Friday, August 19, 2005

The SFnal TV Gurus that are overrated

I have to say that there are a bunch of people that absolutely adore certain SF TV writer/producers that I really can't understand, frankly, why. These people get an adoring following for having done work that has been done before and better. They have also done work that has been lauded for its cohesiveness or originality, yet, in the end seems to end up rather odiferous in a less than pleasing way. Let's take a couple shots here.

JMS. I summon you! I and I sure that I will get his raving fans all over my back. The truth is that I was originally hooked on Babylon 5 during the Shadow War portion. I didn't own a TV for some time after I left home and when I became roommates with someone that individual had a TV. I was cleaning the apartment when I sat down to watch. I was hooked. The situation was interesting. Caught between two titans, ther rest of galaxy was trying to come to grips with these giants. Yet...yet...he ended the fscking war with a KIRK SPEECH!!! How lame. How stupid. How completely unoriginal! I switched off and was glad from the later sampling I had of the last season that I would pick up later. I tried to forgive him after watching the TV movie of the Minbari-Terran War: it was interesting and fun. I then tried to watch Crusade. It was...bad. Dull. Then I watched the pilot for Legend of the Rangers. Could we have had anything that wasn't a rehash? Consider: there was a menace so great and terrible from ages, ages past when giants walked the stars...wait. That sounds almost like a complete copy of the Shadow War opening lines. *sighs* It was nice to see that the english voice actress for Akane from Ranma is actually the babe that I thought she was though.

Now the second offender. Joss Whedon. Joss created Buffy from the corpse of the movie. It was an ok diversion. Now and then. If you took wit for 'pithy' one-liners. If you took great romance for extremely abusive relationships. If you took the ...oh I give up. I have to admit that I did, in fact, enjoy Angel. Someone else pointed out a better review of why. even so, the silliness involved was...extremely high. On the other hand, it had some truly great episodes. However, Angel died prematurely and that ended that. Joss went on to make Firefly. I want that hour of my life back. That truly sucked. Anyone who idolizes the Confederates as Joss seems to needs to be taken out and have a clue beaten into him (or her) with a few times with a muzzle loading rifle from the era. Go read Slave Trade and the tragedy therein before idolizing those that wished to protect their peculiar institution. To me, despite the "glory" that Americans have in the past mistakenly ascribed to them, what Joss was attempting to do there was not unlike what Ringo was doing with the wretched novel thar Randy reviewed.

Now contrast what they've done with what was done by Ron Moore with Battlestar Galactica. Ah. Much better.


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