Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.02
Sep. 16th, 2008 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erdaOh show, I am so profoundly disappointed in you...
I apologize for the negativity here. I just feel like I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like this kind of thing but I can't pretend to be happy with this episode.
Where to begin. I was actually enjoying the first 7 minutes or so. It's tempting to crap all over the writer of this episode, Natalie Chaidez, but I believe she is the only female writer for the show, or if not, she is at least in the minority among TV writers for science fiction and action shows. Very likely she has to be a lot more careful than a male writer to prove that she can write that actiony stuff, and perhaps that explains some of the problems I have with the script. Certainly women script writers in general cannot afford to take the kinds of risks that men can without being accused of having a political agenda.
But still, I am so disappointed. What attracted me to this show in the first place, and what made the show stand out in my mind, was the character of Sarah. Here's a woman acting on her own, and even after BAG showed up she was still very clearly in charge. What has happened to that show?
From the moment the time traveler stumbled into the living room we are given scene after scene demonstrating her helplessness. As soon as she sees the intruder she calls for help. How long has Derek been with them that she is already so dependent on him? He comes rushing in, armed and ready, and proceeds to question the guy while Sarah does absolutely nothing. Sarah apparently no longer feels the need to be have a weapon close at hand herself. When Derek offered to take care of the problem of Greenway it was hard for me to recover my feel for the balance of power here.
It's not like I want the women to be in charge all the time. But just once? Can I have one show where a woman is in charge and it doesn't emasculate the man under her authority or she doesn't turn out to be insane or evil? Just once? I remember I thought I was getting this dynamic from SGA way back in season one when it appeared that Sheppard was going to accept Weir's authority over him, but that hope was quickly squelched by the events in Hot Zone.
I get that Sarah is stressed and having trouble letting John grow up, but, she could, you know, be irritable or something. Yell, smash something, I don't know. The decorating of his room was so over the top it just made me want to claw my eyes out.
I wasn't that happy with the completely random babe of the week draped over John's arm to create some idiotic triangle with Cameron, either. At least John's defiance made sense for his character.
Then we have the scene with Ellison and Charley. I have no idea why Charley's wife slapped him except the writer thought it would be dramatic or something. Women slapping men across the face is not exactly a new or edgy thing to do.
I could have let all these little things go by, but then we would still have to deal with the whole "scrubbing" thing, in which Sarah is mistreated in a blatantly sexual manner and I am so tired of seeing this shit. A helpless woman being mistreated by a man with authority over her right before my eyes. I was so disturbed I had to turn away from the screen for a while. I mean, I just lost interest in the episode; I could not come back from that. Way to rob her of her agency.
Besides which, the show didn't seem to hang together the way previous episodes did, unless you want to say the underlying theme was how women have no agency. That's was all I got out of this travesty.
I hope this is not the way the rest of the season is going to go.
I apologize for the negativity here. I just feel like I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like this kind of thing but I can't pretend to be happy with this episode.
Where to begin. I was actually enjoying the first 7 minutes or so. It's tempting to crap all over the writer of this episode, Natalie Chaidez, but I believe she is the only female writer for the show, or if not, she is at least in the minority among TV writers for science fiction and action shows. Very likely she has to be a lot more careful than a male writer to prove that she can write that actiony stuff, and perhaps that explains some of the problems I have with the script. Certainly women script writers in general cannot afford to take the kinds of risks that men can without being accused of having a political agenda.
But still, I am so disappointed. What attracted me to this show in the first place, and what made the show stand out in my mind, was the character of Sarah. Here's a woman acting on her own, and even after BAG showed up she was still very clearly in charge. What has happened to that show?
From the moment the time traveler stumbled into the living room we are given scene after scene demonstrating her helplessness. As soon as she sees the intruder she calls for help. How long has Derek been with them that she is already so dependent on him? He comes rushing in, armed and ready, and proceeds to question the guy while Sarah does absolutely nothing. Sarah apparently no longer feels the need to be have a weapon close at hand herself. When Derek offered to take care of the problem of Greenway it was hard for me to recover my feel for the balance of power here.
It's not like I want the women to be in charge all the time. But just once? Can I have one show where a woman is in charge and it doesn't emasculate the man under her authority or she doesn't turn out to be insane or evil? Just once? I remember I thought I was getting this dynamic from SGA way back in season one when it appeared that Sheppard was going to accept Weir's authority over him, but that hope was quickly squelched by the events in Hot Zone.
I get that Sarah is stressed and having trouble letting John grow up, but, she could, you know, be irritable or something. Yell, smash something, I don't know. The decorating of his room was so over the top it just made me want to claw my eyes out.
I wasn't that happy with the completely random babe of the week draped over John's arm to create some idiotic triangle with Cameron, either. At least John's defiance made sense for his character.
Then we have the scene with Ellison and Charley. I have no idea why Charley's wife slapped him except the writer thought it would be dramatic or something. Women slapping men across the face is not exactly a new or edgy thing to do.
I could have let all these little things go by, but then we would still have to deal with the whole "scrubbing" thing, in which Sarah is mistreated in a blatantly sexual manner and I am so tired of seeing this shit. A helpless woman being mistreated by a man with authority over her right before my eyes. I was so disturbed I had to turn away from the screen for a while. I mean, I just lost interest in the episode; I could not come back from that. Way to rob her of her agency.
Besides which, the show didn't seem to hang together the way previous episodes did, unless you want to say the underlying theme was how women have no agency. That's was all I got out of this travesty.
I hope this is not the way the rest of the season is going to go.
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Date: 2008-09-17 02:54 am (UTC)