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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • I feel like its not so much civilian-oversight that’s antagonized but greedy politicians.

    Partly, yes. But for the most part, the ones in favour of civilian oversight were only greedy politicians, and that was used to frame the whole idea. Also the pure thought of civilian oversight was ridiculed by the protagonists without it being contextualized as a point of debate or something. Remember, there was a whole episode about why the US Air Force was best to control the Stargate program instead of an international comittee.

    where Weir is not a politician- she’s a scientist

    No, Weir was a diplomat, peace activist and expert on international politics, not a scientist. Also, her appearance in SG1 marked a slight change in the show’s characterization of civil oversight.

    Kinsey is one of my biggest points in this issue. For several seasons, he was the only or leading figure arguing for civil oversight, and when you let only one or a most prominent character represent an idea that character is how the show frames that idea.


  • I respectfully disagree. I am currently in a rewatch, and there are two major issues I now have with SG1 (and don’t ask me why it didn’t bother/I didn’t notice before): how much civil oversight over the military is antagonized and how often events or explanations are recapped in dialogue.
    In Atlantis, Weir and Woolsey are really respectable civil leaders with authority over the expedition’s military and the relationship between military and civil personnel is much more balanced (plus every now and then it leads to interesting conflict).
    Also, this frequent summaries and retelling is often a point of critique for more modern shows (“modern shows get made for second screens”). That happens much less in Atlantis.