I actually think we (Rodney fans as a whole) might've been watching the same show, but when the show split into different shows - the "Rodney & Keller show" didn't exist until late last season, after all - we started tuning into different things.
And I do think one of the big problems is that the show-writers decided to do no character arcs except Keller's love story (Ronon included.) Last season Teyla's missing people was one big story, but so was waking the Replicators, a plot point that also involved a degree of character emotion - and conversely, Teyla's character arc was also a plot arc, involving Michael. The McKeller being solely a character arc with no connection to plot opened the show to accusations of soap-opera-hood, and there was no other major plot arc to argue against that reading. Which I feel was a major mistake on the part of the writers, because it ended up giving the McKeller more weight than it should have gotten. SGA's relationships have always been more subtext than text, and no SGA character relationship has ever gotten the attention that the McKeller has (even John-Rodney never got three episodes in a row that specifically made a point of their friendship.) So while for many shows the McKeller was fairly low-key, for SGA it was huge, and intrusive for many fans.
There are a lot of fans who enjoy John & Rodney equally - especially a lot of McSheppers I know will not choose. I consider myself a John fan myself though I will list Rodney as my favorite. But of the fans who have a definite preference for John - those who get annoyed when Rodney gets the dramatic eps instead of John, who are watching the show mostly for John/JF - most of them are annoyed that the McKeller is taking time away from John. (Not all of them, though; I know of at least one John-fan McShepper who's fine with the McKeller.) The majority of the McKeller fans I know are Rodney fans who are enjoying that Rodney's getting the screen-time (and who like Keller, too.) Which I can understand, even if it doesn't work like that for me, because I have so little interest in this romance that I find the McKeller scenes as boring as the scenes with Keller on her own (same as you can't enjoy Rodney when he's with Carson); the McKeller is actually making me like Rodney less, which is frustrating...!
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 05:12 am (UTC)And I do think one of the big problems is that the show-writers decided to do no character arcs except Keller's love story (Ronon included.) Last season Teyla's missing people was one big story, but so was waking the Replicators, a plot point that also involved a degree of character emotion - and conversely, Teyla's character arc was also a plot arc, involving Michael. The McKeller being solely a character arc with no connection to plot opened the show to accusations of soap-opera-hood, and there was no other major plot arc to argue against that reading. Which I feel was a major mistake on the part of the writers, because it ended up giving the McKeller more weight than it should have gotten. SGA's relationships have always been more subtext than text, and no SGA character relationship has ever gotten the attention that the McKeller has (even John-Rodney never got three episodes in a row that specifically made a point of their friendship.) So while for many shows the McKeller was fairly low-key, for SGA it was huge, and intrusive for many fans.
There are a lot of fans who enjoy John & Rodney equally - especially a lot of McSheppers I know will not choose. I consider myself a John fan myself though I will list Rodney as my favorite. But of the fans who have a definite preference for John - those who get annoyed when Rodney gets the dramatic eps instead of John, who are watching the show mostly for John/JF - most of them are annoyed that the McKeller is taking time away from John. (Not all of them, though; I know of at least one John-fan McShepper who's fine with the McKeller.) The majority of the McKeller fans I know are Rodney fans who are enjoying that Rodney's getting the screen-time (and who like Keller, too.) Which I can understand, even if it doesn't work like that for me, because I have so little interest in this romance that I find the McKeller scenes as boring as the scenes with Keller on her own (same as you can't enjoy Rodney when he's with Carson); the McKeller is actually making me like Rodney less, which is frustrating...!