On Being Wright And Wrong
One of the two best things I read all weekend was the dead-on defense of criticism offered by Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune after Brad Wright, executive producer of Stargate Universe, publicly took her to task for her comments about the show.
It’s interesting to me that Wright appears to chide Ryan for reviewing unfinished versions of at least two episodes of the series, considering that what Ryan reviewed were screener copies provided to her by Syfy. It’s likely safe to say that Wright would withhold such chiding where it concerns any critic who gave his show good reviews based upon screener copies. It is equally safe, then, to dismiss this particular portion of Wright’s response.
Also interesting is that while Wright tries to paint Ryan as having an “axe to grind” against the franchise and therefore in essence engaging in nothing more than cheap shots against his show, Wright himself ends his missive by taking an entirely unnecessary shot against ABC’s remake of V.
… fortunately there are enough viewers and reviewers who think ‘SGU’ is neither boring, poorly plotted, or sexist to keep us on the air long after ‘V’ is just a letter in the alphabet again.”
So, while Ryan goes on in detail to demonstrate not having an “axe to grind”, Wright himself merely demonstrates either that he’s a hypocrite or is suffering a bout of psychological projection. Ryan, at least, is offering pure opinion. Wright’s out of place attempt at slighting V is just the petulance of his commercial self-interest lashing out.
What’s more, if Wright truly believes what he says there, in the final sentence of his missive, one is left to wonder why he bothered to post it in the first place. His argument appears to be that negative criticism of his series is irrelevant, since he and the network are satisfied with the public’s response to the show. But if that’s the case, why respond to Ryan at all?
“If you think the fact that the show has gotten decent ratings makes my opinion and the opinions of other disappointed viewers invalid,” responds Ryan, “well, you’re welcome to that belief.” That this is true precisely is what outs Wright’s response to criticism of his show as little more than an attempt to discredit any negative opinion about it as someone who must have an “axe to grind”.
In the end, Wright’s subtle tantrum is nothing more than a gambit to delegitimize criticism, and a hypocritical and poorly thought out one at that.
Stargate Universe has been a disappointment, and that’s coming from someone who only ever viewed the first two series as a kind of scifi candy. They at least had the virtue of not really pretending to be otherwise. Universe, however, was sold for months as a more complex and character driven drama, and at that it’s fallen almost completely flat.
I read Ryan’s methodical response to Wright, as it turned out, while catching up on the two most recent episodes of the series. On their own merits (or, rather, lack thereof), I’d already decided to remove the show from my Hulu queue when I was finished.
Thanks to Wright’s misplaced attack upon criticism, I found the motivation to not wait even that long.
