INTERVIEW: Martin Gero (Writer)

[Skydiver]

Yeah, i love rod, i really do. he's a great character....but the OTT screaming/whining/complaining....a little goes a long, long way. Let zelenka melt down every once in a while the czech is fun when he curses

I'd love to see someone else melt down/save the day. Just like i'd love to see someone else get the alien chick (imagine this, lorne getting a girlfriend????)

it was a very nice interview and gave some insight

[ShadowMaat]

Just because it's "their" show and they can do whatever they want doesn't mean that we have to glibly sit back and swallow it all. There is such a thing as constructive criticism. You know? That thing David mentioned in the interview that Martin dismissed as nothing more than chaff from people who don't like such-and such character?

Not all complaints about the show are hateful tirades against the lack of so-and-so or the overabundance of somebody else. Some people actually have some coherent and specific criticisms and a few of them have even offered suggestions on how the "faults" can be improved. But of course, that's nothing but entitlement and fans wrongly thinking they "own" the characters and can dictate how they should and shouldn't behave.

As Oragahn said, the world isn't quite as black and white as that. Sometimes suggestions are merely that- SUGGESTIONS, and not commands from on high telling TPTB what to do.

You can't please all of the fans all of the time and I don't recall anyone suggesting that TPTB should try. There does, however, seem to be a bit of confusion on the whole "complaints" front. Are there people who are complaining and demanding that the show be changed to suit them? Yeah, there are always a few in every crowd (and on every side of the fence). However, there are just as many- if not more- who are simply saying WHY they don't like something and what they'd prefer and they're getting crucified for "demanding" these changes when no demands have been made.

If someone complains about the rain and says they wish it was sunny, does that mean they're attacking God and implying that THEY could control things better than HE could? Or does it mean they're tired of rain and would prefer a little more sunshine? There is a middle ground, you know.

Martin is, IMO, a good writer and I'm glad to see that he's being open and honest about his opinions... but that doesn't mean I have to like what he says or agree with everything verbatim.

Yes, some of what he says in regards to fandom is true, but it isn't the WHOLE picture. In that regard, at least, he's a lot like some of the more fanatical fans here on Gateworld: If it's good, we'll listen to whatever you have to say, but if it's bad, no one cares.

[Madeleine]

That's easy from Gero to attack people's remarks about character devlopment and orientation as describing them as an exagerated manifestation of ownership.
We're too possessive. Yay. Right Martin. Right.

What did Martin say that was remotely in the vague vicinity of an attack on people's remarks about character development, or that even slightly resembled saying people were too posessive?

[Luz]

What did Martin say that was remotely in the vague vicinity of an attack on people's remarks about character development, or that even slightly resembled saying people were too posessive?

Sounded to me like he was saying that he only pays attention to fans if their comments are positive, but ignores them if they don't like something 'cause their only reason for not liking an episode is that their favorite character wasn't in it. But that's just me.

[ShadowMaat]

What did Martin say that was remotely in the vague vicinity of an attack on people's remarks about character development, or that even slightly resembled saying people were too posessive?

GW: How do you feel about fan response for your episodes, from what you've read?

MG: Well, if they like it I feel like it is positive. [Laughter] I don't know. What the fans think is very important, but I don't pay a lot of attention to it when they don't like an episode.

GW: Even if it's constructive

MG: [...]If you're a big McKay fan you're going to like my episodes -- you're going to like those episodes that I've written about McKay. And if you don't like McKay, then that episode, regardless of how good it is, is going to have to struggle quite a lot for you to like it. [...]I think more so than most shows, fans feel a great ownership over the characters of this series, and I think that's a wonderful thing. But it also gives them a bias towards episodes. So when a fan responds negatively to an episode that I've written, you always kind of have to meter it out where they're coming from.

I don't think he's attacking comments about character development- in fact, he agrees that it's needed- and I don't think he's saying people are too possessive, exactly, but I DO agree with the comments that it sounds as if he's saying, "I'll only listen to you if you say nice things about me" and I think he's dismissing the naysayers as people who simply don't like McKay and/or that their sense of "ownership" is the primary reason for this. There's no room in his expressed viewpoint for people who are fans of McKay but are tired of seeing him front-and-center all the time, or who love McKay but don't like the way he's being portrayed. Or fans who have no issue at all with the characters, but have problems in OTHER areas. He may understand that there's more to it than that, but in the interview, he left it at that.

[Skydiver]

they honestly do have to bear in mind that a person's opinion is based on their pesonal preferences.

take me for example. I don't care for any ship in atlantis. none at all. thus, if they wrote and episode that was skewed/all about liz and _____, well i would be less inclined to care for it than a fan of that pairing.

i do think, however, that ascribing motives to each and every bit of crit is a bit of a dangerous thing to do. It makes it way to easy to dismiss any and all that you don't care for wiht a 'oh, she's a fan of _____ so she was gonna hate this'

I think back to the early days of sg-1 when they had more balance in the show. yes, i know this is about atlantis, but the issue is the same. Take ITLOD or Cold Lazarus or Bloodlines or Torment of Tantalus...all of which were eps that focused on one character of the four. The trick is, while they may have focused on SAm getting snaked, we also got to see how her situation affected jack and daniel and teal'c...thus there was something in it for everyone.

there was a bit more balance so each episode had at least something that fans of the non-featured characters could enjoy.

they're not doing so good with that now and it shows. thus each eps is a bit more polarizing and less generally appealing, so it will generate more crit, constructive or otherwise. which isn't fun for the folks putting it out and makes it easier to ignore the crit.

[ShadowMaat]

Another thing about the earlier seasons of SG-1 is that in addition to balace WITHIN the ep (a Sam ep that also showed how her teammates were reacting) there was an over-all balance- a Sam ep here, a Jack ep there, A daniel ep, a Teal'c ep and whatever in addition to the general team eps, whereas on Atlantis it seems like it's either a Shep ep or a McKay ep and everyone else pretty much gets ignored except for a random ep here or there. And the content WITHIN the ep is heavily biased towards the spotlighted character. GUP is a perfect example of that. Yes, there was some arbitrary stuff with Rodney's teammates trying to find a way to save him, but there wasn't a lot to it and it seemed more like an excuse to fiddle with the shields than to show concern for an endangered teammate. HOWEVER, I thought that the scenes with Shep and Zelenka (the non expositiony bits) were fantastic and were my favorite parts of the ep. I could have cared less about the "McKay in a panic" stuff, but the Shep/Zelenka interaction made the ep be NOT a waste of time. And it isn't that I don't like McKay, I just think we know enough about him already (for the time being) and not enough about the others. GUP would have been the perfect Zelenka-centric ep, for example. Show it all from the Atlantis POV- they receive the distress call, they're talking with Rodney, the radio cuts out and...? The rest of the ep concentrates on them formulating wild plans and trying to rescue Rodney when they don't even know if he's still alive or not. Play up Zelenka's role in things. Is he smoothly confident? Is he worried about his friend? Has he considered the possibility of what will happen to HIM if McKay is dead?

What was Teyla doing during all of this? Was she even in the ep? You could have her doing "some Athosian thing", maybe some kind of prayer vigil and have Weir show up, wanting to show her support (and demonstrating a nice change from her attitude in 38 Minutes) but maybe being uncomfortable/unfamiliar with the ceremony. Or have it be Ronon, although that'd be more predictible.

There are a dozen different ways to show character interaction BEYOND the spotlight. Just because an ep is Mc_kay centric or Shep-heavy or whatever doesn't mean the other characters can't be just as much a part of things.

Gero has added to Coop's statements that S3 will have more character development. I sincerely hope that this is true... and that the characters being developed won't be the usual subjects. Sateda holds promise that they'll at least remember that Ronon exists. If we could get some development for Teyla (and something that doesn't involve fighting in skimpy outfits) and poor forgotten Carson, maybe things will look up. At least from my perspective.

[Mister Oragahn]

To make things simple, when I speak about attacks on fan's comments regarding character dev, it's just that. Gero dismissing the negative criticism as the mere fruit of over possessive fans. This and the underlying message being that it's stupid to whine about certain character-centric episodes when you simply don't like the characters. Of course it is stupid, but it's also stupid to think that each person that complains fits Martin's simplistic description.

[Linzi]

they honestly do have to bear in mind that a person's opinion is based on their pesonal preferences.

take me for example. I don't care for any ship in atlantis. none at all. thus, if they wrote and episode that was skewed/all about liz and _____, well i would be less inclined to care for it than a fan of that pairing.

i do think, however, that ascribing motives to each and every bit of crit is a bit of a dangerous thing to do. It makes it way to easy to dismiss any and all that you don't care for wiht a 'oh, she's a fan of _____ so she was gonna hate this'

I think back to the early days of sg-1 when they had more balance in the show. yes, i know this is about atlantis, but the issue is the same. Take ITLOD or Cold Lazarus or Bloodlines or Torment of Tantalus...all of which were eps that focused on one character of the four. The trick is, while they may have focused on SAm getting snaked, we also got to see how her situation affected jack and daniel and teal'c...thus there was something in it for everyone.

there was a bit more balance so each episode had at least something that fans of the non-featured characters could enjoy.

they're not doing so good with that now and it shows. thus each eps is a bit more polarizing and less generally appealing, so it will generate more crit, constructive or otherwise. which isn't fun for the folks putting it out and makes it easier to ignore the crit.

I totally agree with you. I'd watch early SG1 and never feel a character was left out, even if was a story centred around one character. There was always such a great 'team' feeling. That has not been present in Season 2 of Atlantis - we've lost that somewhat.
This is why GUP failed for me. It wouldn't matter which character that GUP centred around, though the fact that it was another McKay episode was a little unbalanced, IMO. The problem was, that it was just about one character with virtually no other regular characters being in it. Where was the rest of the team? I also thought the plot was incredibly weak and unblievable, and that has nothing to do with which character it focused on. Therefore, if Martin Gero thinks I didn't like GUP because McKay isn't my favourite character - he's wrong. I didn't like it because, quite simply, I was plain bored. It was unbelievable and too centred on one character - and I didn't even learn anything more about that character.
That is why I'm worried about McKay and Mrs Miller. Martin Gero is saying that's his favourite episode of Season 3, (that he's written), and at the time of the interview it hadn't even been filmed! How on Earth can you say that until you've seen the finished product? I'm worried about any episode which has the first act and a half with just one regular and a guest star. I don't care if it's a relative of McKay's, Sheppard's Father's Uncle, or Weir's Mother's second cousin twice removed. Season 3 will be a make or break season, IMO, and if the writers don't step up to the challenge, it will, sadly fail. Nobody would be more upset than me.

[ShadowMaat]

My fear is that we won't actually learn anything new in the upcoming McKay-heavy eps. We sure didn't in GUP. McKay panicking, McKay lusting after Carter, McKay sure that no one else is smart enough to save him, McKay having hysterics... Yawn. I'm sorry, I love the character, but we've been there, we've seen that and I really kinda hope there's more to the character than that. Hystrionic McKay might be good for a few laughs, but it doesn't teach us anything about who and what he is... unless it's an hysterical spoiled brat. If that's all there is to him, I'll be disappointed.

We've seen glimpses of depth here and there. He can take risks to save others, he can show genuine concern for someone OTHER than himself, he can even be NICE when he thinks no one's looking. I'd rather see more of these hints of humanity than watch him turned into more of a caricature, played for laughs.

I'd also like to know why it was decided to shelve the Wraith after only two seasons. Granted, I've NEVER liked the Wraith. I find them shallow and tedious and cliche and not at all threatening, but then, as far as I'm concerned, TPTB have given me no reason to think otherwise.

HOWEVER, as dissatisfied I am with the development (or lack thereof) of the Wraith, I'd pick them over the Replicators Asurans Every. Single. Time. Call 'em what you will, the Asurans are nothing but an "Atlantisified version of the Replicators and the Replicators belong on SG-1. NOT on Atlantis. NEVER on Atlantis. I would MUCH rather see the Wraith given some serious attention and some heavy development than get yet more cast-offs from the SG-1-verse.

Martin certainly seemed excited about the retread new baddies, but I'd still like to know WHY this... addition was deemed necessary? And why like this? I've been wanting to know about the creators of the Hot Zone virus, but this isn't the answer I was hoping for. And yeah, I know not everything can be catered to my exacting demands, but why go with something so familiar? Instead of being "like the Replicators" why not make them "like nothing previously encountered in the Stargate universe"?

Maybe you can try asking that in the next round of interviews, David.

[Madeleine]

To make things simple, when I speak about attacks on fan's comments regarding character dev, it's just that. Gero dismissing the negative criticism as the mere fruit of over possessive fans.

To make things simple, would you answer my question with an actual quote?

Are you talking about a totally different interview, or did you read something in this interview that I missed?

Where did he attack fans' comments regarding character development? And when did he say that any fans were overposessive? :

[ShadowMaat]

I think I quoted the relevant bits in one of my previous posts, Mads. I've gone back and underlined the specific sentence that I think Oragahn is referring to, but while I don't see it as an attack, I am intimately familiar with the fact that what one sees as an innocuous statement another sees as a blatant attack. *shrug*

Or is the point of your posts (and all the ) to get Oragahn to quote it himself?

[Madeleine]

... I DO agree with the comments that it sounds as if he's saying, "I'll only listen to you if you say nice things about me" and I think he's dismissing the naysayers as people who simply don't like McKay and/or that their sense of "ownership" is the primary reason for this.

You could see that in the interview, yes. But I think it's worth bearing in mind that he's trying to give concise and interesting answers to questions he's only just heard. He basically said that he doesn't pay much attention to negativity from fans. Well, why should he? That's Brad Wright's job, or whoever. I'd be pretty stunned and appalled if BW claimed not to listen to fan complaints - or perhaps I'd think he was joking? (I actually suspect Martin might be joking here, btw) - but Martin would not be the first actor or writer to ignore fans who complain and make suggestions or demands. Knowing that he can't please everyone, he's opted for pleasing Brad Wright, and being happy when fans get pleased too. Seems reasonable, and not an anti-fan thing.

And I don't think he was dismissing the fans who like McKay but not his McKay eps. I do feel sorry for these people, they do interviews for us which is nice of them, but every single bit of phrasing has to be just so or they get squished. One of the Big Four actors once mentioned what grreat pals two of his co-stars were. He got railed at, because mentioning those two but not the third colleague was a massive diss to that colleague . Another actor once said that fans wanted to see Sam kiss Jack. THAT was apparently a massive diss to the fans who didn't want to see kisses, and that actor is still pilloried for it in parts of the fandom . They try to give answers that are interesting and concise, so they leave out a lot of stuff that they would perhaps say if they had an hour to mull over an answer and a page to write it in.

It's not dismissing someone to not mention them. It's just conciseness. Or we'd get:

GW: What have fans got to look forward to in your upcoming scripts?
PTB: Well, episode three is a big treat for fans of Ford, except for those fans of Ford who end up not liking the episode. And we'll find out some shocking things about Carson in the mid-season two-parter, which I think will blow people's minds, except for the ones whose minds aren't blown because they don't like the way I write him.
Fans: What a pedant!
Other Fans: He doesn't sound very confident. The new season must be rubbish then.

[Deevil]

Your point, like his, is just too simplistic. It completely discards people who actually enjoyed McKay before the overkill exageration that plagued the character over season 2.
You know, the world isn't all black and white.

No it isn't, but Martin is intitled to express his opinion in this way is he not? He is allowed to point out that there are a variety of people out there predisposed not the like a character or storyline, so no matter how good an episode is that deals with it, you aren't going to like it. That is a fair enough assumption to make because it is also very true.

That's easy from Gero to attack people's remarks about character devlopment and orientation as describing them as an exagerated manifestation of ownership.
We're too possessive. Yay. Right Martin. Right.

People are possessive of characters, he isn;t making an incorrect call here. I don't see an attack, I see over-sensitivity by people who are detirmined to grip about TPTB over something, anything at times.

But it's also a gripe against that sort of rule they established after Wormhole X-Treme (a good episode) that each season should get more funny episodes, and each season should be more funny as a whole. And McKay is the character which all the humour flows through. The dam is about to collapse, but nevermind, let's get more humour. More. More. More.
What plugged me into Stargate was episodes like Singularity, Torment of Tantalus and Cold Lazarus. These good days seem definitively gone.

And many people feel very differently to this. But you want Martin to address your concerns, right? How does he do this without dislodging people that are happy with the way things are goin, or people that are satisfied?

What you like isn't what everyone likes, and I think Martin has the right idea, if he satisfies his bosses he has done the right thing. It's impossiible to satisify all the fans, considering some fans enjoy ripping into tptb over spoilers and interviews because they haven't said what they want to hear.

But he just said it. If you don't like my character-centric episodes, it's because you don't like the character at all, not because we may have made a mistake in overusing a given character and its usual attitude and gimmicks.
Ergo my point about moderation.

Once again, I think people are perhaps being overly sensitive to remarks made. He didn't say you didn't like the character at all, he said if you don't like McKay you aren't going like McKay based episodes.

What else is he meant to say "I have decided after reading fans remarks that people who like McKay now don't (which isn't wholely true) because we have used him to much. But those people who don't like McKay aren't going to like McKay based episodes..." Or do you want him to put a disclaimer on everything.

Honestly, people here are always asking for a right to voice their opinions, but the second TPTB start too they are horrible horrible people because they don't listen to everything a sub-section of the fanbase want them too.

Too much of McKay is simply... too much.
Hell, seems that only certain fans are actually able to see the change of character. For freaking sake, the first time my sister saw McKay in season 2, she just sharply said "ha, I guess he's the funny one". And she's a fan of series as well!

See here's the problem, this is in your opinion, not in fan-fact. Fact is people are still happy with McKay, fact is Martin realises there is a wide community out there is diametrically deferring opinions, fact is what you consider 'too much' someone considers 'not enough'.

I don't think the character has changed much, but hey doesn't mean you can't think otherwise, and it doesn't mean Martin doesn't have the right to say what he likes also.

[Madeleine]

I think I quoted the relevant bits in one of my previous posts, Mads. I've gone back and underlined the specific sentence that I think Oragahn is referring to, but while I don't see it as an attack, I am intimately familiar with the fact that what one sees as an innocuous statement another sees as a blatant attack. *shrug*

Or is the point of your posts (and all the ) to get Oragahn to quote it himself?

You quoted bits where Martin called fans posessive - and he called it a 'wonderful thing'. He never called them Overposessive, which is what MO accuses.

I can't see anything that's an attack on fans for comments about character development, either. I'm sometimes slow on the uptake, maybe I should use instead of ()

I do take your point that what he said there might be read with a I'm-a-PTB-and-I-know-best subtext. And that's what I've responded to in my above response to you: I accept that he's said something that can draw criticism but my personal feeling is that there's never once been an interview where everyone has liked it and no one has found anything offensive or unpalatable, and that often the things that some people get flak for are the exact opposites of the things that other people get an equal amount of flak for; so unless someone is clearly trying to offend or is beeing very boorish indeed I like to give benefit of doubt. And if others don't think that way, then for them to say so is legit

But I think while you're simply picking up subtext that I'm not (I can see it, but I'm deliberately choosing to not pick it up, for the reasons I've stated), I do see "Martin's attacking fans for their remarks about character development, Martin's calling fans overposessive" as going beyond criticising him for including unpleasant subtext. I see it as putting (unkind) words in his mouth. I see it as a slur, and one I can't in conscience let stand unchallenged. Unless it was a different interview somewhere, or I've misread something, in which case I'll drop it.