Does the history of Stargate: Universe's failure reveal things about Star Trek: Discovery?

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

In the late 2000s, the Stargate franchise, known for using Star Trek's episodic formula to create a great expansive setting in the same style (Stargate SG-1 being perhaps the best expression of the format outside of Star Trek itself), was spun off into a show that was aimed at a more general audience, but decried for being a drab soap opera. In truth, Stargate already had an appealing, very diverse cast, playing professional characters of every race and gender, but they were perhaps considered, in their respectability and heroism, to not be edgy enough. Comments from YouTube sound familiar:

Sexier, younger audience led to SGU which made every episode a soap opera and lead to completely random plot developments to make the show interesting. / Younger, sexier audience" And they failed miserably doing that. No one wanted a Stargate soap opera.
​

Joe Flannigan (sitting next to Star Trek: Voyager's Garret Wang) reveals he offered to actually lease the Stargate franchise and produce new classic style episodes by filming in Europe, and that the TV shows earned far more money than the film. Although I personally liked Atlantis less than SG-1, it had substantial viewership. Yet, as he tells it, the studios were more concerned with uncritically following business trends, than in the good business sense of continuing a profitable niche. One wonders if the very fact of the TV-sci-fi sub-genre (perhaps attracting an audience that likes the exploration of technological possibility), precludes soap trends of arbitrary plotting, attracting viewers predisposed to a more sober technological outlook? Did they instead derive their hook through inverting the emotional payoff to exploration of the new, of ideas, rather than preposterous chance? Did MGM understand their product?

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Soap operas are famous (infamous) for keeping audiences hooked by dropping extremely unlikely plot developments right at the end of an episode, to make audiences who are un-jaded to such obvious manipulation, coming back to see what happened next week, even if what happens is not very satisfying - the cycle is more like an addiction than entertainment. The trope is so infamous in British soaps, that phrases like "this will be the best Christmas Walford's ever had" (because Eastenders comes up with some ridiculous plot every Christmas, like a bomb, or a murder), have been parodied and referenced in Doctor Who.

Soap is thus synonymous in many people's minds with lack of quality. I hear people in work all the time complaining about how boring The Walking Dead is, how little they enjoy it, how repetitive it is, but that they felt too invested to stop. We are supposedly in a golden age of TV, but there is a large profusion of soap opera style writing, masked within in high budget drama - we had shows like Lost who's entire structure was just about giving the 'soap opera hook' a greater veneer of respectability by upping the cinematography/budget/filming locations, and obscuring the fact they were leading audiences on, behind the lie that it all meant something.

It strikes me that the Star Trek fan base is going through what Stargate fans did in 2009. The two shows, plus Battlestar Galactica, which itself had a fair degree of soap moments in it, even share a ludicrous visual similarity, with obscure dark aesthetics and Dutch angles. Does Star Trek Discovery really help the Star Trek brand, by taking it away from one of it's fundamental appeals, and placing it in another genre?

Star Trek Discovery currently stands as a 7.4 on IMDB, below shows like Dark Matter, and while it is more popular by virtue of marketing and brand recognition, will it be a product that pays dividends in the long run like TNG, or be forgotton like SGU?

 

[cultcross]

Star Trek Discovery currently stands as a 7.4 on IMDB, below shows like Dark Matter, and while it is more popular by virtue of marketing and brand recognition, will it be a product that pays dividends in the long run like TNG, or be forgotton like SGU?

I don't put a lot of stock in this sort of rating when it comes to franchise shows with polarised fanbases like Star Trek, Star Wars and, indeed even Stargate. Like the episode polls on this forum, you get a disproportionate number of people showing up to constantly rate it either 1 or 10, regardless of the actual content, and any sensible measure of general audience appreciation is lost.

I would dispute that Discovery is similar to SGU, in either content or execution. SGU's main criticism early on was twofold - it was dull, and it was dark to the point of being unpleasant. I don't feel either of those things about DSC. My main criticisms of Discovery are ill thought out plot lines, and a chafing amount of fanwank. SGU tried to copy BSG and ended up with horrible characters doing something nonsensical on a ship. There was no reason for it to even be a Stargate show, they had to come up with the absurd contrivance of the 'seeder ships' to shoehorn the Stargate itself into the show, it would have worked better as a standalone sci-fi premise, but was trading on the brand name. Discovery, love it or hate it, fits in its franchise. Cut it in half, it reads 'Star Trek' all the way through like a stick of rock. In fact, one of its biggest flaws is it can't quite shake the tropes and clichés that come with that name.

I think there is one similarity to draw here, though. I adored Stargate SG-1, it is probably my favourtie TV sci-fi show ever. But like any other, it ran low on ideas. It had done all its twists, pulled all the party poppers and killed the Boss so many times you lost count. Atlantis started with a strong premise but never quite capitalised on it and kept redoing what its parent show had already done. It played it safe and kept going back to the same well. Ratings were heading steadily downhill. The accompanying movie series was increasingly contrived and ran itself into the ground unceremoniously. The existing cast and crew kept pitching ideas for new content that was very similar to or just flat out remade what had gone before. If this is sounding familiar, it should. It's 90s Trek. Joe Flanigan's pitch sounds like the 'Captain Worf' of that franchise - boldly going where the shows before had already gone, multiple times. What SGU did at the very least was try something new. It had a rocky start, and shed viewers like a dog shaking off water. But in its second season it found its feet and decided what it wanted to be, where it wanted to take its own story, instead of rehashing and riffing off what had gone before. It was too late. Let's hope that Discovery decides what it wants to be quicker, and more definitively, because I think it could be really something. It's already got a head start, because even at its weakest it is watchable and fun, something SGU s1 kept missing.

 

[F. King Daniel]

While I see an obvious visual and tonal similarity between Stargate Universe and Star Trek: Discovery, the former IMHO had an utterly rubbish first season and failed to generate any likeable or memorable characters (save for Robert Carlyle, who is always awesome). Discovery has had a first season which I thought ranged from watchable to good and I know who everyone is.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

One thing I didn't mention above, when talking about the difference between the 'hook' in soap opera, and the 'hook' in TV sci-fi, is that previous shows of the TV sci-fi genre also aspired to reveal truths. Farscape, Stargate, Star Trek, Firefly and Babylon 5 all tried to reveal more than just what emotional hooks make people tune into a soap.

You know what they say the definition of art is; that it aspires to reveal truth - something fundamentally true about our existence. Without trying to sound overly rose tinted about what television sci-fi, I feel like, for example, Babylon 5 was different from a soap not just because it rejected the tropes of soap opera in favor of more sober plotting, but because across it's five year journey it also revealed timeless issues, no matter how well, surrounding our existence, like what is justice, what truth is worth, etc.

I just mention that as a contrast with say Eastenders, or Lost, or something, which reveal how people experience anger, pain, betrayal, infidelity, loss, etc, but don't often explore beyond family saga, broken relationships, etc, and also mire their characters in constant breakdown to keep going.

While I see an obvious visual and tonal similarity between Stargate Universe and Star Trek: Discovery, the former IMHO had an utterly rubbish first season and failed to generate any likeable or memorable characters (save for Robert Carlyle, who is always awesome). Discovery has had a first season which I thought ranged from watchable to good and I know who everyone is.

I would dispute that Discovery is similar to SGU, in either content or execution. SGU's main criticism early on was twofold - it was dull, and it was dark to the point of being unpleasant. I don't feel either of those things about DSC.

Star Trek: Discovery is not as tonally dark as Stargate: Universe, or Battlestar Galactica, I agree with what you have said in the past, it isn't actually a full-on Warhammer 40,000 grimdark show by any means. Like I said in the thread on pros and cons, it also brings back a lot of color into Star Trek, in terms of actually showing new aliens and strange devices, a bit of variety, etc.

But they share one thing in common, beyond aesthetics: use of soap opera.

Universe, looking back hazily, contained a lot of arbitrary plot development made to basically introduce cliched interpersonal conflict, such as people sleeping with each other's wives in surrogate bodies via FTL communications, or murders of secondary cast members who everybody likes via said FTL system, etc. I'm sure there are more examples. BSG in it's final season went the whole hog with soap cliche, with the Final Five Cylons being arbitrarily revealed from five random cast members, followed by the ensuing hidden identity stuff.

I don't put a lot of stock in this sort of rating when it comes to franchise shows with polarised fanbases like Star Trek, Star Wars and, indeed even Stargate.

I understand completely.

I honestly don't put much stock in critical reviews either, since they can miss the point, be written from a position of ignorance, and perjure the viewer with expectations. Sites like say Metacritic, largely get in the way of constructive criticism. In this case, I was sort of using the IMDB rating as short hand to say, that the show has not been without a significant backlash, from a number of viewers, but should have just said as much.

My main criticisms of Discovery are ill thought out plot lines, and a chafing amount of fanwank.

Yeah, that has been my main problem with the show too. I also think it can be solved, but there needs to be real change in philosophy within the writers room, and an understanding of what is wrong to begin with, which is by no means guaranteed if the writers feel the current show is acceptable as it stands.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I think SGU was rather dull. I like DSC a lot more.

 

[DaveyNY]

IMO ... The problem with SG:U was that is was too damn dark and depressing.

Folks get enough depressing stuff tossed into their lives on a daily basis, they really don't want it week after week in their entertainment.
As an example I believe that's part of the reason why MARVEL movies do so much better than DC movies...
DC = Depressing Reality
Marvel = Fun Comic book Adventures

Even Battlestar Galactica figured that out after a while, tossing in some light-heartedness in each episode kept it from being completely bleak and dreary.
(till They fubar'd the ending)

DISCOVERY has had some lighthearted moments this season, but I'll bet dollars-2-doughnuts that the 2nd Season has more levity in it and will score better than Season 1 has.
<shrug>

 

[cultcross]

But they share one thing in common, beyond aesthetics: use of soap opera.

Universe, looking back hazily, contained a lot of arbitrary plot development made to basically introduce cliched interpersonal conflict, such as people sleeping with each other's wives in surrogate bodies via FTL communications, or murders of secondary cast members who everybody likes via said FTL system, etc. I'm sure there are more examples. BSG in it's final season went the whole hog with soap cliche, with the Final Five Cylons being arbitrarily revealed from five random cast members, followed by the ensuing hidden identity stuff.

I'm not sure how Discovery fits into being a 'soap opera' under your definition? If anything, there have been complaints that the characters and their relationships are neglected in favour of plot development. Whether it executes it particularly well or not, Discovery is definitely trying to speak to themes, truths, etc - the writer interviews reveal this even if, sadly, the actual writing often does not. SGU got its act together in the second season on this front too, and started to ask questions about purpose, the human condition and ethics. BSG is a little different. In many ways BSG was a well written soap opera by your definition from day one. While there is something of a dubious underlying plotline of a cylon 'plan', allusions to Mormon beliefs and the vague moral which begins 'all this has happened before...', it is really a show about people and relationships between them, and even presents multiple versions of the same people to allow those relationships to take multiple routes simultaneously. BSG is a character piece through and through, and actually it is when the plot starting taking over that I feel it lost its way.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

I think there is one similarity to draw here, though. I adored Stargate SG-1, it is probably my favourtie TV sci-fi show ever. But like any other, it ran low on ideas. It had done all its twists, pulled all the party poppers and killed the Boss so many times you lost count. Atlantis started with a strong premise but never quite capitalised on it and kept redoing what its parent show had already done. It played it safe and kept going back to the same well. Ratings were heading steadily downhill. The accompanying movie series was increasingly contrived and ran itself into the ground unceremoniously.

I also adored the show, but this is where I differ in opinion, somewhat. I agree that Stargate ran low on ideas.... until season 9, when the introduction of the Ori, which I think was one of the greatest turnarounds in a TV show I've seen, suddenly addressing issues very close to our present , like the conflict between free thought and creationism in schools, what the price of giving up free thought could be. You see, I don't think that Stargate SG-1, or Star Trek: Voyager's problem, was ever that ideas were running out (ideas are infinite), but that the presentation and formulation of those ideas by a tired and jaded writing team was the issue. They didn't see possibilities anymore, only constraints.

We have been using the same character tropes since the Greeks, so whenever I hear friends argue that a show ran out of ideas, I don't think that this is alone what accounts for them becoming stale, or else all drama would have died centuries ago from over-saturation - I could watch the same science and interesting plots from here to the end of time without getting bored provided they were presented with new enthusiasm and nuance. The ratings of these shows were slowly heading down, sometimes by sheer virtue of their length, with new viewers unlikely to join in season 10 of a show.

With Star Trek, I don't think the formula that it followed in the 90s was really the problem, more that possibility and enthusiasm within the writing teams was drying up. Hence why people have responded warmly to the Orville re-hashing some of TNG, SG-1 and Voyager's more famous episodes. They found new earnestness and relevance in old stories.

P.S. I also thought Atlantis wasted it's premise, and I think Joe's idea does sound like "Captain Worf", but I think he was just making the purely business observation that it was still profitable.

 

[cultcross]

I also adored the show, but this is where I differ in opinion, somewhat. I agree that Stargate ran low on ideas.... until season 9, when the introduction of the Ori, which I think was one of the greatest turnarounds in a TV show I've seen, suddenly addressing issues very close to our present , like the conflict between free thought and creationism in schools, what the price of giving up free thought could be.

I just saw the Ori as warmed up Goa'uld. While I enjoyed seasons 9 and 10 more on a recent re-watch than I did at the time because there is some good character stuff in there, I still found the Ori an uninspired route to take. On a different show, it would have worked, but aliens-posing-as-Gods was literally what the last bad guy was. And the difficult but interesting question that the Ori actually raise - 'well, what is a God?' is largely ignored in favour of pew pew and technobabble.

You see, I don't think that Stargate SG-1, or Star Trek: Voyager's problem, was ever that ideas were running out (ideas are infinite), but that the presentation and formulation of those ideas by a tired and jaded writing team was the issue. They didn't see possibilities anymore, only constraints.

This, however, I entirely agree with. The creative team in both franchises was quite stagnant, and this meant that the things that had made the franchise interesting became limitations on later change. Fear of undoing what was good about the show meant that they were afraid to try anything new - like the Ori, they rehashed what had gone before. Eventually, it is high budget fan fiction based on the first few seasons. This is why someone like Joe Flannigan would have been exactly the wrong sort of person to do a Stargate show, and why Trek ideas like 'Captain Worf' or 'Captain Sulu' would have just been terrible.

Hence why people have responded warmly to the Orville re-hashing some of TNG, SG-1 and Voyager's more famous episodes. They found new earnestness and relevance in old stories.

The Orville is something I just can't get into. Wink-at-the-camera plagiarism of 90s Star Trek with swearing to make it 'modern'. Not sold.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

I'm not sure how Discovery fits into being a 'soap opera' under your definition? If anything, there have been complaints that the characters and their relationships are neglected in favour of plot development. Whether it executes it particularly well or not, Discovery is definitely trying to speak to themes, truths, etc - the writer interviews reveal this even if, sadly, the actual writing often does not. SGU got its act together in the second season on this front too, and started to ask questions about purpose, the human condition and ethics. BSG is a little different. In many ways BSG was a well written soap opera by your definition from day one. While there is something of a dubious underlying plotline of a cylon 'plan', allusions to Mormon beliefs and the vague moral which begins 'all this has happened before...', it is really a show about people and relationships between them, and even presents multiple versions of the same people to allow those relationships to take multiple routes simultaneously. BSG is a character piece through and through, and actually it is when the plot starting taking over that I feel it lost its way.

Perhaps what you have just said reveals something about the nature of soaps, i.e. that they are not actually character driven as we commonly understand it (character 'development'), but driven by 'reactions' to absurd plot developments. If that is the case, then DSC neglecting characterization, whilst still being soap-like, actually makes sense, now that I think about it. Lets think back to TNG (or SG-1), and it's characterization; many audiences love Data and his quest to be human, his relationship to Picard, and Picard's to Worf. Were they 'developed', the way that Wesley in Buffy/Angel developed from a sheltered prodigy into an inarguable bad-ass taking on massive moral responsibility without consulting people. No. But they were also not constantly just there to react to acts of personal infidelity or look shocked at hidden spies, they supported each other, made mistakes, learnt things anew, revealed motives and so on. They were well characterized without developing I guess.

The Orville is something I just can't get into. Wink-at-the-camera plagiarism of 90s Star Trek with swearing to make it 'modern'. Not sold.

I came into The Orville out of watching "Cosmos" with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, produced by Seth MacFarlane with Brannon Braga - having seen interviews on Bill Maher's show that lays bare MacFarlane's progressivism - and knowing that he literally worships TOS and TNG - that he reverently interviewed Braga/Moore/Shankar/Echiavarra on the Blu Rays - and has talked about how optimistic TNG was at award ceremonies.

So, within that context, the show has a very different meaning for me. It brings back veterans like Brannon Braga, Andre Bormantis, Jonathan Frakes and Robert Duncan McNeil to the place where they cut their teeth in the industry. It's a man who has genuine love for the material saying "hey look, science fiction does not have to be what studios want to make it into, full of distrust, it can educate and inspire, and reveal injustice". I respect him so much for that conviction. Who knows how he had to fight the studio system to get a show like that made today, probably by convincing them it was a sitcom.

 

[Xerxus]

Stargate Universe was my favourite series in that franchise, and I definitely see some similar sentiments between that and Discovery. A large subset of audience members are just accepting of any major changes in storytelling, or are unwilling to stick around for a payoff late in the season/series. Late Atlantis and SG1 was just not doing much for me and I felt like the writers were tired of that format. Over the years I think I feel that the general sentiment has come around on SGU, similar to Enterprise.

 

[Hythlodeus]

I can't really comment about the SG franchise. I saw the movie and liked it, even though it was pretty dänikenesque. Then years later watched the pilot to the TV show, couldn't accept McGyver as Kurt Russel and Whatshisface as James Fucking Spader and immediatly gave up on that show.

But I can comment on 'soap opera' elements in DISCO, which means, I don't think there aren't any. The show is character driven, there are one or two plot twists, that aren't so much twists as turns and it is of course serialized, which, in this day and age, is pretty much standard for high profile shows. does that make it a soap? If one considers Breaking Bad a soap, maybe. But I really wouldn't accept a definition so broad that almost all shows televised at the moment would be included.

 

[Butters]

I hadn’t thought of Discovery as being soapy, but I am thinking it’s a fair assessment.

I’ve gone from my initial reaction of, ‘yay, trek is back, where’s that dancing banana emoticon thing’, to a more muted, ‘oh yeah, Discovery is on tonight’.

I’m not quite in a position where I can satisfactorily articulate my feelings yet, but the soap/SGU comparison strikes a chord. I’ll stick with it, but it’s losing me.

 

[eschaton]

I've never watched SGU, but soapiness is nothing new to Trek. DS9 was decried at the time as being "space drama," and even TNG had a fair number of soapy plotlines.

 

[The Wormhole]

SGU's main problem is that no one really knew what to do with the show. Because BSG was so in vogue at the time, and perhaps even in response to the fact that BSG producers Ron Moore and David Eick were regularly making digs at Stargate, it was somehow decided to abandon the fun and upbeat action adventure series SG-1 and Atlantis were and turn grim-dark and character oriented. To be fair, SG-1 was waning a bit in its later years when RDA left, and Atlantis had gotten itself into a bit of a rut in its third season and the attempts to break free of that were arguably doing more damage to the show, so I can see a bit of a desire to try something different. The problem is, SGU is an attempt at character drama by people who were clearly more familiar with action adventure and it shows.

A lot of SGU seemed to be done under the belief that slow and plodding means the same thing as deep and thoughtful and therefore automatically equals good. The storylines took forever to develop and never really went anywhere, and the attempts at character conflict left much to be desired. The show seemed intent to make everyone want to think the character of Dr. Rush was a shady bastard and seemed to want to present him as one at every turn, despite there being no real evidence to suggest he had an ulterior motive. The whole thing was just an attempt at aping BSG in the hopes of getting its popularity and prestige.

I don't really get the same vibes with Disco. The show is a mess, and a lot of that I suspect has to do with Fuller's dismissal forcing others to pick up the pieces and figure shit out for themselves. There's a lot of behind the scenes drama as we can see with there being twenty credited producers, and the whole thing with switching visual effects companies at the very last moment, resulting in the show's very cheap looking spaceship exteriors, but overall the season has improved as its progressed. I can definitely say as season 1 of Disco comes to a close it has me more interested than SGU did when its first season ended. Hopefully things are smoothed out enough that season 2 of Disco can be better, though this show still has a long ways to go before it becomes good.

 

[Fateor]

The problem with shows like Lost, Battlestar, and SG:U that rely on "what's the answer to the mystery" or "what will happen next" to keep viewers around is that once you know the answer there's no real reason to watch it anymore.

Comparatively character driven shows like all the previous Trek and Stargate one's keep you coming back to watch them again and again because you like the characters.

 

[Relayer1]

...the Stargate franchise, known for using Star Trek's episodic formula to create a great expansive setting in the same style (Stargate SG-1 being perhaps the best expression of the format outside of Star Trek itself), was spun off into a show that was aimed at a more general audience, but decried for being a drab soap opera.

I hear people in work all the time complaining about how boring The Walking Dead is, how little they enjoy it, how repetitive it is, but that they felt too invested to stop.

I liked SGU a great deal, especially season two. Also Battlestar Galactica and Discovery.

I must admit though, I quit Walking Dead after (I think) season five, when I decided that invested as I was, I ought to watch the spin-off too and that would mean watching two shows that I bored the ass off me...

 

[Silversmok3]

The crux of the problem is money.

When BSG ended it won critical acclaim for being a sci fi show which was so well executed normal,non space opera fans could enjoy it. That show was the Game of Thrones of its day, because a Battlestar Galactica episode is deep in a way plucky SG1 and Atlantis isn’t. Which is Ok- they’re different shows with different tones.Studios saw the acclaim BSG got and then tried to warp every science fiction franchise into BSG copycats with universally terrible results.SGU was a sad ,sad series for the same reason Discovery isn’t doing so hot at the end; weak plots and nonsensical ,inconsistent characters .

The formula is simple; sensible plots,consistent characters, and high order consequences. Unfortunately most sci fi shows,Trek included,only followed this occasionally. BSGs worst episode (Black Market) is still better then the quality we see watching Discovery.

 

[Mudd]

It's true that there's not much popularity polling outside of sites controlled by Trek fans that shows STD as particularly well-liked by the audience at large. Both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes show fairly high critics' scores for the show, and mediocre - at best - audience scores.

One of those groups - critics or viewers - has a lot of influence on the future of a project.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

But I can comment on 'soap opera' elements in DISCO, which means, I don't think there aren't any. The show is character driven, there are one or two plot twists, that aren't so much twists as turns and it is of course serialized, which, in this day and age, is pretty much standard for high profile shows. does that make it a soap? If one considers Breaking Bad a soap, maybe. But I really wouldn't accept a definition so broad that almost all shows televised at the moment would be included.

I've never watched SGU, but soapiness is nothing new to Trek. DS9 was decried at the time as being "space drama," and even TNG had a fair number of soapy plotlines.

Okay, I think perhaps the difference between the soap opera elements in a show might be something like, whether the plot just exists to arbitrarily serve to complicate characters lives, or whether it exists to tell a realistic story, and the characters react to the natural-seeming events.

One of the best examples of an episode in which plot is married beautifully to character, is the SG-1 episode dealing with a black hole, which is an astounding 45 minute piece of sci-fi drama. SG-1 opens up a wormhole to another planet, to locate a missing team, but finds that the images from the other side appear to be frozen. They come to realize that the planet is in the process of being pulled into a black hole, so the team is undergoing time dilation, and cannot possibly be saved. Gravity begins to pull objects through the gate, which cannot be shut down, or destroyed. It escalates into a national emergency, with the government taking appropriate and believable responses.

The episode has characterization and interpersonal drama, like O'Neil not wanting to witness the death of a team of soldiers for the sake of science, being unable to save them, and encountering an old comrade from the Gulf War who he resents for leaving him in Iraqi hands. Carter is a one-woman exposition-machine who makes the physics of the situation sound impressive and earnest - the entire drama is caused by a physics problem basically, even if a fictional one. Nothing happens that is particularly contrived, even if the science is 'speculative', it feels like a real emergency situation being dealt with by a team of professional space explorers.

But at no point does anything obviously statistically absurd happen, just to cause terrible emotional turmoil for these military professionals - such as a Klingon who's bones have been ground down, and marrow replaced, getting triggered as a sleeper agent and breaking the neck of their beloved medical officer, having a colleague hide his condition, having sex with her, and then almost killing her while trapped in disguise on a mirror-goatee-universe ship of their Nazi doppelgangers.

Although Breaking Bad is a drama that largely focuses around characters being in situations that emotionally traumatize them, it's naturalistic - a home made drug lord might well find himself coming into conflict with an existing cartel - it's not implausible within context.

This week, I watched one of my favorite series of science fiction novels be adapted into a TV drama by Netflix - Altered Carbon - and while the adaptation wasn't bad, and the show was entertaining as pure popcorn - it was soooooooooo 2010s in one respect. They absolutely could not resist adding to a beautifully plausible book, unlikely personal contrivance. Characters that are not related in the books are now siblings, just for extra feels, when the book knew where to draw the line to maintain a natural feel. Characters that plausibly exist as different personalities, are now rolled into one, where they are distinct for good reason in the novels. Someone going into it blind is still gonna enjoy it, its the best cyberpunk series we have perhaps ever had on TV, but when every dime-a-dozen genre show from the Arrow-verse to random ABC or SyFy's stuff foists unlikely contrivance into plots, it makes you really wonder whether writing rooms are somehow horribly pressed for time that they can't think of a more likely reason for something.

Whatshisface as James Fucking Spader

This made me smile Shanks was actually great (the whole cast of SG-1 was in fact legendary), but he often jokes about the James Spader thing. With SG-1 what you have to understand is that the TV franchise has nothing to do with the movie franchise, and is a lot better in many people's eyes - it became it's own thing, much closer to Trek.

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The formula is simple; sensible plots,consistent characters, and high order consequences.

Nice way to put it.

"Sensible plots", if only sci-fi did them any more.