The Writers of SGA

I've been thinking of writing this up for a while; right now, I'm avoiding cleaning and packing naye mentioned wanting to see it, so I thought it was a good time! Just for her of course <3

In the last year gnine and I have gotten into watching for and discussing the writers of various shows. SGA's are especially fun to observe because there's a pretty small stable, and they're all very distinctive in their characterizations and quirks, strengths and weaknesses, as much as any fanfic authors. (I haven't really looked at this enough to know if it's true of most shows, though SG-1 is the first place I started to notice the writers - it had strikingly different characterizations from ep to ep; "screenwriter schizophrenia," when characters change personality between episodes. I did notice certain writers in SPN and SV, not closely enough to pick up on all their styles, but enough that I can usually call a Kripke SPN ep by the clunkiness of the dialogue, and Caroline Dries on Smallville is almost singlehandedly responsible for the Lex-nalysis.)

But with SGA we've been paying attention. I get a kick out of analyzing styles with gnine, and I can to an extent predict how I'm going to enjoy an ep based on the writer. So here's our observations on the main screenwriter stable - who's responsible for what eps, and what I see as their strengths and weaknesses. (Writers from Wikipedia and double-checked on IMDB, so if you notice an error let me know; I especially might've missed some of the co-writing credits (the scary part is? I could do most of them from memory, only was mistaken about half a dozen eps). Everything else is subjective opinion, so feel free to disagree. I love SGA even as I acknowledge it's not the greatest thing on TV; I find it terrific fun for all its flaws, and tend to be more complimentary than not. I especially love eps with a team focus and a McShep focus; also, Rodney McKay is one of my favorite chars of all time, so I am liable to be tuning in for Stargate: McKay & Friends more often than not.)

Spoilers up through 5x04; however, there are no spoilers for any unaired eps (and I'd prefer my comments to remain spoiler-free; don't even mention upcoming episode titles without spoiler tags, please.)

( Robert C. Cooper  )

( Brad Wright )

( Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie )

( Martin Gero )

( Carl Binder )

( Alan McCullough )

( Honorable mentions: Kindler, Cuperus, DeLuise )