You'll never give up, never give up, never give up that ship

[sovay]

Last night I dreamed I discovered a previously unknown and probably nonexistent biography of Ralph Richardson. I also dreamed my front teeth fell out like popsicle sticks. One of these dreams was better than the other.

This afternoon derspatchel and I met sairaali and M. at the A.R.T. for The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville, starring Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac. It was lovely. It's more or less what it sounds like: a relationship after the end of the world, described and explored strictly through gesture, mime, and music. Songs utilized include a post-apocalyptic update of Eddie Lawrence's "Old Philosopher," the best cover I have ever heard of the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York," and a subversively straight reading of "Another National Anthem" from Assassins. I grew up on Patinkin's singing (and Spanish accent), but I had never seen him in person before; he plays the older, dourer, more damaged of the pair, a tattered hermit who may or may not have been born in a trunk, but is living ferally in one when Mac's impish baggy-pantser rows a junk-cluttered lifeboat up to his shore. Mac turns out to remind me sharply of Donald O'Connor circa Singin' in the Rain, at least with a bowler hat on, a sprightly knack for physical comedy, and a mercurial talent for extracting everything from a picnic supper to a fifth of gin from the remote regions of judy's trousers. I have discovered that I am no longer the target audience for strobe lights—I didn't get a migraine, but I watched the storm sequences with one hand over my eyes. Eighty minutes with no intermission. If you can snag the tickets, it's worth your time.

So I have this relationship with the film of Stargate (1994), where I know it's a total brain-optional chariots-of-the-gods B-picture with almost certainly a white savior problem and in the days when I lived in a house with a television, I watched it every time it came around, because there are very few movies where a dork with a knowledge of dead languages saves the day. (To this day, even after Crash (1996), Secretary (2002), and Age of Ultron (2015), I am always faintly surprised when James Spader is not playing a sweet-natured nerd. Also, Jaye Davidson as Ra is ridiculously beautiful, even if the bass reverb voice processing is kind of unnecessary.) I knew about the television sequel and its multiple spinoffs; I never paid any attention to them because I couldn't see the point. People who watch more genre television than I do: are any of them any good? This question brought to you by vague curiosity upon realizing I lived through an entire sci-fi franchise without interacting with it almost at all. I mean, I've only seen the pilot of Farscape, but I've seen it.

Comments

[kore]

SOMEONE ELSE WHO LOVES STARGATE it was so formative! Aww.

I couldn't stand the Stargate series but I was a Farscape fangirl and those shows were actively pitted against each other, to the point of SGA poaching John and Aeryn, so.

[tam_nonlinear]

I loved the Stargate TV series, or at least the first one and most of it. I'm sure that if I watched it again, I'd have problems and issues, and a lot of it really was popcorn and lazy weekend viewing, BUT- in its defense, it had a sense of humor, the female characters are consistently smart and tough, and there are several people who Science at things a lot. It might be something hard to pick up now, but give it a shot. If I recall, it originally aired on Showtime (maybe?) and so the first few episodes have some silly nudity, but that got dropped once they realized their core audience was younger than they thought. It's a bit cheesy, but fun.

It goes on for many, many seasons, but I think I gave up somewhere around six or seven, but the early seasons had some great stuff. The spin-off shows were- well, I know people who loved Atlantis, but I hated one of the main characters a lot, so it didn't take for me, and Universe was trying to be Dark and Serious in a franchise that was mostly adventure of the week format. But the original was fun, and there were some good episodes in there. Plus there's always the thrill of the fact that every cheesy SF show from the time seemed to use the same pool of actors, so there's an lot of "Hey, it's that person!" in watching it.

[starlady]

Honestly I would recommend only consuming the fanworks for SGA--it was one of the last if not the last great LJ fandom, and even the most ridiculous fanfic I've read in it tends to be pretty good, and usually way smarter than the show was, or let itself be.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

We watched all of the three series (Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: Universe) and rather loved them. As with most shows, it mostly comes down to the characters. Watching Michael Shanks do a James Spader impression through the first season is a hoot. Richard Dean Anderson is somehow always likable and the relationship between his character and Carter develops rather beautifully. There are better and worse episodes and the developing mythology of the show gets a little dense at times. And in the last two seasons it gets taken over by the cast of Farscape and that's a little odd. Stargate: Universe is more of the same, with a better alien menace and higher effects budget. Stargate: Universe was basically an attempt to create a Stargate/BSG hybrid that didn't really work, but it has Robert Carlyle and that's worth the price of admission. It also happens to have my favorite special effect sequence of all time.

So, I would say that it's worth watching a few episodes of SG-1 and seeing if it catches your fancy. I would not say that it's a must watch.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

even if the bass reverb voice processing is kind of unnecessary.

Oh man. I thought I wanted my superpower--well, my summer superpower, anyway-- to be immunity to poisonous plants and insect bites, but now I know that what I want it to be is bass reverb on my voice when I need it.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

I watched all of the Stargate shows too, with varying levels of pleasure, familiarity, and irritation. I could talk about them a lot. (A lot more than you want to hear.)

(Some of the best fanfic out there is Stargate fic.)

The SG1 show is notable for taking the Stargate movie and distilling out a show bible which was coherent, logical, rich enough to support several years of television(*), and *almost completely consistent with the movie*. Remember how the movie basically made no sense at all? This was a *major* achievement.

(* Not as many years as they dragged out of it. SGU was a flawed show, but it has the great advantage of having been cancelled its in prime.)

Anyhow. As was common in those days, the first season of SG1 was clunky and sometimes awful. (But we kept watching.) It got better, it got weirder. (Not as weird as Farscape, but hey.) The actors developed some really excellent chemistry. Michael Shanks left, sort of, and then came back. The energy flagged. Ben Browder and Claudia Black showed up. It was a show.

Atlantis tried to do what (Star Trek) Voyager had failed to do. It got it kind of right. The actors developed some really excellent chemistry. The energy flagged. Jewel Staite showed up. It was a show.

SGU, yeah, it tried to do what BSG had succeeded at doing. I think SGU was pretty successful, actually. It got cancelled on a cliffhanger. It was about half of a show.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

SG-1 is basically 2 different shows, the one with Richard Dean Anderson, and the one after he left. (That's the one with the aforementioned Browder and Black.)

Stargate Atlantis was also somewhat churned up by casting issues, at times.

There is absolutely nothing like Jaye Davidson in the shows. Alas. (There is nothing like Jaye Davidson, period.)

However, "...a dork with a knowledge of dead languages saves the day" is in fact a large part of SG-1's particular charm, as Dr. Daniel Jackson, re-cast but still a passionate nerd, is highly relevant to the show.

I like SG:A, too, but it scratches different itches.

[kraada.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen all of it, but I've seen the lion's share of SG-1, and a good chunk of it is quite worth watching. Richard Dean Anderson is fantastic, and his interaction with Christopher Judge is often hilarious. Amanda Tapping does so many good things for the show I don't even know how to write it up. And as a bonus, with Don Davis as General Hammond you could argue it's set in the same world as Twin Peaks (and that's my head cannon for now).

The show isn't perfect - it suffers from power creep as the series grew, and the final season was more than a bit strange (and not in the Fringe sort of way). But there are some fantastic episodes and it does comedy very very well.

Ask yourself this: if you had a wormhole at your command that you could open to any of a million places in the universe . . . wouldn't you want to play golf through it too?

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Jaye Davidson as Ra is ridiculously beautiful, even if the bass reverb voice processing is kind of unnecessary.

Ra was one if the things that intrigued me about the movie -- why all the child courtiers? Were they hostages? Spare bodies?

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

You probably don't have a VCR. If you do, I can give you a copy of the movie, I think (I'm not going to rummage through the boxes if it isn't relevant). I saw it big screen several times in its first summer. It led me to do some research about hieroglyphs. I pointed out to a friend at the time that one reason it got such a mixed audience was that it was one of the few romance movies of the summer, while still having things that blew up.
I watched most seasons of all the TV shows.
I watched parts of Farscape. There must be more actors in Vancouver than one would imagine by noticing the overlap of actors.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

If we lived closer, I could lend you the entirety of SG-1, which apparently I liked enough to buy a DVD boxed set, tho' I have continued my tradition of never quite watching a series through to the end. (Still haven't seen the last episode of B5; it took me forever to watch the end of Buffy. Etc.)

I'm very fond of the first half of the movie, too. Apparently I love set-up, especially with geeks; I'm equally fond of the first half of Contact</>, eg. Once they get down to action/plot or woo-woo/mysticism, I care less.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Eighty minutes with no intermission. If you can snag the tickets, it's worth your time.

That sounds terrific. I wonder if I can make it to Boston before it goes away? Perhaps I can lure it down to New York.

Also, mmm, Donald O'Conor in Singing in the Rain. I still maintain that it's a crime that he and Danny Kaye never made a film together. For preference, a buddy film with a one upmanship vibe. Alas for the studio system.