SGA: Whispers

[tenaya]

Jeeze.

What I liked: The bubblegum popping Sgt. Dusty.

What I disliked: The script.

And before I dip into spoilers, I just gotta ask something about horror. Mallozzi is a lazy writer but in some ways has gotten better. For one, in the early days he pack the eps with new annoying characters--at least Whispers...oh wait, the girl team are new characters. :::sigh::: The other thing he ALWAYS does is have a lot of walking the corridors (why fill up your ep with dialogue and cool ideas when your characters can walk back and forth accomplishing nothing?) But then I got to thinking, horror films do have a lot of walking about, providing targets for the big bad. Do I perceive that Whispers had very little to offer, period, or was it actually an acceptable story in the horror genre?

Now for a little more detail:
I suppose the met between the girl team and Sheppard and Becket makes your average male viewer go "Hell YEAH!!!" but I thought it insulting and stupid. I could see literally see a cartoon reaction from the boys (eyeballs popping out--BOING!!-- and tongue panting, hanging out) as they get a good look a team of kick ass hot chicks. Though, as military commander of Atlantis and someone that should be aware of who is under his command, who is on which teams and what teams are being assigned where--I can't see Sheppard's reaction puts him in a very good light; he must be clueless about his command. And Carson, who had been complaining about how far they've walked, runs up the hillside after the girls. Jeeze, Carson, why don't you just sniff their butts? And having said that, please know that I put the blame for all that at Mallozzi's door. I actually think Carson would not act like that.

And the other really annoying thing was everyone separating and also walking off alone when told to stay put. There was no reason for that. It was very poorly accomplished. Lazy, lazy writer.

There's more I dislike but hey, life is short. I just wanted to rant about the biggest annoyances.

Comments

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

I'm with you 100% on all of it. Sheppard not knowing his people really ticked me as well--it was obviously lazy "As you know, Bob" exposition. Plus, I dislike horror anyway, so this episode was a washout for me. I don't think there was a single thing to distinguish it from complete filler--no arc advancement, nothing. And, okay, an ep like "Harmony" was filler, too, but enjoyable and different. I don't see anything that distinguished this ep from Vengeance, other than it was John with a different team taking out Michael's experiments-turned-shlocky-horror-movie-fodder.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

It was just after they had all gotten back to the house (minus one) and decided to go back out again and not even in pairs, I thought, "how is this different from what we've just seen?" And it wasn't. It struck me all I was seeing is people walking around looking for their moment to spray the bad things with bullets.

This was such a waste of time.

Vengence I did like. We discovered what Michael was up to, we had nice character moments with the team that we tune in to follow, and while they were running about, the plot did advance.

You're right. Whispers was a cheap retread.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

It struck me all I was seeing is people walking around looking for their moment to spray the bad things with bullets.

Exactly. Plus, tactically it was a nightmare. Not staying where you've been put + night + fog is a recipe for friendly fire. It's only writerly convenience that nobody on the team shot one of their own, when it was all just shapes in the mist.

And how about the writerly convenience of the monster that snuck up to Carson and sniffed around before retreating, and then attacking again? Because Carson's one of our heroes, so he didn't get instantly killed the way Vega did.

Agh. The more I think about it, the more I hate it.

[margec01.livejournal.com]

Horror is not my genre, so I'm no expert, but it seems to me that people in horror movies and stories do act this stupidly. That's why I don't like the genre. Having our intrepid Atlantis COMMANDER and MARINES act this stupid is just annoying. Lazy Malozzi writing.

I did like the Major and Dusty on the all-woman team. I was prepared to like Allison, since I like Nicole DeBoer, but the cooing with Carson was annoying. And, when they were coming back into the tunnels and she was, "Oh please, I'm such a weenie, can't I stay here?" Made me want to puke. Yes, it was a bad situation. But, geez lady, you had guts enough to come to another galaxy, for God's sake! Lazy Malozzi again.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

I was actually on the edge through much of the ep because of the whole friendly fire thing. I know Mallozzi wasnt' gonna go there but nevertheless, under that situation? Somebody was gonna get shot.

And that near miss with Carson was confusing. I was thinking the thing didn't attack because maybe he sniffed Carson was a fellow Michael Monster but when it came back, it was just Mallozzi using the close call trope without actually making it make sense.

He really gets up my nose....

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

I like suspense horror as opposed to the fashionable gory, stupid-people- standing-around-waiting-to-be-killed-like-domesticated-turkeys. That's why I don't watch most horror films of late.

Usually, there is a reason for people to be left alone and therefore the next likely victim. It's been awhile since I saw Alien, but I don't recall being annoyed how stupid the characters were; it was worse because they were being smart but the alien was getting them anyway.

Mallozzi wrote The Tomb. I loved Shank's ab lib when the Russian went off and left him. He had Daniel remark how stupid the move was--which was exactly what the viewer was thinking. Shanks doesn't underestimate the viewer, while Mallozzi either does or is so lazy he doesn't care, or is so clueless about his own profession he doesn't understand the difference. :::Tenaya edits herself from REALLY going off on a Mallozzi rant here:::

Hey, good luck with the campaign. I personally think this works for TPTB and they are complicit. By that I mean, before, I think TPTB would have work harder to reach a compromise. I think with the knowledge that the movies will give them profit, they were like, "renew us or not, but we're not gonna meet you halfway in the negotiations."

Lazy bastards.

[margec01.livejournal.com]

"Now you go down the dark hallway alone, while I stay here alone." LOL One of my favorite Daniel lines, which I quote frequently. In fact, I actually SAID that outloud to the TV when they kept splitting up. Sooooo stupid.

I agree with you about TPTB--in the goodbye video here:
http://community.livejournal.com/fight_for_sga/22107.html

Did you see good old Brad Wright saying it's the "best thing" we could have? Yeah, ONE 2-hour movie instead of 20 hours of TV. Ass. He and Cooper have been wanting to do the new series for two years now.

I just read that the last day of shooting is September 19. I'm done campaigning after that. It's probably too late already, but I'm sure it will be too late then.