Stargate SG-1 Review - 1969

[Captain Crimson]

Oh please, the fans turning out for NuBSG also tuned out of SGU within the first half-dozen episodes. We lost SGA for SGU, and the two are not equal to the other. It's not even like they went dark, so much as made it a bad soap opera. The continuity is completely over the map. Example, in the first half-dozen episodes, threw out the interesting premise set up by Time in order to give us more of the same dreck we'd had before. No one wanted that. That they blamed the scheduling issues instead of horrible fan backlash is a concern.

How woke do you want it? Do you want non-binary characters DEMANDING proper pronoun use? Do you want sneering contempt on the US military, given how unpopular law enforcement is these days? Do you want Sheppard being ripped apart for "toxic masculinity?" He isn't, BTW. How about more writing for the female characters such as Dr. Weir or Carter's brief time on Atlantis? I didn't find them compelling as leaders. How about a gay couple that beats you over the head with it? Despite LGBT blogs and their double standards back then, at least how Wray had a lesbian lover was more subtle than it would be today. Woke military science-fiction is an oxymoron in the era of BLM and anti-police protests and rising unhappiness and distrust in American institutions.

I don't think SG would work today, except as a reboot. And I'm on board for that. BSG handled its reboot well. But with the preestablished fanbase we have, to go with the DSWST or STD/STP treatment would be too divisive and perhaps by intent. And unlike SW or ST, SG is a far smaller community without that brand power behind it. They could easily kill it.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Oh please, the fans turning out for NuBSG also tuned out of SGU within the first half-dozen episodes.

Tell that to the business-suits, who just look at their numbers. And apparently NuBSG was popular, while SGA might’ve had some problems in the numbers-department and so they decided to do something similar.
If you just do the “business economic”-thing, I’m not surprised, that it turned out the way it did.

We lost SGA for SGU, and the two are not equal to the other. It's not even like they went dark, so much as made it a bad soap opera. The continuity is completely over the map. Example, in the first half-dozen episodes, threw out the interesting premise set up by Time in order to give us more of the same dreck we'd had before. No one wanted that. That they blamed the scheduling issues instead of horrible fan backlash is a concern.

True, the idiots in power just killed SGA in order to bring out SGU. But why?
Like I said - propably, the numbers were not that encouraging for SGA and they decided to so something new. Which leads to ignoring continuity and - yeah - no one wanting that damn show. And again - I’m not surprised, rather am saying “What did we expect? We’re sending out signals here - after all you cannot not communicate - and if you’d rather watch NuBSG, the dark Knight Trilogy or other versions of the grim-gritty-stuff, plus you’re starting to get very vocal, that probably it’d be the time to keep Stargate as a fond memory, rather than a show on tv, I’m not surprised, that we did get, what we got.”
It’s our fault, basically.

How woke do you want it?

As woke as it’d need to be.

Do you want non-binary characters DEMANDING proper pronoun use?

Is it a topic worth adressing? Then: YES!

Do you want sneering contempt on the US military, given how unpopular law enforcement is these days?

Again: If it’s a topic worth adressing: YES!

Do you want Sheppard being ripped apart for "toxic masculinity?" He isn't, BTW.

That depends on your stand concerning “toxic masuculinity” - if ‘toxic masculinity’ is basically boiled down to “Men are not allowed to cry” and if Sheppard would be a strong proponent of that, then - yes, why not ripping him apart.

How about more writing for the female characters such as Dr. Weir or Carter's brief time on Atlantis? I didn't find them compelling as leaders.

What did you find uncompelling about them?

How about a gay couple that beats you over the head with it? Despite LGBT blogs and their double standards back then, at least how Wray had a lesbian lover was more subtle than it would be today. Woke military science-fiction is an oxymoron in the era of BLM and anti-police protests and rising unhappiness and distrust in American institutions.

Honestly, I have no problems with the characters adressing, that they’re gay. Let them be as gay as they want.

[CrypticMirror]

There are gay fans, and trans fans, and non binary fans, they should be respected and feel included in the show. There is nothing wrong with that. We could do with more shows doing that. And quite a bit of the military acts in Stargate were highly questionable and deserving of being called out within the show, even Chuck has had cause to call the show out on not calling out those abuses. And the most popular character from the original Stargate series, Daniel Jackson, was all about calling out acts of toxic masculinity when he saw other characters being involved in them.

So, yeah, be more woke. Stargate started off being very woke [or at least trying to be, even if it didn't always live up to that aim] with Hammond's "highest ethical and moral standards" and the punishing the characters when they failed to live up to those [episodes like Spirits and Enemy Mine]. So what is the problem with the franchise being abour what the franchise is about?

[CaptainCalvinCat]

There are gay fans, and trans fans, and non binary fans, they should be respected and feel included in the show. There is nothing wrong with that. We could do with more shows doing that. And quite a bit of the military acts in Stargate were highly questionable and deserving of being called out within the show, even Chuck has had cause to call the show out on not calling out those abuses. And the most popular character from the original Stargate series, Daniel Jackson, was all about calling out acts of toxic masculinity when he saw other characters being involved in them.

So, yeah, be more woke. Stargate started off being very woke [or at least trying to be, even if it didn't always live up to that aim] with Hammond's "highest ethical and moral standards" and the punishing the characters when they failed to live up to those [episodes like Spirits and Enemy Mine]. So what is the problem with the franchise being abour what the franchise is about?

THIS!
Very true - I don't get it, either.

[Captain Crimson]

Blaming dual fans of one IP for destroying the other IP is misguided. The numbers were good for NuBSG, sure. But then the fact remains the studio chose to double down on the numbers game. They got greedy and that's the real problem here. Real SF, IMO, needs to be struggling to get made, it needs to be low-budget and fan-interactive. TOS was that way, TNG was that way until later on. DS9 was that way, always in danger of cancelation. Most ST series rarely hit past 11 million viewers. SG was that way. B5. I could go on and on. To go for broke just means that you wind up diluting it down and it stops being made for the loyal fans, but trend-chasers. We've seen that in modern ST and DSWC.

There are gay fans, and trans fans, and non binary fans, they should be respected and feel included in the show. There is nothing wrong with that. We could do with more shows doing that. And quite a bit of the military acts in Stargate were highly questionable and deserving of being called out within the show, even Chuck has had cause to call the show out on not calling out those abuses. And the most popular character from the original Stargate series, Daniel Jackson, was all about calling out acts of toxic masculinity when he saw other characters being involved in them.

So, yeah, be more woke. Stargate started off being very woke [or at least trying to be, even if it didn't always live up to that aim] with Hammond's "highest ethical and moral standards" and the punishing the characters when they failed to live up to those [episodes like Spirits and Enemy Mine]. So what is the problem with the franchise being abour what the franchise is about?

You don't demand respect, you earn it. And demanding proper pronoun use isn't earning it, especially when you're harassing others on social media for it. Does that really matter when you're under fire in a foxhole deep in enemy territory? It's irrelevant! Plus you just have to accept, as I've beaten the point in over and over, these people are a minority and always will be. At least until the tools have caught up with us again.

No, I never supported Mr. Trump's trans ban, but trans people need to stop making demands of mainstreamers and deal with this! You join the military to FIGHT. Nothing more. Frankly, trans characters insisting on the proper terminology would feel cringe while lounging in the base during downtime, given the battle lines in America now. If trans people are this sensitive, don't join the military. Call me a transphobe all you want, I don't care. It would be SGU on steroids. Especially if the Twitter hit mobs are out trying to find somebody to cancel for refusing to think the way they do. Whether someone is trans or has a darker skin tone or has this set of genitals or that or likes to bang men or women is meaningless, just trivia, it's the content of their character, and no one remembers that anymore.

What "toxic masculinity" are you referring to? It's a buzzword that means nothing. You're filtering SG through a leftist lens when it was never meant to be that way! This is why SG cannot come back. The West is just too politically charged RN to be able to handle it in an intelligent and thought-provoking way that doesn't have a clear and biased favoritism to a woke left bent to it, with added bad writing. You can't make everyone happy and the studios are digging their own graves in the attempt.

It never started off woke. That "reproductive organs" line wasn't bad, but Teal'c's race was also never an issue except on the Third Reich Founder planet. I guarantee you nowadays Teal'c would somehow be involved in BLM despite the arson and looting last year. Do we want that? When his race was largely ignored in favor of his deeds and abilities? Carter would possibly be dialed up to 11 in terms of her feministing, hitting military commanders on base with #MeToo.

Now granted, I know the military has its issues with abuse and experimentation and disregard for its shoulders, and a toxic atmosphere, but do we really need to see that? The Earth-centric episodes were the least convincing. You know what? The original TOS was optimism for its age. That's what woke was in the '60s. Woke nowadays seems to be trying to depress you and beat you over the head how bleak life is. That's not what I want in SF or entertainment media. Mr. Doohan, apparently, talked a suicidal girl out of depression. She became an engineer because of him.

Does the NuTrek have any accolades like that? SGU combines the sexual immaturity of ENT with the listlessness of VOY, and gives it the depression of NuBSG. Yet that's small potatoes to what it could be these days. Going soap opera gets critical acclaim from the out of touch Hollywood elites, but frankly, that critic/fan review gap is just getting larger and larger with preestablished IPs. I don't want Wokegate when it's just more depression from smug SJWs who completely misunderstand the past and don't believe in a brighter future. What happened to woke being bright and sunny and saying we were gonna be all right? You can't balance woke to broad humor since that requires being able to laugh at yourself, and would many of you SJWs accept self-deprecating humor? Many I've known just did not like that. Like how Mr. Carlin used the word "fruit" and these days he'd be canceled for such "toxic" language and outright "homophobia."

Going topical is hurting these IPs and ruining their rewatch value for short-term gains above. They won't stand the test of time for that reason. The most loyal fans who could have sustained it long-term have been brushed off as right wing or bigots, and have left. That's not smart business. But it is what we have these days.

[McAvoy]

You just don't understand what being trans really means. We got like what four or more topics where you basically go off about 'woke this', 'woke that'.

You are clearly anti trans and no one here is going to convince you of anything.

It is pretty damned evident when you just made a big ass speech about proper pronouns.

Also, we're you in the military? Yes or No?

[CrypticMirror]

Garbage.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Blaming dual fans of one IP for destroying the other IP is misguided. The numbers were good for NuBSG, sure. But then the fact remains the studio chose to double down on the numbers game. They got greedy and that's the real problem here. Real SF, IMO, needs to be struggling to get made, it needs to be low-budget and fan-interactive. TOS was that way, TNG was that way until later on. DS9 was that way, always in danger of cancelation. Most ST series rarely hit past 11 million viewers. SG was that way. B5. I could go on and on. To go for broke just means that you wind up diluting it down and it stops being made for the loyal fans, but trend-chasers. We've seen that in modern ST and DSWC.

Aactually the studio chose to double down on the numbers, because the numbers were that way they were. And no, that’s not “greed”, that’s pure business economics. The most important goal, that each and every company has is what? Indeed, profit maximization. That’s the goal that every profit-oriented company has to fulfull.
And when the ratings say that SGA is doing okay, while NuBSG is doing better than okay, the business-economists say “Well, let’s try to make property a more profitable by means of making it more like property b”

And saying that “real SF needs to be struggling” is like saying “a real artist needs to be sturggling, needs to be a tortured soul, because only tortured souls can craft something really beautiful.”
No, sorry, I’m not agreeing on that. It can be “real sci-fi” and yet not struggling. Looking again at NuBSG: That show was real Sci-Fi and yet apparently so successfull, that the copyright-holders of SG tried to turn their show into the more successfull model.

You don't demand respect, you earn it. And demanding proper pronoun use isn't earning it, especially when you're harassing others on social media for it. Does that really matter when you're under fire in a foxhole deep in enemy territory? It's irrelevant! Plus you just have to accept, as I've beaten the point in over and over, these people are a minority and always will be. At least until the tools have caught up with us again.

Oh, quite the contrary. You can demand respect, without doing something, that is earning respect. Best example: The military.
Try to talk to a drill sergeant in a disrespectful way, negelect to greet him in the proper way, he’ll make your life a living hell. Why? What did he do? He yells and screams at people, who wanted nothing more than defending the country. And yet he’s like a parody of that dude from Full Metal Jackett.
Friend of mine was in the Bundeswehr and the Spieß (the Sarge) was basically something like Drill Instructor Hartman - basically something like an asshole. So - why are we treating these people with respect, instead of waltzing into the head honchos office, saying “Okay, Sir, this dude needs to go. He yells at us, he knocks down lockers in order for us to clean them up again, he checks if our barrack room is in order - Sir, we’re not five years old anymore, we don’t need a mum to check, if we cleaned up our room.”

Again - why are we treating these persons with respect? Not because they earned it, but because they can turn your life miserable, if you don’t treat them with respect. So basically: They demand respect without doing anything for it.

And concerning the sequence you pitched: no.
When the goa’uld, Ori, Borg, you name it, attack and you fight for your life, no one, but an extreme idiot, would disobey the order of a person, trying to save their life by - say - misgendering them. It doesn’t matter in that moment but it matters later on in your life.

No, I never supported Mr. Trump's trans ban, but trans people need to stop making demands of mainstreamers and deal with this! You join the military to FIGHT. Nothing more. Frankly, trans characters insisting on the proper terminology would feel cringe while lounging in the base during downtime, given the battle lines in America now. If trans people are this sensitive, don't join the military. Call me a transphobe all you want, I don't care. It would be SGU on steroids. Especially if the Twitter hit mobs are out trying to find somebody to cancel for refusing to think the way they do. Whether someone is trans or has a darker skin tone or has this set of genitals or that or likes to bang men or women is meaningless, just trivia, it's the content of their character, and no one remembers that anymore.

You don’t join the military to fight - you join the military, to defend the country. At least, I hope, that’s the reason you join the forces, not because you want to go out there and kill people, who happen to live in that tiny speck of earth, your country wants to have now. ‘cause that would be - say - alarming.

And if trans people want to defend their country, they should be able to join the military, too - and they should be treated with the same respect and their proper (self-assigned) genders.

What "toxic masculinity" are you referring to? It's a buzzword that means nothing. You're filtering SG through a leftist lens when it was never meant to be that way! This is why SG cannot come back. The West is just too politically charged RN to be able to handle it in an intelligent and thought-provoking way that doesn't have a clear and biased favoritism to a woke left bent to it, with added bad writing. You can't make everyone happy and the studios are digging their own graves in the attempt.

Good question: What does ‘toxic masculinity’ mean? Well, according to wikipedia:

Academic usage
In the social sciences, toxic masculinity refers to traditional cultural masculine norms that can be harmful to men, women, and society overall; this concept of toxic masculinity does not condemn men or male attributes, but rather emphasizes the harmful effects of conformity to certain traditional masculine ideal behaviors such as dominance, self-reliance, and competition.[9][10] Toxic masculinity is thus defined by adherence to traditional male gender roles that consequently stigmatize and limit the emotions boys and men may comfortably express while elevating other emotions such as anger.[11] It is marked by economic, political, and social expectations that men seek and achieve dominance (the "alpha male").
In a gender studies context, Raewyn Connell refers to toxic practices that may arise out of what she terms hegemonic masculinity, rather than essential traits.[3] Connell argues that such practices, such as physical violence, may serve to reinforce men's dominance over women in Western societies. She stresses that such practices are a salient feature of hegemonic masculinity, although not always the defining features.[3][12]
Terry Kupers describes toxic masculinity as involving "the need to aggressively compete and dominate others"[13] and as "the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence".[14][15] According to Kupers, toxic masculinity includes aspects of "hegemonic masculinity" that are socially destructive, "such as misogyny, homophobia, greed, and violent domination". He contrasts these traits with more positive traits such as "pride in [one's] ability to win at sports, to maintain solidarity with a friend, to succeed at work, or to provide for [one's] family".[14] Feminist author John Stoltenberg has argued that all traditional notions of masculinity are toxic and reinforce the oppression of women.[16][17]

So, Sheppard and O’Neill would qualify as toxic male (alpha male), if - and only if - they’d show a behaviour á la “Real men don’t cry” - which Jack even disproved in ‘Show and Tell’. And Jack himself cried, like a lot, Sheppard did so, too, and they’re not belitteling their friends and are not trying to claim Sam/Teyla for themselves. They’re not trying to be the top-dog-alpha-male, to dominate or be violent for the sake of being violent.

It never started off woke. That "reproductive organs" line wasn't bad, but Teal'c's race was also never an issue except on the Third Reich Founder planet. I guarantee you nowadays Teal'c would somehow be involved in BLM despite the arson and looting last year. Do we want that? When his race was largely ignored in favor of his deeds and abilities? Carter would possibly be dialed up to 11 in terms of her feministing, hitting military commanders on base with #MeToo.

Do we want Teal’C makeing a stand against racism? Hmmm, let me think about it? Yepp, we want that. Would Carter do a “me too”? Probably not, since the crew of the SGC is not showing any problematic behaviour, that would need to be adressed.

Now granted, I know the military has its issues with abuse and experimentation and disregard for its shoulders, and a toxic atmosphere, but do we really need to see that?

In the SGC itself? No.
In the military? Well, does it need to be adressed? Then: HELL yes!

The Earth-centric episodes were the least convincing.

You found the stories on make-believe-planet more convincing, than the one on planet earth?

You know what? The original TOS was optimism for its age. That's what woke was in the '60s. Woke nowadays seems to be trying to depress you and beat you over the head how bleak life is.

Well, woke in the 60s meant to show young POC, that there could be a woman on the bridge, being treated as equally as it would be possible in a hierarchical military power structure.That was all well and good at the time and it encouraged a young Whoopie Goldberg to pursue a carreer in acting, leading to her being Guinan on the Enterprise-D, however now that’s basically nothing. She’s a background character with little to no personality and even Nichelle Nichols knew that. That was the reason, why she wanted to get out of the show, only the interference of Dr. Martin Luther King stopped her, since he saw the bigger picture and saw, that a POC on the bridge would be important.
Yes, it was. It was revolutionary. Back in the day.
Today? Not so much.
Today, the criticism of Nichelle Nichols still stands: Uhura is a background character, more or less the captains switchboard operator, whose only noteable personality-trait except “switchboard operating” is, that she can sing.
Wow! That’s ... I mean, that’s at least something! But besides that? What do we know about her? We never even knew her first name!

So - woke back in the sixties meant “bringing these people to our attention.”
Woke now means: “Show, that they’re people. Show that they have to fight for their place in this society.”
And if that’s depressing you, I’m sorry.

That's not what I want in SF or entertainment media.

Great, and I don’t want stories, that are not adressing the issues, that need to be adressed.

I don't want Wokegate when it's just more depression from smug SJWs who completely misunderstand the past and don't believe in a brighter future.

See, that’s where you’re wrong. The SJWs believe in and want a brighter future - which is why they’re telling these stories, e.g. Star Trek Picard with Sir Patrick Stewart wanting to comment on Brexit. They want that this shitshow, a.k.a. ‘toxic masculinity’, Trump, re-emergance of right-wing-ideas, climate change, you name it, is ending. They want a happy life with sunshine and rainbows - but they know, that this sunshine and rainbow future is endangered with the stupidity that is brexit, right-wing-idiots, Trump, so they comment on that via writing.

What happened to woke being bright and sunny and saying we were gonna be all right?

Well “woke” was never “bright and sunny, holding your hand and saying “everything’s gonna be alright” - that’s not ‘wokes’ topic. “Woke” is to show, that you’re conscious concerning left topcis. That’s why it’s called “woke” - probably from “to wake up”. And you can have optimstic and woke in the same story.

You can't balance woke to broad humor since that requires being able to laugh at yourself, and would many of you SJWs accept self-deprecating humor? Many I've known just did not like that. Like how Mr. Carlin used the word "fruit" and these days he'd be canceled for such "toxic" language and outright "homophobia."

Oh, you can.
You can laugh at yourself, you can use “self- deprecating humor” - after all, who knows your little quirks better than yourself - and you can put that in your woke story. The Marvel-movies are doing this very well, I think - same goes for Discovery or Picard. They CAN poke fun at their own expanses and they do that.

Going topical is hurting these IPs and ruining their rewatch value for short-term gains above. They won't stand the test of time for that reason. The most loyal fans who could have sustained it long-term have been brushed off as right wing or bigots, and have left. That's not smart business. But it is what we have these days.

At least ten years ago, the WDR - the Westdeutscher Rundfunk - one of our many TV- and radiostations aired on new years day three episodes of the old TV-Series “’till death do us part”, completely with german dubbing. And since Germany had it’s own version of that in the Seventies, called “Ein Herz und eine Seele” (one heart and one soul) and it was so successful, that our version of “Alf Garnett” - Alfred Tetzlaff - got the nickname “Ekel-Alfred” (disgusting Alfred) by our presses, the “Ein Herz und eine Seele” was constantly on re-run and so even I watched the complete series. Then I watched the original on said new years day and the only ‘important’ thing, that I noticed, was, that the voice actor, who dubbed Sisko, Tyr Anasazi, Kogoro Mori and Duncan McLeod also dubbed Alf Garnett.
But the topics, they talked about - strikes in England - were so far away from me, since it was a show from the fifties. In “Ein Herz und eine Seele”, it’s not that different, except some of the politicians names were known by me - Kohl, Strauß, Schmidt, Brandt.

So, I concur, that going topical can be difficult - however since Sci-Fi is basically a fable, told in space, as my girlfriends mother loves to say, I have no problem with SF getting topical.

[Rocketboy1313]

Garbage.

I agree.
Honestly, I am wondering at what point his bullshit gets so bigoted that he just gets kicked off of here.
Is there an intervention feature on these boards?

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Garbage.

I agree.
Honestly, I am wondering at what point his bullshit gets so bigoted that he just gets kicked off of here.
Is there an intervention feature on these boards?

And then he cries, because "the bad, bad, bad leftists did throw me of the SFDebris board". Buhuuuuu.