Rani’s Favorite Things: Television shows & Movies! (part one)

Hi everyone! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. Yesterday was my birthday, and it was such a great day all around—I want to say a special thank you to those of you who sent me birthday messages. You all made my day that much brighter!

This month, as most of you know, we’re talking about some of my favorite things. I’ll also be telling you why these are my favorite things, and how they shaped me into the person (and writer) that I am today. It’s always good to look back and reflect on these things, you know? So last week, we looked at some of my favorite books, and how they shaped my entrance into the writing realm. This week, I want to look at another form of entertainment.

Rani’s Favorite Things: Television shows & movies! (part one)

If you’ve been following me long enough, you’ll probably have heard me talk about this show once or twice before. It’s the show that sparked my entrance into the world of science-fiction, which meant that for me, sci-fi wasn’t really a thing for me until I was close to high school. I didn’t really know what it was, hadn’t seen many of the classic kitschy sci-fi movies everyone talks about these days (still haven’t seen some of them, sorry), but you know what? I don’t really care. So what if I jumped in late? I still jumped in. And I never looked back.

Stargate: SG-1

When I was a kid, I basically did everything my brother ever did. I was very much a copycat of whatever he was doing. Thankfully, most of the time he didn’t mind. But it was because of that copycat nature, that I ever started watching this show. Another friend of my brother’s told him to watch SG-1 on SciFi channel (it wasn’t SyFy back then), and let him know what we thought. We were both hooked after one episode. And somehow, we managed to jump onto watching on SciFi when episode two of the entire series was airing, so we weren’t even really behind.

For me, it was SG-1 that took me into this fascinating world of science fiction, and that put a label on some of the things I already loved—like Jurassic Park and Star Wars. Sure, I liked those movies a lot, but they were the only things I'd really watched in that genre. We were more of a James Bond and classic comedy watching family, back then. SG-1 was the show that got me into drinking up as much SciFi as I could get my hands on, and SG-1 that inspired me to write my second novel—another that I never finished, though I do still have all my notes for it. It’s not very good.

In any case, Stargate SG-1 has become a classic staple, in my life. If I don’t know what to watch, it’s a safe place to go back to, when I need a sci-fi fix and don’t want to delve into something new.

I even followed the series through into Stargate Atlantis, which I think in many ways was better than its predecessor (but not in all ways, of course). I tried Stargate Universe… but it’s awful. The stargate was a nonissue in that entire drama-fest of a series. Awful.

What I mean to say is, Stargate SG-1 was the show that shaped me into a nerd, the show that got my foot in the door when it came to writing science fiction—because, yes, I had to delve into science fiction and fantasy as separate entities, in order to grow to love them both as much as I do.

If you haven’t watched Stargate SG-1, I highly recommend that you do! I believe all episodes are streaming on both Netflix and Hulu, but I could be wrong. Don’t quote me. But go look it up, anyway. It’s classic science fiction at this point, so if you haven’t seen it, something might be wrong with you. ;-)

[love]

{Rani Divine}