The Herald: It’s Sky, but not as we know it
From The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland):
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/26157.html
FEATURES
It’s Sky, but not as we know it
IAN BELL October 18 2004
Unless you discount triple-bills of The Simpsons – and only the dead in mind and spirit can truly discount The Simpsons – it is all but impossible to watch three programmes in succession on Sky One. Just when you have enjoyed your bit of hokum or your droll cartoon, they hit you with something offensively gross, grossly offensive or so insistently dumb it feels like a sneaky reverse IQ test. Tuesday night, in that regard, was something of a landmark.
I won't say that it was classic television, but the last time I spent an evening in the line of duty with Sky One I felt as though I was ingesting road-kill. I confess, equally, that I have a weakness for silly sci-fi, and for just about any attempt to revive the western. I have already made my recantation where Deadwood is concerned, it improves by the week, and this week they killed Wild Bill, but the better news was a double dose of Stargate.
If you are not familiar with the franchise, bear with me. If, for that matter, you suspect science fiction to be allegory reduced to its lowest possible common denominator, don't fret: you're right. Stargate has become as tangled as Tolkien, as self-referential as an official explanation of the war on Iraq, and as cheerfully paranoid as one of those alien-abduction "documentaries" you find on the Discovery Channel. Let's not pretend: it's nonsense.
It is, nevertheless, an interesting example of how the American film and TV production line operates. First, there was Stargate the movie, a clever-enough (but no more) fantasy that took as its premise the idea that Anubis, Ra, and all those other less-than-pleasant ancient Egyptian gods were, in fact, your actual invading aliens. Then came television's Stargate SG-1 (Sky One, Tuesday) , in which Richard Dean Anderson, veteran of long-running American shows, became Colonel Jack O'Neill, the sceptical intelligence behind a US government attempt to exploit ancient wormhole-in-space technology, seek out strange new worlds, encounter bizarre aliens and, should every other choice be avoided, blast them with heavy-calibre weapons.
(If the uninitiated are still with me at this point, congratulations. It doesn't get easier. In fact, as The X-Files, Babylon 5, Star Trek Voyager, and all the other successful SF shows insist, the only way to sustain the "story arc" in a long-running series of this nature is to make the thing ever-more fiendishly complicated. The Stargate universe is now so tangled up in loose ends you begin to understand what is meant by string-theory. Apologies).
At first, SG-1 took up where the movie left off. The aliens with ancient Egyptian names – actually nasty worm-things occupying human "hosts"– were the enemy, the "System Lords". Then there were enemies within the enemy. Then other products of the make-up department began to turn up: renegade host-bearers, ethereal higher beings, the Asgard, the Replicators, and, finally, at first as no more than a hint, "the Ancients".
Suffice it to say that SG-1 is now more complicated than a tax return. The only persistent thread, indeed, is the second interesting fact about the franchise: everyone wants to destroy America. They call it "the world", of course, but in this show you don't ever see the question of imminent global destruction being discussed in a Marseilles bistro. The ones who are out there, the creatures who may or may not be the French in latex masks, want to destroy "us".
Naturally, only the SG-1 team, all four of them, stand between us and this week's beastie du jour.
Last week, the series returned. This week, the spin-off got a spin-off, Stargate Atlantis (Sky One, Tuesday). Even for a hardened, possibly brain-addled, fan it was a little daunting to watch the new series of the first series, followed by the new series of, so to speak, the new series, in quick succession. Which galaxy were we in? What day was it? Why didn't I just find a good book?
SG-1, the original, was up to its armpits in aliens on the night, not to mention improved versions of the old aliens. Once, the Replicators were little all-devouring crab-like things made out of Lego who just wanted to eat the universe.
Now, perhaps because Lego has a limited visual appeal, the crab-likes had come up with "human-form Replicators", the leader of whom – this is too complicated for words — had imprisoned Samantha Carter, SG-1's scientific brain, in a computer fantasy. But only because he loved her.
Meanwhile, the Asgard, your classic benign, bald, tiny and grey aliens, had rescued O'Neill from far beneath the Arctic ice. Jack, you see, possesses the knowledge of the Ancients, much against his will. Down-home Jack got the knowledge by "getting my head sucked by one of those danged ancient head suckers". For this, Jack will become, by the episode's end, a brigadier-general in charge of SG-1, replacing the last commander who has become "head of Homeworld Security".
Lost? I certainly was, and I have watched more Stargate than current health guidelines recommend. What interests me, beyond the ever-evolving fairy tale, is the fact that SF is so very rarely benign. ET and 2001: a Space Odyssey were rare exceptions. Time and again, at least on film and TV, the genre is consumed with the idea of threat, of menace, of doom. It turns on the notion that everything emanating from beyond our experience just wants to burst from our intestines bite our heads off. That or, possibly, invite us forcibly to leave its Middle Eastern country.
Stargate Atlantis spun itself off into Star Trek country. It began with an expedition to a galaxy far more distant than usual, but rather than confine itself to four all-American heroes, it encompassed a coalition of the willing so broad it included "more than 12" countries – "earth's best and brightest" — and a Glaswegian, of sorts. The circus then set off through the stargate, a kind of cosmic splashpool, to the "lost city". For no readily-obvious explanation this was, of course, Atlantis.
By the end of episode one, they had run into the Wraiths. Terrible folk, the Wraiths, and not the least bit like us. Given to preying on the humble peasant villagers they were, villagers who, in a galaxy far, far away, just happened to speak perfect American English. The Wraiths are liable to be around, if I'm any judge, for at least a series. Then another evil and disgusting foe lacking any of our values might just turn up.
It is easy enough to understand that stratagems are required to keep these TV franchises alive. A lot of serious money rides on them. Their appeal has to be broad and some addicts are actually attracted to their mad complexity. (I don't think I even mentioned Baal. He's a bad one; your worst nightmare. You can always tell by the black cloak). The manner in which SF becomes a distorting fairground mirror to America's political paranoia remains fascinating, nevertheless.
It is less an honest and absolute fear of the unknown than a division of the entire cartoon universe into those who are for "us" and those who are against. It could almost make you side with the Replicators or the Wraiths. You won't stop me watching it on that account, though.
Copyright © 2004 Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited.
|*|(*)|*|(*)|*|
Morjana
SG1-Spoilergate
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SG1-Spoilergate/
Richard Dean Anderson Fans
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/rdandersonfans/
Proof-Positive
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/Proof-Positive
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/26157.html
FEATURES
It’s Sky, but not as we know it
IAN BELL October 18 2004
Unless you discount triple-bills of The Simpsons – and only the dead in mind and spirit can truly discount The Simpsons – it is all but impossible to watch three programmes in succession on Sky One. Just when you have enjoyed your bit of hokum or your droll cartoon, they hit you with something offensively gross, grossly offensive or so insistently dumb it feels like a sneaky reverse IQ test. Tuesday night, in that regard, was something of a landmark.
I won't say that it was classic television, but the last time I spent an evening in the line of duty with Sky One I felt as though I was ingesting road-kill. I confess, equally, that I have a weakness for silly sci-fi, and for just about any attempt to revive the western. I have already made my recantation where Deadwood is concerned, it improves by the week, and this week they killed Wild Bill, but the better news was a double dose of Stargate.
If you are not familiar with the franchise, bear with me. If, for that matter, you suspect science fiction to be allegory reduced to its lowest possible common denominator, don't fret: you're right. Stargate has become as tangled as Tolkien, as self-referential as an official explanation of the war on Iraq, and as cheerfully paranoid as one of those alien-abduction "documentaries" you find on the Discovery Channel. Let's not pretend: it's nonsense.
It is, nevertheless, an interesting example of how the American film and TV production line operates. First, there was Stargate the movie, a clever-enough (but no more) fantasy that took as its premise the idea that Anubis, Ra, and all those other less-than-pleasant ancient Egyptian gods were, in fact, your actual invading aliens. Then came television's Stargate SG-1 (Sky One, Tuesday) , in which Richard Dean Anderson, veteran of long-running American shows, became Colonel Jack O'Neill, the sceptical intelligence behind a US government attempt to exploit ancient wormhole-in-space technology, seek out strange new worlds, encounter bizarre aliens and, should every other choice be avoided, blast them with heavy-calibre weapons.
(If the uninitiated are still with me at this point, congratulations. It doesn't get easier. In fact, as The X-Files, Babylon 5, Star Trek Voyager, and all the other successful SF shows insist, the only way to sustain the "story arc" in a long-running series of this nature is to make the thing ever-more fiendishly complicated. The Stargate universe is now so tangled up in loose ends you begin to understand what is meant by string-theory. Apologies).
At first, SG-1 took up where the movie left off. The aliens with ancient Egyptian names – actually nasty worm-things occupying human "hosts"– were the enemy, the "System Lords". Then there were enemies within the enemy. Then other products of the make-up department began to turn up: renegade host-bearers, ethereal higher beings, the Asgard, the Replicators, and, finally, at first as no more than a hint, "the Ancients".
Suffice it to say that SG-1 is now more complicated than a tax return. The only persistent thread, indeed, is the second interesting fact about the franchise: everyone wants to destroy America. They call it "the world", of course, but in this show you don't ever see the question of imminent global destruction being discussed in a Marseilles bistro. The ones who are out there, the creatures who may or may not be the French in latex masks, want to destroy "us".
Naturally, only the SG-1 team, all four of them, stand between us and this week's beastie du jour.
Last week, the series returned. This week, the spin-off got a spin-off, Stargate Atlantis (Sky One, Tuesday). Even for a hardened, possibly brain-addled, fan it was a little daunting to watch the new series of the first series, followed by the new series of, so to speak, the new series, in quick succession. Which galaxy were we in? What day was it? Why didn't I just find a good book?
SG-1, the original, was up to its armpits in aliens on the night, not to mention improved versions of the old aliens. Once, the Replicators were little all-devouring crab-like things made out of Lego who just wanted to eat the universe.
Now, perhaps because Lego has a limited visual appeal, the crab-likes had come up with "human-form Replicators", the leader of whom – this is too complicated for words — had imprisoned Samantha Carter, SG-1's scientific brain, in a computer fantasy. But only because he loved her.
Meanwhile, the Asgard, your classic benign, bald, tiny and grey aliens, had rescued O'Neill from far beneath the Arctic ice. Jack, you see, possesses the knowledge of the Ancients, much against his will. Down-home Jack got the knowledge by "getting my head sucked by one of those danged ancient head suckers". For this, Jack will become, by the episode's end, a brigadier-general in charge of SG-1, replacing the last commander who has become "head of Homeworld Security".
Lost? I certainly was, and I have watched more Stargate than current health guidelines recommend. What interests me, beyond the ever-evolving fairy tale, is the fact that SF is so very rarely benign. ET and 2001: a Space Odyssey were rare exceptions. Time and again, at least on film and TV, the genre is consumed with the idea of threat, of menace, of doom. It turns on the notion that everything emanating from beyond our experience just wants to burst from our intestines bite our heads off. That or, possibly, invite us forcibly to leave its Middle Eastern country.
Stargate Atlantis spun itself off into Star Trek country. It began with an expedition to a galaxy far more distant than usual, but rather than confine itself to four all-American heroes, it encompassed a coalition of the willing so broad it included "more than 12" countries – "earth's best and brightest" — and a Glaswegian, of sorts. The circus then set off through the stargate, a kind of cosmic splashpool, to the "lost city". For no readily-obvious explanation this was, of course, Atlantis.
By the end of episode one, they had run into the Wraiths. Terrible folk, the Wraiths, and not the least bit like us. Given to preying on the humble peasant villagers they were, villagers who, in a galaxy far, far away, just happened to speak perfect American English. The Wraiths are liable to be around, if I'm any judge, for at least a series. Then another evil and disgusting foe lacking any of our values might just turn up.
It is easy enough to understand that stratagems are required to keep these TV franchises alive. A lot of serious money rides on them. Their appeal has to be broad and some addicts are actually attracted to their mad complexity. (I don't think I even mentioned Baal. He's a bad one; your worst nightmare. You can always tell by the black cloak). The manner in which SF becomes a distorting fairground mirror to America's political paranoia remains fascinating, nevertheless.
It is less an honest and absolute fear of the unknown than a division of the entire cartoon universe into those who are for "us" and those who are against. It could almost make you side with the Replicators or the Wraiths. You won't stop me watching it on that account, though.
Copyright © 2004 Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited.
|*|(*)|*|(*)|*|
Morjana
SG1-Spoilergate
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SG1-Spoilergate/
Richard Dean Anderson Fans
http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/rdandersonfans/
Proof-Positive
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/Proof-Positive
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