginning of "Hide and Seek" over and over again. Rodney cooing at Carson's mice, yapping a mile a minute before he realizes what he's getting into with the gene therapy, John pushing him off the balcony and then announcing gleefully that he shot Rodney first -- "In the leg," duh, Elizabeth -- so playful! The poor guy, so afraid of all the threats Atlantis poses to him that his subconscious won't let him turn the shield off. But then he got all brave and walked straight into death's maw to save the day.

I wish they'd shown more of Rodney's transition from lab geek to field hero in the beginning of the season. I watched "The Defiant One" last night, when the magically appearing friend/ingenue apparently threatening to one day outshine Rodney, a.k.a. Dr. Gall, remarks on how "the Rodney he knew" would never be so itchy to dash out into a fight. I would've liked more of that Rodney in the beginning and more of the change depicted on the show as he put more missions under his belt. I find it hard to empathize with heroes in general, so I'm always most interested in that move from ordinary person/nerd to someone who can leap into action and brave certain death for a friend or the greater good.

So much seems to have happened or been established off-screen, from Rodney's growth to the formation and bonding of the team to the exploration of this huge, brand-new, wondrous city full of unknown technology. Come on! So much wasted potential there. The first few episodes should really have paid more attention to what they were finding in Atlantis, all the crazy stuff that must have happened as they poked at unknown equipment in a totally alien operating system, than to, say, the instant focus on the Wraith or the discovery of a "spy" within the Athosian refugees. How does Grodin, for instance, suddenly know how all these plastic crystalline doodads work? Rodney rearranging circuits and repairing jumpers I can almost believe, since he's a genius and all -- although he knows far too much about engineering for him to be only (only! ha) an astrophysicist.

Ooh, and Kolya, finally getting to meet Kolya. He wasn't exactly how I'd pictured him physically; I guess I was expecting someone a bit more alien, having (incorrectly) assumed from fanfic that the Genii were somewhat more advanced than the Atlanteans both technologically and evolutionarily. What is it with acne scarring and sci fi villains? I feel I should add a caveat to my stock text at work that says, "You may not wish to undergo microdermabrasion/chemical peels/IPL/etc. for acne scars if you hope to have a successful Hollywood career as a character actor specializing in villains and cast members of crime dramas." He was also less threatening and less powerful than fanfic would have him, though quite clever and merciless. Cutting Rodney! I'd so been looking forward to seeing that. The cutting itself was quite disappointing, since it once again happened off-screen -- fill-in fanfic ahoy! -- but Rodney's palpable self-hatred after confessing, and his gasp of pain when Kolya's henchman grabbed his arm later, compensated well enough. Can't wait to see Kolya come back and get John. Oh, the hurt and/or comfort scenarios are always my favorites. Even little bitty moments like the one in "The Hot Zone" when Rodney dropped to his knees and touched Johnson's legs, trying to coax answers out of her, before she died in Zelenka's arms. Mm.

I think that's it for now. Least favorite episodes so far: "Poisoning the Well" and "Childhood's End." Don't know what my favorites are, but I've described most of my favorite scenes above. Just, so happy to be happy and carefree, casually fannish instead of intensely fannish, in the first flush, and so on.

Comments

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Of course I can't say what would or wouldn't grab you and reel you in, but McKay is awesome, and if you felt it in the pilot, I think you'll continue to like or love him -- at least through season one and what little of season two I've seen so far. He's got what made House great at the beginning, insulting everyone else's stupidity and having the brainpower/genius/etc. to back it up, which I know you like; he's the best, he knows he's the best, he's kind of an ass, he doesn't know how to get along with people, and those people learn to love him anyway. Ford was likeable in a puppy-dog sort of way, with what I still firmly believe is a man-crush on Sheppard and his eagerness to name things (badly). I admire Elizabeth but don't feel very warm towards her.