Stargate Atlantis (original) (raw)
Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Sci-fi, action, adventure
Popular Pairings: McKay/Sheppard (aka McShep)
Series Length: 5 Seasons (of 20 episodes)
Episodes Watched: 2 Seasons
Plot: Atlantis, a city built by advanced ancient beings, has been discovered in a remote galaxy, and a team of scientists and military personnel set out to explore it. After finding they have difficulty returning home, the group spends their days traveling to other planets to improve relations with the surrounding peoples and to search for a means of power to allow them to return home and protect the city (and the human and other races in general) from the Wraith, a hostile species the team accidentally awakens during their stay.
Verdict: Fairly charming characters with personalities that together could make a potentially charming relationship, but who have little in the way of anything that could be interpreted as “more than just coworkers”, much less anything like UST. Possibly good for writers/readers who just want two guys who are fun to pair up, but likely less appealing to those who desire more evidence of a potentially sexual or even close/unique platonic relationship within the canon.
Links of Interest:
McKay/Sheppard LJ Com
Comments and Pics:
General quality/writing-wise, I found SGA to be pretty average. It's messages/lessons about dealing with other cultures or humanity or any other 'bigger picture' ideas were pretty dopey and heavy-handed, so I mostly did the best I could to ignore them and watch the show for some decent action/adventure moments and the charm of its characters. Even then, though, the show was mostly just semi-interesting background noise, as most of the characters were nothing special. While I've accepted such less-than-fantastic shows a little more kindly before (like Merlin), this one does not have the novelty of being a lesser-used tv show setting. With how many sci-fi shows there are to choose from out there, some of them quite good, there's no real reason to seek this out unless you particularly like this sort of thing.
Besides, of course, the hugegantic slash fandom. With what I'd heard, SGA seemed like such a sure thing that my question going into it wasn't whether or not the show would be slashy but how soon it would start being so and if it would be my style of slash when it did. Thus, I watched through the first season surprised at how straight it all seemed and the way the two supposedly slashable characters didn't seem to relate to one another in any way besides as coworkers, and not even particularly friendly ones at that. They sometimes bickered, but then they'd turn around and bicker with another character in the exact same way.
As the series went on, though, I could at least see some reasons for the pairing. For one thing, it's basically just putting the two most fun characters in the show together. Rodeny McKay is an egotistical, nervous, enthusiastic, cowardly geek. At first he's mildly amusing and also slightly irritating, but as the show goes on his quirkiness becomes more and more charming, sometimes even making me laugh out loud. (He was the one character I really liked.) Sheppard is the main character, and while still a bit too much of a perfect if slightly brash hero for me, he's of course pretty much created to charm the audience, and he's not so bad at it as all that.
In addition to that, imagining such personalities together in some sort of close relationship is just appealing. The two are semi-opposites. A hero and a coward, the charismatic charmer and the irritating prattler, the laid back and self-assured and the nervous and (at least inside) insecure. Throw in McKay's ego and argumentative nature (with Sheppard's tendency to argue right back) and it seems like it would just be fun just to watch the two alone in a room together, slashiness or no. Sheppard practically represents everything McKay is deficient at, occasionally causing McKay to assume Sheppard must be deficient at what McKay is good at, and the moments of mixed disconcertion with perhaps the slightest bit of respect when he finds this not always the case are quite charming.
So the McKay/Sheppard formula is a good one. I suppose my issue was that the show writers simply didn't seem interested in playing with it. As the show went on the two did seem to get to know one another better, to the point of occasionally knowing how the other might react to something before it is even said. But while they seemed to have the POTENTIAL to have the most interesting relationship of the cast if it was only explored more, they're never really given a chance to do that, and to me it never stepped beyond anything but semi-amiable co-workers, much less up to anything that could be seen even vaguely sexual/homoerotic.
Well, almost never.
Because I could swear these two were flirting once. Once, one episode, out of the blue. McKay teasing about the way Sheppard's “eyes light up” at the mention of weapons, trying to excite him with their new findings, and Sheppard smiling and laughing fondly at McKay's excited, babbling geekyness. Nothing hit-you-over-the-head suggestive, but then, I don't like overly suggestive, anyway. They tease and laugh at their other coworkers, too, but not that way, not with that extra bit of fondness for exactly the parts of the other's personality which they've on other occasions suggested they found quite irritating. (Hating something about someone while at the same time being fond of it because it's them and its quirky and it's cute? Yesss. *marks the box on her 'they are so in love' check list*) In addition the episode includes Trust Issues between them, concluding with a scene of the none too often seen Earnestly Apologetic McKay hoping Sheppard can still put his faith in him.
It's marvelous and adorable and total proof that the potential for their relationship to be slashy and fun was always there and just needed to be played with. ...Only then after that, things go right back to the way they were.
I read on some fan history wiki that the SGA fandom isn't somewhere where slash fans are created, but a place they migrate from other slash fandoms. That makes a lot of sense to me. If you're already a slasher, you might note the potential fun that could be had with these characters because of their complimentary personalities. But if you're not, there's nothing really honestly homoerotic or particularly close or special about their relationship, much less anything that's going to make you start redefining how you think about the characters and their romantic leanings.
I actually probably will continue to watch SGA for a while, but only because I've still got lots of it and need something to turn on while doing other things. The first two seasons weren't really worth it for quality or slashing (unless you've got a good imagination) to me, but I do wonder if the writers will decide to play with Sheppard and McKay more later on, and I suppose I may see.