TV executives and why I wonder if being an ass qualifies you to be one.

[gelbes_gilatier]

So Brad Wright chose to address the fans about their concerns and criticism about SGU... very noble and courageous indeed, since the concerns and criticism were manifold.

However... to me the whole article just served to heighten concern and did nothing to get me off my major points of criticism. Seriously, I tried to like SGU since after all it's still Stargate (although I'm starting to doubt that after 'Justice' because... leaving a man behind? And willfully at that? That's so not Stargate and it actually made me choke with anger over both Young and the writers that made him do that) but it never became easier.

I do have a few characters I really like and would like to see more often (James because she just kicks ass, Greer because he seems surprisingly complex and also kicks ass, TJ because she's got potential and for a major character is way too underused and - surprisingly - Rush... maybe because he's one of the few people who actually dare to put Eli in his place) but there are some I really couldn't care less about (Eli because he just pisses me off and makes nerds look bad and just gets on my nerves, Scott because he's a pathetic excuse for an Air Force officer with his hypocrite tendencies and his general blerghness, Chloe because she's the damsel in distress far too often and 90% of the time practically useless) and sadly those are the ones that seem to get the most screentime.

I also have a general problem with the way female characters are written and treated in SGU. What really irritated me was that most of all in the first couple of episodes, all the important decisions were made by men, all the problems were solved by men and the men also had - at least for me - more screentime. Also, most of the female characters were shown as either useless (Chloe), insecure about their capabilities (TJ) or scheming bitches (Wray). The only one that was shown as capable and confident (thought not flawless... I mean, she was in that storage closet with Scott), James, lost a lot of that when they chose to make her Eli's spying target and filmed her from that crappy, crappy, crappy angle that showed off two rather... physical 'assets' and from that day on she was just 'that Lieutenant with the boops' in fandom (at least in German fandom...). Also, is it just me or did they gradually scale down her screentime and pushed her to the background more and more? I really got a little pissed about that since I think her character is way more interesting than Chloe, for example.

Yes, the show had a few good moments; for example the scenes "The Worst Day Since Yesterday" showing daily life about the Destiny (because, you know, I'm just a sucker for daily life scenes), the scenes with Wray and her girlfriend Sharon (since they really managed to portray the two as having a stable, warm and mature relationship and managed just for once to keep out all clichés) and a few scenes with Rush and TJ (because Carlyle and Huffmann have a knack for giving them great chemistry)... oh and the little stand-off between TJ and Greer (because for the first time TJ got to show that she's not only a medic but an officer... to be honest, for me she appeared to be three times the officer that Scott is in that scene :S) but unfortunately, it had much more bad moments (almost every scene with Eli, the church scene with Scott, the scene with Scott at Annie's house, the whole thing on the ice-planet - seriously, if that was Scott at his best how is "Pain" going to be which is supposed to show him at his worst??? - the whole Young/Emily/Telford thing, Young leaving Rush behind...) and that's why I will keep on being wary and critical of SGU.

Now, regarding Brad Wright's address... that was just a load of pointless bullshit. He basically said nothing in the article and I find that pathetic. But the parts I found most annoying were the following ones:

Wright said that he doesn’t agree with many objections that have been leveled at the show, including the complaints of too much sex and the comparison to Battlestar Galactica. “Eli is not remotely Battlestar Galactica,” he said. “The guy does not fit in that world at all. And kinos and communication stones — these are all things that are unique to our show. The Stargate itself [is different]."

That paragraph is just... it made me go "WTF???" and led me to suspect that Wright ether hasn't seen an episode of BSG in his whole life or didn't take at least a moment to get what the criticism was actually about. The whole look and feel they try to go for, the drama, the announcement and foreshadowing of civilians going up against the military members of the crew and of course the hand-camera not to forget... does Wright really think fans are stupid enough not to notice those overwhelming similarities? And does he really think fans are stupid enough to buy that sorry excuse of an explanation why SGU is not like BSG? It's just so... I really hate it when TPTB think they can play stupid with the fans. We're intelligent individuals who don't want to be fed stupid crap, dammit!

Second thing was what he had to say about criticism concerning the female characters:

“I think it was probably a fair criticism at the very beginning that our female characters weren’t as present,” Wright said. “And again, I would argue that it’s a function of a) not being able to service every character as much as we could, and b) there was so much in the first two hours, especially about Chloe and her father and her coming after Rush.”

What the...? Does anyone get what he's saying here and how that's supposed to say anything about the very valid point several fans and critics made about the writing and treatment of female characters on the show? All he said was "Yeah, well, they were right." and "We don't intend to do anything about it, though, so just suck it up, will you?", right? That's just... GRRR! I mean, as a long-time fan I'm kind of used to fanfiction authors being ten times better at handling female characters and giving them their appropriate moments to shine but still... those guys are getting paid for writing Stargate... why haven't they still learned the importance of writing female characters they way they deserve to be written? Jesusfuckingchrist, I'm really starting to get fed up with that old boys club and hope that hiring a female writer/producer will make a difference in the near future.

Last thing that majorly pissed me off was the following statement concerning Wright's less than stellar decision to comment and rave against Chicago Tribune author Maureen Ryan is response to her well-founded and correct criticism of SGU:

“I thought she was basing her opinion on unfinished, out of order material and was behaving more like a disgruntled fan with an axe to grind than like a critic,” he said of the encounter — which prompted even more direct and detailed criticism of SGU from Ryan.  “But I should’ve kept my mouth shut. … You never go up against a critic.”

He's right in his assumption that he just should have kept his mouth shut... but "You never go up against a critic."? There's a land called Passive-Aggressiva and he's their supreme ruler or what? Seriously, he makes it still sound like Ryan had no point in her criticism and was just misusing the Chicago Tribune as a platform to settle an account with the guys that cancelled Stargate Atlantis for no apparent reason other than they clearly lost interest in it (a look at Season 5, most of all the second half, confirms that assumption pretty clearly) when in fact she was right and very much spot-on with her criticism. Someone's got a problem with being criticized, methinks (and no, it's not Ryan).

This is all just so... pathetic, most of all considering for how long that guy has been in the business and how dependent TV executives are from the fans' good will. It's what's really pissing me off: people like Wright and my personal nemesis favorite Mallozzi thinking it's okay to ignore and in Mallozzi's case even ridicule the fans' concerns and criticism and telling them "If you don't like it, don't watch it, morons." See if we don't just do that one day... and then see how fast you find yourself out of business.

I'm not saying they should cater to every fannish whim... but I am saying that they should damn well listen to what the fans tell them and react to massive criticism not by being prima donnas but by being mature and actually thinking about changing their approach. If they don't want to or aren't capable to do that anyway, they should either stop being TV executives or stop communicating with their fans altogether (i.e. stop blogging, appearing on podcasts, in newspaper interviews etc.). Because as long as they do communicate with fans, they have the responsiblity to listen to them.

And to wrap this up, the reason why I always get to riled up about that kind of stuff: Those people get paid to create and play around in the Stargate universum. In a way, that's our money - either via cable fees we pay or via the products from the commercials in between that we buy and so on - and it's our goddamn right to expect them to be good at what they do... so they better be!

 

Comments

[ladyhalbourne]

Oh, I can recall the nerdy character on BSG - he was most of time absent, and I think he died when the Cylons attacked Caprica. It's the dark&edgy trend I really hate - I was watching one of the new fairytale films of ZDF this morning, and it was also dark & edgy. Characters, great, you could have established characters with action, Mr Wright. Oh, and by the way - even Caprica, which had almost no action in the first part but character conflicts, did it WAY better. I'm gonna miss this.

I'll give SGU a chance in the second part because I need something to watch. But I think I won't waste too many thoughts on it anymore. Oh and Rush. I hope they keep him interesting.
And I agree with you, "Justice" was so un-Stargate. Where's Woolsey calculating the deficit out of Young's foolish decision? ;)

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

Where's Woolsey calculating the deficit out of Young's foolish decision? ;)

Hopefully working on getting Atlantis back to the Pegasus galaxy or even back in Pegasus already and going head to head with Sheppard over some issue or the other :D

[ladyhalbourne]

Yes, of course! ;) At least they work on Atlantis and not ... well talk about working on something.

[tabaqui]

Blah. I hate when valid criticisms are made and people like Write basically say 'did not!' and 'oh, that's just you guys being whiney' and 'oh, you *fans* don't know enough to really *know*....

Fuck that. I adore Robert Carlyle so much i'm going to keep watching but seriously - if i have to choke down more Chloe-is-awesome-for-no-fucking-reason episodes and more Scott-is-the-bestest-officer-EVER!! episodes, i'll choke.

And omg, the crap with Young and Teleford and Young's ex? So freakin' boring and unprofessional and *useless* to the story. Sheesh.

I actually rather like Eli, if only because he doesn't panic like a nitwit and because he wasn't automatically and 100 percent on the 'Young is innocent' bandwagon. And i think he'll give Young more shit about Rush being gone. I *hope* he does.

[asugar.livejournal.com]

Well said. The only correction/criticism I'd offer is the group you are criticizing are television producers, not executives. A very different job description, set of powers and set of problems.

The TV executives are the people at ScyFy (God, I feel my IQ dropping several points just writing that ridiculous name!) who choose what programming to buy and schedule. They offer notes to the television producers (Wright et al) as to what they don't like in an episode or series direction but ultimately the producers make the decision with the risk that they will be canceled for going in an unpopular/uncommercial direction.

BTW, never heard what you thought of the recs I gave you several weeks ago or the big list last week. Any of them strike your fancy? Would love to chat fic and our thoughts on them any time.

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for the hint about semantics. I always appreciate them :)

About your recs: of course I saw them and I was totally blown away by them. Originally I'd opened a first batch in tabs on my dad's computer (I think I even managed to read Lullaby and you were right; it is rather cute to see Lorne and Cadman fawn over a baby :D) and wanted to go back to reading a few more... when I saw that dad must have restarted the computer this morning (usually, it's running 24/7... that's what you get when dad is in the software industry) and closed my Firefox windows (since it's not the first time that happened, you might think I learned something from it). So... yeah, no try today *sighs

Oh, also I did read a few of them before you recced them. Tell-tale Twitch and Astronauts, and Other Dreams come to mind (actually, Astronauts is the one that got me into Lorne/Cadman because it pictures them so great as friends with a teeny-tiny hint of UST, if you squint hard enough). Oh, and Wear Clean Underwear (which, yes, is VERY hot and I loved it!). Also, I remember reading at least one of Kellifer_fic's Lorne/Novak stories and found it really, really cute (although that's a pairing I would have never thought of... God, I love Stargate :D).

I really love it that you went out of your way with recs (and am very sorry for not reacting yet... I thought I'd do a little reading and react then but... see above, regarding "Oh noes, he shut the computer down, the world will end tomorrow!"...) and I don't even know which one to read first because I know that coming from you they're all good ;) I also love to stalk your delicious-account *blushes because I know that every time you add bookmarks I know there's something that will interest me (and your tagging system rocks), even with the non-fictional bookmarks.

Oh, also since I'd like to give something back... I'm still working on 10_ocs (even though the community was shut down... why? WHY???) and have written or planned each SG-10 piece and already did one for Lorne and his PAS team (the one on Lieutenant Simmons because mackenziesmomma was haunted by a bunny she wanted me to write and made a few very pointed observations about his personal life that needed a little attention). Sooo... if there's anything you'd like to see me write about Meyers or McPherson (or both of them), just tell me (personally, I find McPherson most interesting of all... but that's probably because I know way more of his backstory than my readers) and I'll see what I can do about it :)

[asugar.livejournal.com]

Insanely late in replying but THANK YOU! That means so much as I put way too much time and effort into recs. Since I can't write fic, it's seems like the least I can do to thank and pay the authors back. I wish there was some kind of rec discussion forum or something. I have barely been able to discuss and get feedback on recs and what people thought despite all my recs in so many places during my time in fandom. It just doesn't seem to happen, oddly enough. Even on stargateficrec with its massive readership, I can count on one hand, the amount of replies I got in which people commented back after reading the story and then very few of those gave even a brief reaction.

There is real vacancy/gap of that out there it seems. At least based on what I've found with all my reading and searching during my three years in fandom (as of April!). There was a comm (that went inactive before I entered fandom) in which people read a preagreed SGA fic and then discussed like a book club. That's not what I'm looking for per se (although I'd enjoy that) and they seem to have only read McShep. However, a fic bookclub could be fun.

Anyway, thank you!

Also, what you shared about McPherson and Meyers makes me very, very happy as they are two of my favorite OCs period.

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

However, a fic bookclub could be fun.

I absolutely agree! I really think that could be fun and it would be good both for people who rather read than write and people who write. I do have to say I'm rather curious as to what people think of my stories, if they like the same paragraphs I do, what they read into certain actions/thoughts/etc.

Over the years I came to realize that often enough reader and author opinions about favorite paragraphs or characters or plot line differ a lot (for example, when I created Meyers I never thought he'd be such a favorite with my readers, both in English and in the German versions) and I'd like to explore that more. A fic book club does sound like a nice idea... mh...