We're making a bit of a directional change at the site, and I wanted to let you, dear reader, in on it: Starting last week, we will no longer be publishing episode reviews at GateWorld.
A couple of weeks ago I started a blog entry titled "Why We Post Negative Reviews," which never got finished. But here is the jist of it: Believe it or not, we have published negative reviews of our two favorite shows because we love
Stargate.
I believe that no reasoned and thoughtfully articulated opinions should be silenced. Even when I have loved an episode, if the fan we've picked to write a review comes back hating it, we ran the piece. This doesn't mean that
GateWorld hated the episode, but that we chose to give space to someone who had something very strong to say. (Such was the case with the recent review of
"The Tower.")
Second, we have published negative reviews because we believe it ultimately serves the site, the audience and, in a sense, the show. For the site, it makes it clear that we are not a PR machine resting comfortably in the pockets of the show's owners or producers, despite the fact that we do get a lot of love from them. For the audience, they get to discuss, argue, and debate the finer points of every episode -- love it or hate it -- when a review brings up challenging points. (This continues to take place each and every day at
GateWorld Forum.)
And for the show ... well, we hope and pray that constructive criticism is a valuable thing, especially when it is coming from the show's core fan base. It's easy to brush off a negative review from the New York Times, where the writer may have only seen a half-dozen episodes in nine years and is still looking for Richard Dean Anderson so that he can make the requisite
MacGyver reference.
Yes, fans can criticize a show that they still fundamentally love, in the hopes of getting the attention of the producers and maybe, just maybe, making a positive difference. That's certainly true at GateWorld, a site the producers regularly visit.
Nevertheless, we've decided to get out of the reviews business for the foreseeable future. It's become clear that "the GateWorld review" cannot be separated from "the GateWorld position" -- that because of how reviews have been layed out and incorporated into the site, they look like the site's official statement about the episode rather than the point of view of one fan (or, in some cases, two dueling fans) that we published for the sake of discussion.
GateWorld's editors chatted behind the scenes about this misperception, and finally decided that the only way we could continue to publish reviews in this manner would be to write them all ourselves, or to endorse them all, neither of which we have the time or desire to do right now. Otherwise, we would be forever looking over our shoulders, wondering if something that
someone else said will be taken the wrong way and attributed to us.
Our new staff blogs -- soon, we hope, to be enriched by blogs from other Stargate fans, as well -- offset this editorial loss with more bare-naked opinion than you can shake a staff weapon at. Blogs are the author's own personal space, and should in no way be taken as GateWorld's "official" stand on a topic -- even this blog. Here, I'll start now: I loved
"Off the Grid," but I thought
"Critical Mass" was a mess.
Deep breath.
So farewell, sweet reviews section. This will also free up my time a bit each week to concentrate on things like the episode analyses, which are more central to what GateWorld is about and which have fallen by the wayside in recent years. I think the formal reviwes won't be missed, because GateWorld Forum is jam-packed with thousands of fans who offer their own takes on every episode -- starting within moments of it airing. And isn't that a thousand times better?
Born to be a Stargate fan, Darren started GateWorld in 1999. In addition to personal and freelance
Web work he is also a writer, a graduate student in theology, a husband and a father of two. He is a big fan
of genre hits like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, LOST, and Battlestar Galactica.
Makes good sense. Thanks for the update on the reviews.
Thankyou for the update and explanation. It does make sense, however in one way I will miss the formal reviews which have been posted here at Gateworld. I don't get the time to go through the forums so the only reviews I ever read were the formal lengthy ones, however I moderate a SG-1 forum and we chat plenty about the episodes there with the obvious difering opinons galore.
However when we lose one thing we gain another, so I look forward to any new changes etc that will come from the removal of the more formal reviews posted on site.
To be honest I never really read the reviews. Even so I guess I kind of sad they are going bye-bye.
Darren, I loved the reviews section. But I haven't read it recently because it was when you had the two reviewers - Allisnow and Lex - that it worked at its best. Both came from completely different ends of the fandom, and the perspective of each on an episode was hugely enlightening.
I found that I looked forward every week to reading those reviews.
I hope you reconsider. Or that consider putting them in a different format.
How about making the reviews the first post in a discussion in the GateWorld Features folder?
I never sought out the ep reviews specifically, but since I check the GW main page pretty regularly, if a review came up I’d usually take a quick read to see what someone else had to say about an ep, especially if it was an ep I'd watched. I'm not a regular SG:A viewer, but I did watch The Tower & read the review and agreed with most of it. I could totally empathize with the reviewer’s POV and enjoyed hearing her personality come through in the review as she used strong humor to get her points across.
I think GateGipsy has the right idea. Perhaps multiple reviews would be the way to go if you did bring the section back. Reviews from opposite ends would balance themselves out. *grins* Unless they both come to the same conclusion about an ep and absolutely hated it! ;-).
Sorry to see them go. Now since you’ve turned us into a bunch of SG info junkies and we have one less page to read - y'need to hurry up and give us another blog entry pronto! ;-) (((Darren)))
I have to agree with you on the fact that most the reviewers haven't seen the show at all and always make a 'MacGyver' reference. And they continue to make one even though RDA isn't on the show anymore.
can't wait to read the fan blogs. I've already started one of my own.