A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Spoiler-Filled Discussion

The Hugo Awards were given out tonight. Game of Thrones won in Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, with "Blackwater" beating out three episodes of Doctor Who, which had won the category in six of the previous seven years, and an episode of Fringe. George R. R. Martin and Rory McCann accepted the award.

 

Blackwater?? That was two seasons ago...

 

The Hugos took nominations months ago for the previous year.

 

Doctor Who won six times? No wonder I don't pay attention to the Hugo awards anymore. Used to be it was a big deal (and been watching Fringe, it's not bad.)

 

What Sci Fi shows have been popular these last few years? Doctor Who pretty much has had zero competition.

 

That's not true. I even just mentioned one by name, which only concluded this year. Go back a couple of years and you have Battlestar Galactica and (since we're defining contenders broadly enough to include Game of Thrones) Lost. And then there's various other programs that have achieved a degree of critical praise - Dollhouse, Alphas, Akta Manniskor, Les Revenants...

Turning what was once a pretty competitive drama category into a sustained Doctor Who victory lap (and look at this year, what, three Who nominations?) was around the point I could no longer take it seriously.

 

Yeah. I like Doctor Who a lot, but it's ridiculously over-represented in Hugo nominations and wins, to a point where I'm pleased to see something else win, even though I don't think "Blackwater" and Game of Thrones are that great either. Doctor Who has had three of the five nominations in six of the eight years it's been eligible; in both of the other years it had two, and in one of those years there was also a Torchwood episode nominated.

Of course, in the couple years before Who that the Short Form category existed, it was dominated by Joss Whedon shows, and I'm sure if the category had existed before that it would have been heavy on Star Trek. There's probably always going to be some franchise or writer fandom is disproportionately obsessed with, just as the same famous names get put up for the prose awards regardless of the quality of their latest.

 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire beat A Storm of Swords to the Hugo.


They don't know shit.

 

Back in the old category, Star Trek: The Next Generation won twice, which is the same number of times as Babylon 5.

And it's not just that Doctor Who wins almost every year, but that it is nominated multiple times, which mostly suggests the voters aren't watching much else genre TV besides Doctor Who (and just looking at the list here, Fringe was nominated exactly one time, Battlestar Galactica was nominated several times but literally never won...)

 

It's hard to be objective but I'd definitely say that The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Amy's Choice, Vincent and The Doctor, The Girl Who Waited and The Name of The Doctor deserved nominations.

There does seem to be some dumb Doctor Who that's been nominated just for the sake of it though. Planet of the Dead and The Next Doctor were nominated! That's just embarrassing. The Waters of Mars beat The Constant? Nonsense.

 

Actually, I think Dr. Horrible beat The Constant. Which is just as baffling IMO.

 

Right, but the old category was so dominated by films (65 of 75 nominees in the period Star Trek shows were on the air) that it's impossible to say what would have gotten the nod if there was a separate short form category. I'm sure Babylon 5 would have been as visible as Star Trek during its run, but I'm not sure that being dominated by two (uneven) franchises is better than being dominated by one.

It's not that they aren't watching other shows, it's that they're hardcore enough fans, and caught up in fandom enough, to feel that any Doctor Who is superior to everything else. It's the same reason Seanan McGuire, an obviously mediocre writer but prolific and visible in prose fiction fandom, got a record five nominations this year in prose categories. Hugo voters don't do nuanced analysis of quality; they go with what they and their friends have fun with.

 

Not as annoying as subpar even for RTD wannabe blockbuster shlock being nominated alongside great science-fiction like Epitaph One. I wonder who Michelle Ryan had to blow for that nomination?

 

I'd say yes, by definition. It's not a perfect situation either but rival TV shows alternating wins is by definition better than the same show primarily competing against itself, and certainly better than the 'rival' show (in this case, Battlestar Galactica) never winning once.

And really, uneven is a given. Has there ever been a genre series that was 1. consistently good and 2. not cancelled before it could have a second season?

Which is precisely the problem. This should be a judgement of sci-fi TV, not Doctor Who and occasionally maybe that alternate universe episode of that American sitcom that has its own take on Doctor Who.

 

Yeah, I suppose it's minimally preferable, although "alternating wins" is something of a stretch; I imagine B5 would have won pretty much in the years it did anyway, with Trek dominating otherwise. I should have written "is much better than being dominated by one." At this point, with Game of Thrones likely to be a serious contender for the next couple years at least, we're back to that scenario anyway. At least it isn't two space-based SF franchises this time.

My larger point is that the problem isn't Doctor Who or Doctor Who fans in particular, but that having what is essentially a TV episodes category means that the current flavor of the year will dominate. Doctor Who is especially bad because it's especially popular, but if you take it out of the nomination lists, you get ballots that are less skewed, but still heavy on Whedon, Abrams, Galactica.

Well, there's probably never been any TV series that meets those criteria. But I think SFF on TV has remained wildly uneven at a time when other genres are becoming more consistent. (SFF is also better than it was, God knows, but not to the same degree.) Which is why there's an upper limit to my frustration with Doctor Who's domination of the category: variety is always nice, but I'm hard pressed to believe anything that lost to it deserved to be thought of as great science fiction. Maybe "Epitaph One" was that good-- I keep meaning to give Dollhouse another shot-- and The Lost Thing probably deserved better than fifth place behind a music video. Actually, that's the biggest shame about the Short Form category: that genuinely interesting and unusual short films are likely to be shut out in favor of TV episodes and comedy sketches.

 

You've said this twice now but the S1 premiere, 33 won the Hugo.

 

The Hugos are voted on by attendees and members of WorldCon. If you want something else to win next year, then get your ass a membership for the next one and throw your nomination in.

 

Being nominated for a Hugo is meaningless. Very BAD episodes of Trek have been nominated like TNG's "Encounter at Farpoint" and ENT's "A Night in Sickbay". Only winners should count!

 

So it turns out that Mark Gatiss is playing Tycho Nestoris. That's the name of the emissary from the Iron Bank who reaches Stannis at the end of A Dance with Dragons. I'd guess that Tycho will be combined with Noho Dimittis, the Iron Bank emissary Cersei sends away in Feast-- I had forgotten they were separate characters. It may be that the Iron Bank strand is being emphasized earlier on the show than in the books, or that an awful lot of Feast material is in the latter half of season four.

 

I imagine they'll show Tywin and/or Tyrion haggling with him, for contrast when Cersei completely messes things up the following year.

Another new casting suggesting there will be foreshadowing of A Feast For Crows elements this season: "Bronze" Yohn Royce, Lord of Runestone.