They’re not my rules. That’s why I quoted the submission guidelines for Strange Horizons.

But I can find more examples if you really want to pretend these are just “my” rules.

Fred@639: ANYTHING can be criticized and therefore criticism in itself is trivial- and only criticism that goes to meaningful issues is worth uttering or listening to

One could probably make the same argument about liking something. I watch the teeny boppers going crazy over this “Twilight” stuff, and I’m thinking it’s crap.

What is meaningful or “worth listening to” about why Twilight is “good”?

Fans going all gaga isn’t really on the level of “worth listening to” as far as I’m concerned.

Same goes for any pop phenomenon.

If someone wants to say “I like this”, I’m fine with that. If someone wants to say “I don’t like this”, I’m fine with that too.

If someone wants to say “N’Sync is the best band evah“, then I have a problem with that.

I watched the “Time” episode. I gave my experience of it. I didn’t like it. When criticising fiction, I try to point to general rules of thumbs that apply to fiction in general or SF in general. I don’t say I don’t like SGU because I don’t like SGU. I say I didn’t like this episode called “Time” because everything that happened is effectively a dream and will be undone on the next time loop.

And making the audience feel the pain and suffereing of characters only to tell them “nope, didn’t happen”, is a basic rule of things not to do.

If you like the episode anyway, fine. But you can’t tell me they didn’t violate that basic rule of thumb.

Xopher actually made the argument that the writing of “Time” was “an extremely well-written episode”. So, I attempted to engage him on an objective level as to how he justifies it.

I said they violated this, this, and this basic writing guideline.

His response was “While I don’t agree with this assessment, do you really think it’s going to change? Really, stop watching.”

He made the assertion that it was extremely well written, I showed my reasons why I thought it was poorly written and asked him how he arrived at his conclusion, and he responded with “that’s just the way the show is. stop watching”.

If you like the show or don’t like the show, that’s fine by me.

But if someone wants to argue that the show is well written, I’d like to have a conversation with them about that.

At this point, I’ll probably watch the next episode to see how they tie up the loose ends of “time” and how they deal with all the stuff thta happened but didn’t really happen.

And if anyone wants to talk about silly science and silly people on SGU, here’s a couple for you.

You’re telling me that the Destiny and the gates themselves have “failsafe” modes so they won’t shut if someone sticks their arm halfway through, but the water system on Destiny can’t produce clean water? Nuclear submarines today use all that excess power to tap off some electricity to electrolyze sea water into hydrogen and oxygen and then burn it to turn it into pure, salt-free, bug-free water. The amount of power Destiny has is huge compared to what it would take to electrolyze the water.

And why for the love of god is this team acting like its the first time humans have ever landed on an alien planet? Why, for the love of god, was Chloe or Eli or any nonessential personnel on the Degobah/jungle system? It should have been a team of Greer and the LT and maybe some red shirts.

Maybe I’m just a masochist.

I agree with the suggestion that any character development was totally wasted because it will all have happened in a loop that will not be preserved.

And I have yet another reason to hate Rush with every fiber of my being.

Everything is about him. He’s the genius. He’s the only one who can save them all, even if some hard choices must be made. Yes, Hard Choices. Sacrifices must be made… sacrifices must be made by someone else.

While the group was being nearly wiped out by the Alien Chest Drills (nice description, there) he cut & ran.

Let’s gloss over that little fact by immediately pointing out that he made a movie reference and Eli didn’t recognize it.

Was Rush trying to defend the group? No… but giving him a gun would have made about as much sense as giving Eli one. Oh, wait…

No, while everyone else was being wiped out, his goal was to beat feet. He abandoned them to what he clearly felt was certain death.

He doesn’t bleat as badly as Dr. Smith or Dr. Baltar, but he in the same vein.

Also, the pacing towards then end of Earth could have been better. Too much action and exposition was crammed into a short bit of time. The authors need to loose this self contained episode thing and learn to use “to be continued…” I hope the next episode picks up right after this on left off. If it doesn’t I’ll be disappointed.

@Pineyman: Don’t confuse the term “deus ex machina” with “any storytelling tool that resolves a situation”. It actually has a meaning, which it would be nice if people actually use. Don’t you go around shouting “OMG DEM FAIL”.

Re: Chloe stealing Wil Wheaton’s paycheck: I’ll hold off judgment until she actually does something annoying, instead of just being useless. Although “Earth” came close.

The inability to accept that characters have died for real is the fault of the medium. Yes, the writers should find a way to solve this inherent issue if possible. They did! They showed what happens when the “real” characters react to their deaths. That’s about as much as you can do when doing this kind of episode.

1) folks who are peeved that the show differs from previous Stargate fare so sharply and don’t want to just say so.

2) folks who are so charmed by their own ability to find fault in absolutely anything that they think it must really mean something. In this age of mass media it seems these people are everywhere, in all areas of interest, and I wish they would just realize that it is literally true that ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING can be criticized and therefore criticism in itself is trivial- and only criticism that goes to meaningful issues is worth uttering or listening to. So the argument becomes, what’s meaningful? And I think that’s what the argument should be.

Obviously I don’t know you people and I really don’t mean to be rude. But come on! The show is fantastic. The characters are interesting. They have LIVES. The way they work at cross-purposes while all having more-or-less congruent goals… their lack of trust for each other… their fear and sadness.

As sci-fi, I think the situation is interesting and well-exploited so far. I mean, c’mon- re: ep 1, a previous commenter was outraged, asking why didn’t they poke the button with a stick? Well seriously- why can’t you just accept that the easy ideas were not possible without having your hand held for an explanation of each and every one of them?

It’s a great show.

I think this is clearly the best sci fi series since BSG, and I hope it will be around for a long time.

I thought the Time episode was really good – best yet other than the pilot. I feel like I understand Rush much better. I have always liked him more than most here, but now I feel I really get him. When he asked Eli if realizing he was going to die made him figure out he needed to do something worthwhile with the time he has, it all became clear. Rush feels that doing something important matters more than his life – or anyone else’s. I can understand and sympathize with that view. And the lieutenant saying I guess you don’t believe in an afterlife – perfect. And emo-girl was dead for most of it, just for a bonus. :-)

As for Earth – the less said the better. Although it was a perfect example of Nice Guy syndrome. The guy wondering why girls always act this way and never noticing it is because he is only attracted to girls that act this way. TJ doesn’t act this way, Eli. The marine woman doesn’t. The HR woman doesn’t. Just Chloe.

Xopher: No, the science was utter nonsense.

You’re not reading what I just said. Or you’re ignoring it to disagree with me. The premise of the science of the matrix is that you get power from human bodies. The actual science of the matrix through which the characters can act, the “if I do this, then that happens” stuff, was all pretty sound. The matrix is a simulation, the Agents are software, Neo needs to learn how to hack that system. That all made some sense.

The premise was something the characters couldn’t do anything about and something that the characters didn’t use to affect anything else. It was just backstory.

The science of time travel, as in what the characters can do to achieve their goals, usually sucks in just about every story there is. The only difference is whether the science is serious or the science is silly. In the silly stories, like Back to the Future, the silly science slides because the story is silly too.

Ghostbusters science is totally bogus, but the story is silly, so it doesn’t matter.

Give me the name of a science fiction story that has serious characters and plot but has silly/stupid science, that are good movies. I can’t think of any.

While I don’t agree with this assessment, do you really think it’s going to change?

You said “Time” was “an extremely well-written episode”. I said it was subjective, but trying to look at it from objective terms, it isn’t. i.e. looking at it from a “things to avoid in fiction” list, it fails, versus looking at it from a “I really love SGU” poitn of view, which is subjective.

From a “rules of thumbs of things to avoid when writing fiction or science fiction” poitn of view, SGU violates a number of basic rules.

You said: I thought the glitchiness of the early footage let you know you were looking at a recording, and as soon as people started dying that foreshadowed that it would be a timeloop episode.

Think about this for a second, Xopher. If that information was “obvious” then why didn’t the writers start the episode with the people walking through the gate and finding the Kino?

They actually played the episode in non-chronological order. First they’re on the ship watching the footage, and then we see them walk onto the planet and discover the kino. That’s out of order.

Basic rule of thumb about screwing with timelines is that you don’t do it simply to hide information from the viewer. The audience was removed from the point of view of any character. Eli, Rush, Young and everyone else knew they were watching a recording. but not the audience.

So, once again, the writers violate a basic principle and create an emotional incongruency between POV character and the audience. They all knew they were watching a recording. We’re thinking we’re watching the real thing.

Then people start dying, and we’re told it’s a dream, or a tape, or whatever. It isn’t real.

Why not show the audience what Eli and everyone else knew? Why not start the episode with Eli going through the gate discovering the Kino? Why not let the audience know that it’s a recording?

Because they wanted to fuck with the audience. Because they wanted people to think Chloe really died, even if they only thought it for a second, before telling the audience the truth.

Basic rule of thumb: if your story isn’t interesting telling your audience the truth about the characters, at least the truth as far as the POV character is concerned, then you’re story isn’t interesting except because you, the writer, withheld something from the audience that the POV character knew.

Wonderful to see T.J. stepping up.

No, the science was utter nonsense. Humans are net consumers of energy, and if solar energy doesn’t strike the Earth, it’s living things that die out, not machines that run on “a form of fusion.” The idea that there’s anything special about energy from humans is patently absurd. In fact it’s the first time I’ve seen a Science Fiction movie where the science was so bad as to make the bad guys into good guys, since the only reason for the machines to keep humans around was because they wanted the species to survive.

Serious people with Serious plots working with Silly science makes for a bad combination as far as I can tell.

While I don’t agree with this assessment, do you really think it’s going to change? Really, stop watching. Either that or tell us a reason you keep watching other than “I keep hoping it will get better” (you’re not stupid) or because you just love dissing it so much. It’s really getting tiresome.