xparrot | would you like a little RAGE with your RAGE?

So Martin Gero made some comments on the most recent episode of SGA.

"For five years, we didn’t even know it, but all [Rodney] wanted was for someone to tell him that they loved him in an unconditional way."

I want to...I want to kick Martin Gero's head in with a big spiky boot. OF LOVE.

So the love of friends and family (because doesn't Jeannie love him, too? or was she lying when she said "I love you" in "Miller's Crossing" and faking her tears in "The Shrine"?) counts for snot, because it's not romantic, sexual love.

And unconditional love is quoting a guy's own brain-damaged love confession back at him (six months later), and then offering him sex on a plane to make him shut up.

I have no boyfriend! I HAVE NO LOVE! What do I do??? My life is empty! Meaningless!

*cue total fucking mental breakdown*

Okay, now I'm going to do my best to forget this episode ever happened. There's been other eps I haven't enjoyed, but this is the first one that's seriously in danger of spoiling my fanning. It pretty much ruined Rodney's character for me even when I was ignoring the McKeller (I swear, I'd've been almost as outraged if the ep had gone the same way only with John instead of Keller, though at least then I'd have some McShep making out), and now that I am meant to think that banging Keller on the plane is the most significant and important event of Rodney's life in the past five years - yeah. Someone tell me how to hold onto my SGA love, because I don't want to lose this fandom, but the show seems pretty determined to use its dying breath to drive me away.

ETA: I gotta say, SGA these days is really making me appreciate NCIS. NCIS has one s5 ep that is explicitly the 100% opposite theme as this.

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Now that you mention it yeah it does seem in keeping to Rodney's character to want the unattainable.

I kind of twitch when shows switch genre's midstream. If SG-1 had started off as a romance type show then I would not have minded the Jack/Carter or Daniel/Vala stuff so much but the show is supposed to be action/adventure and I really liked that about the series. And now they are throwing in badly done romance so I'm not happy about that. Basically, every other show on network tv has romantic love interests and that's okay most of them started off with that intention so the setup is there. But I really wish SG-1 and SGA just never went there. This show shines when it does what it's good at which is action/adventure.

This is another concern of mine for Supernatural. I also do not like the idea of romantic pairings in what should be an adventure/scary movie type show. It's like the only way the networks think they can attract women viewers is by throwing in romance and that's so insulting.

Now that I think about it with a very few rare exceptions I don't particularly find romance all that interesting on TV.

Though reading about it is a whole other story.

Regarding switching genres in midstream --

synecdochic had a really interesting meta a couple of years ago talking about the "implied contract" between author and reader (or viewer), where the first few chapters of the book or episodes of the series sets up the general premise, style and tone, and major deviations from that are a violation of trust. She was talking about it specifically in reference to SGA's second and third seasons, which deviated from the premise and tone established in the first season to the point where she and a lot of other disgruntled fans stopped watching the show.

I am a little torn on this, because I can totally see what she (and you) are saying and think the point is very valid, but I also think that a long-running series has to change and try new things, or else risk repeating the same plots over and over (which is actually the problem I'm having with NCIS; I like the show, but I feel like there's not really anything new). Unfortunately, the more that it changes, the more the risk of doing away with what originally drew a viewer to the show in the first place.

And I do agree with you that romance on TV is not really my bag -- though this extends to my reading as well. I can enjoy it, but generally I prefer not to have it in front of me.

In fact, it's quite possible that one of the reasons why I've been feeling drawn to writing romance lately is because I want to write romance that personally appeals to me, which little of it does.

I think I read that essay and yeah somewhere around season 3 I just stopped caring but I was still able to watch the show because well I'm kind of desperate for action shows in space...so I handwave the stuff I don't like but the vested interest I had from seasons 1 and 2 is gone. :(

I also found Supernatural which was a very nice distraction but it is also on the verge of breaking their contract. grrr

After reading your background a bit I can kind of see why the traditional romance stories wouldn't appeal. And your reasoning for wanting to write your own makes perfect sense.

Heh, yes, I *do* feel as if Supernatural has violated its implied contract as well. Of course, I suppose that we viewers only notice this if it takes the show to a place that we really don't like! But for me, the fact that SPN has gone from being a road-trip show about urban legends in the first season, to basically Hellblazer-lite in the fourth, combined with race and gender issues that REALLY bother me, is seriously doing away with my love of the show.

I was fortunate with SGA that the stylistic and premise-related changes in the third season actually appealed to me. But I can totally see how they would not have done so to many fans, and I don't blame people for leaving or disengaging with the show at that point.

Oh man, SPN is killing me here. I had so much fun watching in season 1 and even 2 because I LOVED the monster of the week episodes and finding new urban legends and now the show is so different...and yes has a lot of gender and racial issues. :( But I keep hoping it'll get back to what made it good.

I think for me what I liked about SGA in the beginning was that sense of being on their own, making new allies, meeting new aliens, and that sense of danger. Once they re-connected with earth I think things got too easy for them so the plots became even more contrived in order to place the team in danger. And the characters got stupider. In season one there was no need to dumb down the characters because the odds were already stacked against them.

I agree with this idea, more or less - and I don't think an established series has to change. I don't think TV shows are required to do new things all the time - some shows, yeah, if that's part of their "contract". E.g. Lost sets out mysteries, it's expected those mysteries will be solved (this contract is totally broken, obviously.) An arc show has to have some sort of development, or there is no arc.

But an episodic show like NCIS - the viewers are tuning in for one thing, and switching it around now would throw off the majority of people watching. Speaking as a new NCIS fan, I'm not bored with NCIS; after mainlining the series, I'm very looking forward to getting "more of the same". Fans, being so invested, I think are more likely to get bored than casual viewers, but I kind of feel that's the fault of the fan, more than the show. If your tastes have changed, if you want something else out of your TV, you should find a new show, not ask for your old show to change - because then all the people still watching the show for what you used to like will be very disappointed to lose it.

Though the problem with a "contract" is if the show is unsuccessful as it is, mixing it up might be called for. SPN was *bad* last season; I'm enjoying the new season a lot more because of the total change in tone (don't know if I'm alone, though, haven't seen the ratings?) It's a balancing act, of whether you're going to piss off more viewers by changing things, or not changing things. In SGA now, the issue with romance is while some viewers are enjoying it, I don't think anyone *wanted* it that badly - I don't think very many viewers would've been disappointed if they hadn't done any romance, because no one was watching SGA for romance - while as a lot of viewers are very disappointed in the romance we've been getting.

A lot of shows I think run into the problem that the writers get bored before the audience does. So shows "jump the shark" - sometimes it's to boost flagging ratings, but sometimes the jump happens and then the ratings dive, and I think that's when the writers are wanting to do something new. (Which is why I'm sort of thinking canceling SGA and starting SGU might've been the right choice, rather than trying to make SGA into something else. I don't blame the writers for wanting to write romance, everyone needs a change of pace - but SGA is just not the show for it.)
(I think this is also why NCIS s6 is working so well for me - it recently was put into new hands, and I think the new guy is more invested in what the show is, rather than bored and wanting it to be something else...)

Basically, every other show on network tv has romantic love interests and that's okay most of them started off with that intention so the setup is there.

Yes! I've bitched about this before...truth is, I rarely like TV romance; most of the time I just barely tolerate them. SGA was one of my few havens, a show where the only canon romances were largely off-screen and unimportant to the plot. And then they have to go bring in the pairings, like every single other show, and I'm just...can't I have just this one show be romance-free? Siiiigh...

(Enjoying the hell out of NCIS for this, it dipped into romance for one season - and then dipped right out of it again. There's great female characters who are BFFs with the male chars and it's just so much <3333!)

I think the only show I've ever liked the canon romance was Farscape and okay Buffy/Angel and then Buffy/Spike.

But yeah I don't like when they decide to add romance to attract more viewers because they think women like romance in shows more than the action/adventure traveling through space kind of adventures.

would you like a little RAGE with your RAGE?

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