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Least favorite alt-history story?

lol. How is it not?
Ellen literally helps Reagan commit war crimes on the Moon, and this literally never brought up again nor is she criticized for it. She's a Republican who is whitewashed to be socially liberal even though Lee motherfucking Atwater helped start her political career.
 
Ellen literally helps Reagan commit war crimes on the Moon, and this literally never brought up again nor is she criticized for it. She's a Republican who is whitewashed to be socially liberal even though Lee motherfucking Atwater helped start her political career.
And the 'neoliberalism', is it in the room with us now?
 
When I asked about the shift in tone, I was asking more about the move from grounded hard science fiction with serious dramatic tone towards a more melodramatic, soap-opera style. I've seen that mentioned in comments about the progress of the show across the seasons, especially season three, but haven't watched the show myself, so I was curious about that element.

Please continue to debate neoliberalism if you guys want, though, of course.
 
When I asked about the shift in tone, I was asking more about the move from grounded hard science fiction with serious dramatic tone towards a more melodramatic, soap-opera style. I've seen that mentioned in comments about the progress of the show across the seasons, especially season three, but haven't watched the show myself, so I was curious about that element.
Sounds a bit like another Ronald D. Moore non-Star Trek effort.
 
When I asked about the shift in tone, I was asking more about the move from grounded hard science fiction with serious dramatic tone towards a more melodramatic, soap-opera style. I've seen that mentioned in comments about the progress of the show across the seasons, especially season three, but haven't watched the show myself, so I was curious about that element.

Please continue to debate neoliberalism if you guys want, though, of course.
The melodrama of Season 2 does explode and become the primary fixation of S3; not that said melodrama is bad at first, but by the finale you do start to see a lot of bits and pieces of more interesting threads that were truncated or left undeveloped due to fighting for space with legacy plotlines and their melodrama (the gay astronaut comes to mind). The hard science does suffer in this- lots of very interesting spec fic ideas, like the space hotels, divided moon, helium production, solar sails, etc. are sadly forgone for a few too many 'oopsie in space' style gut punches
 
The melodrama of Season 2 does explode and become the primary fixation of S3; not that said melodrama is bad at first, but by the finale you do start to see a lot of bits and pieces of more interesting threads that were truncated or left undeveloped due to fighting for space with legacy plotlines and their melodrama (the gay astronaut comes to mind). The hard science does suffer in this- lots of very interesting spec fic ideas, like the space hotels, divided moon, helium production, solar sails, etc. are sadly forgone for a few too many 'oopsie in space' style gut punches
Ah, then tis as @RyanF says. Oh well.
 
Ah, then tis as @RyanF says. Oh well.
It's not bad bad but the finale really should have been the Mars landing (which comes mid-season), and the Stevens boys don't really get an independent storyline- Danny is tied to Ed, while Jimmy is never given the space to develop into, well,
Timothy McVeigh
, and Kelly Baldwin's story becomes too absorbed by her relationship with Ed instead of who she as a scientist in her own right.

There is good stuff- I do think Margo and Aleida have a good storyline, and the private space companies are intriguing- but it's just very much stuffed with the wrong stuff we should have moved on from (let's be real, mainly Ed and Ellen, who should have been a NASA-side and background charecter, respectively), and all the right stuff is left wasting
 
Making Ellen President is easily one of the worst decisions the show has made.
Not really- Ellen becoming President tracks, but it was largely unnecessary to actually have her Presidency become a focal narrarive arc, instead of shifting into a background detail that could payoff down the line, that was the problem
 
Not really- Ellen becoming President tracks, but it was largely unnecessary to actually have her Presidency become a focal narrarive arc, instead of shifting into a background detail that could payoff down the line, that was the problem
I think the whole coming out plotline didn't need to ... exist, personally. It would've been far more interesting for Ellen to have a corruption arc as President ― they set something like that up with her paling around with Atwater and Reagan.

It'd make more sense for Ellen's sexuality being revealed ala a Lewinsky esque scandal.
 
I think the whole coming out plotline didn't need to ... exist, personally. It would've been far more interesting for Ellen to have a corruption arc as President ― they set something like that up with her paling around with Atwater and Reagan.

It'd make more sense for Ellen's sexuality being revealed ala a Lewinsky esque scandal.

Ellen coming out in the most spectacular way possible is really the only way her story could go!
 
Ellen coming out in the most spectacular way possible is really the only way her story could go!
I just think it wasn't handled tastefully, speaking as a queer woman myself.

A version of the United States where we unwittingly elect a queer woman in the 1990s doesn't end with a version of the US that's more equitable and diverse. It ends in a United States that elects someone like Pat Robertson in a backlash.

Like, we literally just did this with a black guy and we got Donald Trump. It's so weird to see the show treat 1995 as 2015.
 
I think the whole coming out plotline didn't need to ... exist, personally. It would've been far more interesting for Ellen to have a corruption arc as President ― they set something like that up with her paling around with Atwater and Reagan.

It'd make more sense for Ellen's sexuality being revealed ala a Lewinsky esque scandal.
I get what you mean, but this is also literally what I mean as well- I just don't think Ellen's arc is especially well developed, and I think the space she consumed should have been taken by our new charecter crop while she's more of a spectre haunting the background.

That said I would note plenty of gay Republicans paled around with Reagan and Atwater- the show's ultimate issue with Ellen's arc (beyond that it just exists) is that it literally just is the Lewinsky Scandal, rather than something about the more fundamental tension of Ellen, a WASP not-Bush, riding the muscle of the GOP while also being a closeted gay woman.
 
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