Ah, well, I've got to run and do family stuff now anyway. Strangely enough, they involve getting an old Highlander episode going for Dad. I come by my fannish nature honestly.

I heard elsewhere the SGA was to some extent a victim of its own success. Popularity meant the actors could demand more pay which drove expenses up faster than additional ratings drove up advertising revenues. Plausible or bullshit?

I'm skeptical. David Hewlett has to know he will never again have a job where the producers are willing to focus so intently on his character for so long, and I don't see Joe Flanigan being eager to contend again for a world record in failed pilots per year like he was doing before SGA stuck. Also, my impression was that Jason Momoa was done whether or not the series got picked up.

I'd tend to chalk it up to the American dollar losing so much ground to the Canadian one more than anything—shooting in Vancouver is no longer a big savings to anyone's budget.

Just watched the Fringe pilot. It's *very* House-meets-Alias-WITH-PACEY, and as such, I will watch it in spite of the absolutely dire first half hour. (It takes a while for the show to get funny, and even longer after that for the show to get to the point. But by the end I was really getting into it.)

Naturally, as soon as I bitch about SGA, tonight's ep is pretty good, despite groaning over the previews for it. Especially since the McShep ship is back. And Dr. Keller is somehow not annoying. But, they're making me care, dammit.

I'll wait for them to screw that all up in the next ten minutes.

Naturally, as soon as I bitch about SGA, tonight's ep is pretty good, despite groaning over the previews for it. Especially since the McShep ship is back. And Dr. Keller is somehow not annoying. But, they're making me care, dammit.

I'll wait for them to screw that all up in the next ten minutes.

I'm skeptical. David Hewlett has to know he will never again have a job where the producers are willing to focus so intently on his character for so long, and I don't see Joe Flanigan being eager to contend again for a world record in failed pilots per year like he was doing before SGA stuck.

This. Damn it.

I definitely agree that Ed's choices in the first two seasons have been spot on. Cranking up the whole mean/combative thing would have been reductive, not to say cheesy.

Reductive, cheesy - don't forget insulting to the characters and actors, but also off-putting to the viewers. Sure, a humorless, nastier Stark might be more realistic - after all, who among us has not experienced the tender mercies of a boss whose ego couldn't fit through the double doors of the workplace. But, and it's a big but, those are the jobs about which "Take This Job and Shove It" was written. Why in tarnation would any sane viewer want to stick around to watch some other poor shlub stuck in that environment?

The reason the Carter/Stark dynamic was so dynamic is that, while Stark might have a pure numbers advantage in IQ over Carter, they both did their jobs with a comparable level of competence and skill. That is the fundemental reason that they both end up doing those jobs in Eureka. You don't get to work in Eureka if you are not dead brilliant at what you do. And the two men have a fundamental respect for one another, because of that.

Also, if they wanted Stark to be in any way believable in winning Allison's love back, or have been capable of winning it the first time around, we the viewers have to see some glimmer of not-asshat.

SGA was a win for me tonight. Nothing flashy, not too much technobabble or gauntlet of snafus to overcome and therefore overwhelm any character moments, great structure. I need to go back and figure out who the writer and director is. Me liked.

Forgive any typos, I'm lacking an index finger tonight due to unscrewing a multitude of hoses, several of which were stubborn.

I thought tonight was surprisingly good too, despite the derivative [i]Flowers for Algernon[/i] premise. I actually liked Jeannie Miller for the first time, and I don't think we're ever going to get closer to canonical Sheppard/McKay than that pier scene. If I just squint and pretend that Rodney first woke up sluggish and confused ten days after the brain surgery instead of refreshed and alert after a couple of hours, it's golden.