So, I've watched through most of Stargate Universe. And ... I really, really like it. Heh. I like the conflict of multiple agendas and varying moralities in a small, confined space, cut off from the rest of humanity. I also really like ruthless sons of bitches, at least in fiction, so it was probably always a pretty sure bet. Hello, Dr Rush! *grins*
That might have been different, maybe, if I hadn't sort of grown up with the British version of sci-fi, kinda epitomised in Blake's 7, which pretty much is grim and bitter and morally ambiguous even with the heroes. Heh.
It also might have helped if I hadn't been introduced to the dystopias among my first ever sci-fi. 1984, through my mother, very early in my sci-fi career. And Animal Farm, even earlier, as literally a kid. Heh. We watched the animated adaption as children (Boxer!), and never quite got over it. Between Animal Farm and Watership Down (two dystopias for the price of one, WD, though Cowslip's warren more than Efrafa is the one that gives me the crawling heebie-jeebies - The Shining Wires. *shudder*), it's probably a miracle I came out of my childhood with any faith at all. Heh.
Anyway. I've watched SGU. And yeah, it's nowhere near as bright and heroic as any of the other Stargate entries. It's mean and vicious, and the straight-up, cold-blooded bastard that you love to hate also turns out to be right a frightening amount of the time, and the character dynamics are like someone tied a bunch of cats in a sack and left them off, and ... I love that. *grins* I love that. I love Rush, magnificent bastard that he is, perpetually on the verge of or actively having a nervous breakdown. And Greer, who really should NOT be among the most stable of the crew, because that man should be no-one's model of mental health, but on Destiny he kinda really is. And Camile, who for someone stuck between Young and Rush, not to mention her superiors back on Earth, does a surprisingly awesome job of keeping shit together (that one little hiccup with the mutiny aside). Young himself, too, who is an awesome example of a man who cares so much he can't care anymore, and still does anyway. Which leads to him be nice and quiet on the surface, and spectacularly (and violently) unstable underneath. Though you only really notice that if you're his enemy. Or Rush. Though, really, same difference, there.
I like it. I like that it's not so much a show about people working through their differences and learning to work together as it is people learning to leave the mutual scheming until after we've saved each other's butts (unless it's Rush, in which case it's him learning to keep the scheming to a minimum whilst saving people's butts. Sort of. Maybe. The man would scheme in his sleep, if he ever actually slept). I like that there are no easy answers, that they keep running up against the hard lines of morality through sheer necessity, that the good guys do bad things because they think they have to, that the sort-of-bad-good-guys sometimes really are right.
I like that it's a bunch of mentally unstable, sporadically vicious people dumped on an alien ship together and left to work out between themselves how the hell to stay alive. It takes me back, is all. Like Blake's 7, with way, waaaaay better special effects, and new and interesting characters in their own right. *grins*
That might have been different, maybe, if I hadn't sort of grown up with the British version of sci-fi, kinda epitomised in Blake's 7, which pretty much is grim and bitter and morally ambiguous even with the heroes. Heh.
It also might have helped if I hadn't been introduced to the dystopias among my first ever sci-fi. 1984, through my mother, very early in my sci-fi career. And Animal Farm, even earlier, as literally a kid. Heh. We watched the animated adaption as children (Boxer!), and never quite got over it. Between Animal Farm and Watership Down (two dystopias for the price of one, WD, though Cowslip's warren more than Efrafa is the one that gives me the crawling heebie-jeebies - The Shining Wires. *shudder*), it's probably a miracle I came out of my childhood with any faith at all. Heh.
Anyway. I've watched SGU. And yeah, it's nowhere near as bright and heroic as any of the other Stargate entries. It's mean and vicious, and the straight-up, cold-blooded bastard that you love to hate also turns out to be right a frightening amount of the time, and the character dynamics are like someone tied a bunch of cats in a sack and left them off, and ... I love that. *grins* I love that. I love Rush, magnificent bastard that he is, perpetually on the verge of or actively having a nervous breakdown. And Greer, who really should NOT be among the most stable of the crew, because that man should be no-one's model of mental health, but on Destiny he kinda really is. And Camile, who for someone stuck between Young and Rush, not to mention her superiors back on Earth, does a surprisingly awesome job of keeping shit together (that one little hiccup with the mutiny aside). Young himself, too, who is an awesome example of a man who cares so much he can't care anymore, and still does anyway. Which leads to him be nice and quiet on the surface, and spectacularly (and violently) unstable underneath. Though you only really notice that if you're his enemy. Or Rush. Though, really, same difference, there.
I like it. I like that it's not so much a show about people working through their differences and learning to work together as it is people learning to leave the mutual scheming until after we've saved each other's butts (unless it's Rush, in which case it's him learning to keep the scheming to a minimum whilst saving people's butts. Sort of. Maybe. The man would scheme in his sleep, if he ever actually slept). I like that there are no easy answers, that they keep running up against the hard lines of morality through sheer necessity, that the good guys do bad things because they think they have to, that the sort-of-bad-good-guys sometimes really are right.
I like that it's a bunch of mentally unstable, sporadically vicious people dumped on an alien ship together and left to work out between themselves how the hell to stay alive. It takes me back, is all. Like Blake's 7, with way, waaaaay better special effects, and new and interesting characters in their own right. *grins*
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