*hugs* post for SGA fans

[tielan]

Those prompts I asked for this morning? I'm not really in the mood to write them right now. *hugs* to the people who offered them and encouragement to me this morning. I needed it.

Fandom is a group experience and this post is the LJ therapy couch for the not-too-posty elements of my f-list. Tell Dr. T all about your Stargate Atlantis experience: what got you in, when you realised it was your crack, and what you're going to take from it.

Technically, SG1 was my first fandom. I played, wrote, made friends, bitched, got bitched out, had a ball, and ultimately walked away because I didn't like how the show was going. Then SG1 led into SGA.

I got into the show partly because of the SG1 lead-in, but mostly because of Teyla. Nothing more, nothing less. She was the magnet that drew me into activities beyond merely watching he show. This is probably why it took to the end of Season One for me to go, "Oh, now I get this show!" I was ambivalent about the whole shipping thing, although I liked the John/Teyla dynamic. I liked it, but it didn't bother me that it wasn't going anywhere. John/Teyla fandom wasn't very active at the time, so I mostly wrote gen with a John/Teyla UST thing and hoped to find someone else who liked John/Teyla whose work I could appreciate.

I'm not sure I realised when it was my crack, to be honest. It just...snuck up on me. Possibly around 2005, when I wrote 'To Serve A Queen' and realised that I'd just put 50,000+ words into a fanfic about two characters who'd never actually get together on the show in an AU where they did get together and had super speshul powerz.

That was probably a watermark moment for me. "Yeah, I'm in deep. WAY deep."

Oddly enough, though, SGA has been both an up and down ride for me - partly because I can't count on the show to be constant in the things I watch it for - not the way I can with something like Bones. I want Teyla, I want team, I'm not into the John/Rodney relationship, and I wanted the show to focus on Pegasus, not on Earth and the "white peoplez".

For me, it's sort of a relief to know the end of the rollercoaster is in sight.

I will miss my show and the characters I love and the people I've met through them but with whom I haven't had the opportunity to form bonds that go beyond SGA. But I won't grieve for what won't be. I might grieve for what could have been, but wasn't; but I don't think I can feel unadulterated loss for something that wasn't measuring up to my expectations (enjoyable though it might have been).

What I will celebrate is that I've come out of the fandom with new friends, new perspectives, and another layer of fandom skin. I think. I don't know that I'll ever get into another fandom the way I did with SG1 and SGA - they were my first real fannish experiences.

What was your fannish experience with SGA?

Comments

[rhianona]

I got into Stargate because of Ben Browder and Claudia Black. In fact, if you look on my journal, you can see the entries for when I first started watching them. SGA was about to start it's second season when I decided to give SG-1 a try and, after managing to acquire the SGA episodes, I actually watched those before I started SG-1.

I have a love-hate relationship with SGA. I love John as a character. He appeals to me in ways that I really can't explain properly. I love the potential of Teyla. I also love the potential of the show. Am I surprised they cancelled it? Not really. In some ways, I think the show was doomed from the moment they decided to essentially recreate SG-1, except in a different galaxy. It was further doomed with the reconnection to Earth so early on and the decision to not focus on the possible diplomatic solution Elizabeth could have provided.

What I grieve for most, is what I consider the death knell for the Sci Fi channel. Rather than produce actually good programs, they have opted to go the sci fi lite route with shows like Eureka. Now, don't get me wrong. I actually really like Eureka. I think it is tightly written and well acted and interesting. but it is not sci fi. Skiffy had a chance to become the gathering place for geeks by producing well put together science fiction television shows. Instead, we get crap like Flash Gordon and Pain Killer Jane. SGA had potential that was squandered away, in part because the writers and producers had their interests split between SGA and SG-1. I am not impressed with the fact that in the same article in which they announced the cancellation, it was written that the two producers pitched a third series to Sci Fi.

I also do not think it is fair to compare numbers between SGA and Eureka when one show is on Tuesdays and the other is on Friday nights. I am an adult who likes to go out on Friday nights. I DVR because of that. But I'm not going out on Tuesday nights, so can sit home and watch it.

I honestly don't know where Skiffy is going to go after this year. BSG is ending after they finally air the last half of season 4. Their contract with Dr. Who ends this year, and according to rumor, the BBC is exploring whether they want to renew the contract or move it to BBC America as they did with Torchwood. SGA is ending. They have Eureka and Ghost Hunters. That is the extent of their original programming that remains. This to me seems to hint that Skiffy is falling down on their purpose and I find that sad.

Part 1 of 2

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

How did I start watching the show?

Like vipersweb, I came to SGA through the twisty route of following Ben Browder and Claudia Black. Farscape remains my favorite TV show of all time and I think one of the most innovative and fully realized TV shows ever. When I heard Ben and Claudia were going to be on SG-1, I had to watch it. Before that, I'd seen the original Stargate movie when it came out and loved it, but never really got into the TV show. We didn't get Showtime when it was on there and I never really took time to sit down and watch more than a random episode here and there and since I fucking hated what I'd seen of (postS2) Daniel and don't particularly care for Jack, I never bothered to go back and find the early eps. Until Ben and Claudia came on board. Then sometime in mid 2007 I started getting the DVDs starting at the beginning from Netflix.

I'd seen commercials for SGA on TV and when I'd see John, Ronon, or Teyla I'd go "Damn, they're pretty! Oh, and this is the show with David Hewlett. I really need to check it out." But I never got around to it. When I started going through the SG1 seasons, I was planning to wait until I got to the point in the series where SGA originally branched off on its own before I started getting caught up on those DVDs, but it turns out I couldn't wait that long. I've developed a fondness for SG1, but not really an intense love. I don't like Jack and Daniel, but I would happily have watched 10 seasons of the Sam-n-Teal'c Show (which would later become the Sam-n-Teal'c-n-Mitchell-n-Vala Show), but that's not what I was really getting on the screen, so I decided to skip ahead to SGA which looked like it would appeal more to me.

And boy, did it ever! I loved it intensely from the very first episode. I've said before that the potential of a work often excites me as much, if not more, than the actual piece itself, and SGA had a shitload of potential! The whole new galaxy with no way back surrounded by fascinating new technology and creepy ass space vampires thing? Hells yeah! I found a lot of the stories very exciting and fun and had a much darker edge I thought was missing on SG1 and I thought for sure it would get even better as the show became more established and sure of itself (I had no idea just how drastically it would change tracks!). I immediately clicked with the characters. I loved all of them, intensely. There's really no one that I hate (except Kavanaugh, but you're supposed to hate him!). Carson started to grate in later seasons and I'm not happy he's back, and I also don't like what they've done with Woolsey's character, but that's it. It's not like I want to actually punch someone in the throat whenever they speak like I do with, say, Daniel. Plus, I loved the aesthetic of the show. The sets are beautiful, the city is beautiful (especially at night!), the actors are beautiful, the whole thing.

How did I get involved in fandom?

SGA is not even close to my first fandom. I've always been a very introverted person who is more comfortable living in the fantasy world in my head rather than the festering shithole that is reality, so fandoms feeding my escapism have always been a big draw for me. I think my first fandom was Star Trek: TNG. My mother was a Trekkie from way back and I think I would have been disowned if I didn't love Star Trek! TNG started up when I was in grade school (when I was about 9, I think) and I got involved in it hardcore. We scraped together money to go to a convention once, which was a big deal considering how poor we were. And there were always those events at Starbase Columbus (I have a picture of me sitting on James Doohan's lap, even)!

[fishphile.livejournal.com]

eh, I'm all late like always.

Anyway, I hated SG-1 so I wasn't eager to watch SGA so I didn't see a single episode until near the end of the 1st season/2nd season when a SGA marathon coincided with a day off from work. Back then, I loved Rodney a lot more than I do now and I quickly noticed John/Teyla interactions were a highlight for me. Really, I just loved Teyla. I liked Aiden a lot too, but Ronon grew on me.

I like Elizabeth a lot as a woman and character, but thought she was an awful negotiator/person in charge and it was convinced it had to do with the writing.

I'm not devastated or anything by the cancellation, though it is kind of sad. I think Teyla manages to be one of the best women of color in SF despite missed opportunities to use her at full capacity.