Favorite Shows

I love television, I don't care what anybody says about it. It's only stupid tv that makes people stupid. I consider myself a smart person. I read books -- at least when I can find good ones, which is hard in my chosen genre (fantasy), and I love films. I have taken three film courses to date, and now I can actually recognize symbolism now. I tend to watch shows that make me think. And as a writer, I can pick up lots of ideas.
Educational channels aside (which I love, especially the History channel when it's not in WWII mode), about half of what I watch is some sort of crime show. I undoubtely received a love of mysteries from my mother. It's actually her fault I started watching Law & Order. CSI, however, was mostly my own doing. I had heard about it through a couple of friends and decided to check it out one day. The first things that drew me to the show were 1) the interesting imagery, such as diving into bodies, and 2) the handsome Gary Dourdan. Later the other characters started to grow on me and I was hooked on the show very quickly. My other favorite character on the show is Nick Stokes. Everything happens to the poor guy. He's like CSI's Daniel Jackson. That kind of thing ALWAYS gets my attention. Stalker was one of the first episodes I ever saw. Grave Danger had me on the edge of my seat, and then I rushed off to see Revenge of the Sith. I was very pleased that he lived because just before the beginning of the season I had a dream where his character died and so the preview for the episode sort of freaked me out. He wasn't buried alive in the dream though. I think it may have involved a car. I watched the season premiere tonight and I am oh-so-pleased he didn't buzz off his hair this season. I loved Catherine's reaction when she found out Warrick got married! I've been wanting those two to get together for forever. I'm only a shipper in very rare cases, but this is definitely one of them. I definitely hope they can work some stuff out. How often do you see an interracial couple on tv where the guy is younger? Not very often!
Lost: my other favorite show. It and CSI pretty much jockey for top spot in my favorites list when Stargate isn't involved. I wanted to watch it initially because of Dominic Monaghan (I love nearly anybody from Lord of the Rings, one of my favorite things EVER). When I saw the premiere, I knew I was going to be sticking with the show. It kept me glued to my seat and chewing on my lip like hasn't happened in a long time. And it continues to be full of surprises! I have way too many favorite characters in this show, many of them because I knew the actors beforehand. Charlie, of course, played by Dom Monaghan. The guy is good. I don't identify him with Merry at all and when I watch Lord of the Rings now I have to remind myself he's the same guy. Another favorite is Michael. I've liked Harold Perrineau ever since I saw him in Blood & Wine, which was a number of years ago. That was back when he had dreadlocks and I've always been a sucker for those. (The first time I saw Gary Dourdan, he also had dreds.) I'd grow them myself if my hair wasn't so straight. I saw the girl who plays Claire in Beastmaster (the show) when she was younger and though she was cute, I didn't think she was very good at the time. I think she got better. I first saw Daniel Dae Kim, or Jin, in Crusade and liked him immediately, but another thing I'm a sucker for is Asian guys. He's very good at being Korean. And the new people: Jack, Sayid, Sawyer. Sawyer may be a jerk most of the time, but he's still gorgeous. I want Jack to grow out his hair like it was in the season 2 premiere flashback!
Nip/Tuck is another show I watch, though I'm not really sure why. I look down on elective plastic surgery and usually I'm not one for heavy drama. I'm a little bit squeamish where surgery is concerned. Sometimes the characters make me angry. But something about the show has me intrigued. Maybe part of it is the way Christian Troy is adorable when he's in mortal danger. When I watched this season's premiere I was on hydrocordone (also known as Vicodin) so I'm surprised I remember any of it at all. (I don't understand how people can get addicted to Vicodin. I hate the stuff. I've been on it twice, both times for tooth-related pain. It makes me dizzy, sick, and constipated. Yeah, that's what I'd like to feel like all the time.) I do remember I was lucid enough to really doubt that Christian was really dead in the very beginning. Of course, I had it pegged for a faked death. The fact that it was a dream never even occurred to me.
Though I was never able to get into Buffy or Angel, I love Firefly. Never before have I seen a space show where they take into account that there's no sound in space! Normally I disregard it because I like the sounds explosions make and the scream of TIE fighters and X-wings just seem like they belong there. But this show is just wow. It's DIFFERENT. Not to mention it has one of the best opening songs ever. I love the Old West meets Outer Space. I love the cursing in Chinese. I love the characters (most of them). I love that there's already a married couple. I'm waiting very impatienly for Serenity to come out.
I'm an on-and-off Crossing Jordan watcher because of the characters. Mainly Bug, Nigel, and Woody. I've been a Jerry O'Connell fan for a long, long time. Ever since my friend made me watch Sliders. The other character I once liked was Peter Winslow, before he left. They could have at least explained why. I suppose it's better than the way most of the other characters leave the show (scripted deaths).
Although I am severely lacking in math skills, I enjoy the show Numbers (I refuse to spell it with the '3') because somehow, David Krumholtz has become hot. Well he has to me. I have a think for geeks, which might have to do with being one myself.
Assuming I haven't forgotten any, last but not least, I love Stargate. I have a turbulent history with this show. When I first saw the SG-1 pilot I was very angry. I saw the movie when I was twelve and loved it very much, and a lot of things about the show pissed me off. Part of it was because my favorite character from the movie, Daniel Jackson, was not played by James Spader. Another thing was the way some of the names were being mispronounced. It was Sha'uri, not Sha're! The final straw came at the end of the episode when my second favorite character Skaara (whose name they were also pronouncing wrong, but at least it was the same actor) disappeared through the gate with an alien in his head. I had nothing to do with the show for years. Then one day, late at night, I was sitting at the computer half-watching tv and nothing was on but Stargate SG-1. I let it play. The episode was Urgo, and it had a familiar face: Dom DeLuise. I watched the episode and decided maybe this show wasn't so bad after all. For the next several years, even though I told everyone I hated the show, I watched reruns on and off, still mad about the stealing of Skaara but willing to deal with it. I remember hearing about Daniel's character leaving, and then coming back (it was a bit later I actually found out how). Then about a year ago I discovered that Skaara was freed from the alien parasite FIVE YEARS EARLIER. At that point I decided it was okay to watch (this was before I found out about Full Circle, but that didn't kill it). Halfway into season 8 I started watching new episodes regularly along with Stargate Atlantis. By the end of the seasons I was very, very hooked. I was loving every minute of Prometheus Unbound. I was shocked and in tears at the end of Reckoning 2. I was laughing myself to death at the close of Threads. I was bouncing off the walls during Moebius. I now have six seasons of SG-1 on DVD. Maybe I'm just a sci fi geek, but I. Love. These. Shows. The characters are one-of-a-kind. Teal'c may be a bit like Spock, but did you ever hear Spock tell a joke? And then laugh at it? I can get past all the scientific boo-boos for love of the characters and their stories. And that Michael Shanks is such an actor... when he's acting, I only see the character. Ever. In Lifeboat, he's not even playing Daniel. All I see are the other half-dozen characters he plays in that episode.
Now, since I've been writing this blog for an hour and a half, I think I'll either go to bed or do something else. Goodnight!

Stargate Science

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis are two of my favorite shows. The characters are diverse and likeable, the episodes are well-written, and they have heart. However, as has been the case ever since the original Star Trek series, scientific accuracy has sort of been ignored in favor of character-based stories. This doesn't bother me all that much: I would definitely prefer to have a show with fun characters in tense situations than a science lecture, but every now and then I notice something that they're doing wrong.

I don't pretend to know anything about wormhole theory or anything more advanced that high school general physics (which I passed with a D), but I have studied astronomy, both in high school and in college and I feel that, since I'm usually a pretty good sport about mistakes, I deserve this one chance to nitpick. As for the way gate travel works: it seems to me that all DHDs have the same symbols except for the point of origin, and that each planet has a definite address that can be typed in the same from any planet. This flaw seems to obvious to me that I wonder why anybody who writes for the show didn't catch it, but maybe it's just the astronomer in me. The gate addresses are based on constellations. On a different planet, one sees the stars from a different angle, and so constellations are different. I'm not even sure how well that system of selecting a designation would work in a three-dimensional space anyway, since constellations don't necessary have all their stars the same distance from earth, but that was pre-show. The second major astronomy flaw that is obvious to me is the fact that they use the two Earth gates - Egypt and Antarctica - interchangeably. The northern and southern skies have different constellations, almost like being on another planet. Unless the two gates both have an identical assortment of constellations from both hemispheres, it shouldn't be possible for them to be switched. As an aside to that, a base operating in only the northern hemisphere would only be able to visit planets with addresses made entirely from northern constellations. Assuming there are planets with stargates in the other direction (and there probably were if there was a stargate in Antarctica), those planets are never visited.

Also little things that bug me sometimes are slight but definite alterations from the movie - not things like why the characters look different and the fact that Jack's not the same and that his name is spelled different, because I've gotten past all that. I mean things like Abydos suddenly being in the same galaxy as Earth. Didn't it used to be on "the other side of the known universe"? And as for the other planets not working because they're too far away - yeah, the universe is probably expanding, and I may be wrong about this, but I don't think ten thousand years is enough to make that much of a difference. The constellations have stayed the same, after all. In the eye of time since the universe began, ten thousand years is a blink. I also very much miss the language barrier that the movie had. It gave a sense of realism to the whole thing. It may just be because I'm a language enthusiast, but I wouldn't mind sitting through subtitles every exploratory episode (which I wish they'd still do!). If Jackson can speak 23 languages, let him! Or, if the aliens must speak English, I wish they would do it naturally. Most of them sound like robots or Vulcans, and not even very good ones.
While I still love SG-1, I hope they get back to exploring other planets sometime soon. Over the last season or so it seems like half the stuff that's happened has been on Earth, and in the other half they used spaceships. Whatever happened to exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations? I thought that was the whole point of the show!

Well, now that I've ranted about the things that bother me I have to mention things I do like. Teal'c's hair. Colonel Mitchell. The fact that Michael Shanks looks better than last season (woohoo!). General Landry. The new doc (not as cool as Frasier, but beats the hell out of Brightman - not to mention who she's married to!). Multi-baal. Wait, that one's just creepy. I take it back. People etc. I'd like to see again: Nem, Jonas Quinn (PLEASE!!), those guys from One False Step, and Paul Davis when he's not wearing a moustache.