What cracks me up (but hey, I'm weird) is that it's set in a very SF, comic book kind of idiom. Sheppard is really the key here. He's a stereotype! He's not even trying to be authentic. Don't get me wrong, I love him, but it's kind of like taking a really un-PC 1950s generic hero and putting him in modern, morally questionable situations. It's neither 100% escapism nor 100% gritty realism. Which is why people watch.
You can sit back and buy the hero version, or so-called dark side... I think it's best described as humor that comes from pain. What's telling, to me, is that the majority of fandom doesn't acknowledge that subconscious discomfort. They talk around it, but the need to retain the current canon set-up is demonstrated in the fact that not a lot of people are comfortable enough to voice that discomfort.
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You can sit back and buy the hero version, or so-called dark side... I think it's best described as humor that comes from pain. What's telling, to me, is that the majority of fandom doesn't acknowledge that subconscious discomfort. They talk around it, but the need to retain the current canon set-up is demonstrated in the fact that not a lot of people are comfortable enough to voice that discomfort.