![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Massive Stargate Post
From the time I was 12ish to the time I was about 15ish and discovered The West Wing, Stargate SG-1 was my absolute favourite show in the whole wide world. Let's see, a show about an elite team of intergalactic space heroes (Alt!Sam's words) who save the planet from mythology-steeped alien threats and that doesn't take itself too serious - of course I loved it.
As a result, for me Earth defending teams are always judged against SG-1 standards: they have to be competent, for the most part professional, snarky, genre-aware and, most importantly, like each other. Because, really, it's that last bit that makes SG-1 work so well as a show. Jack, Sam, Daniel and Teal'c (and later Cam and Vala) actually enjoy each other's company and work so well as a team and generally don't screw each other over unless there is some major thing going on.
Unfortunately, somewhere around season seven due to bad scheduling and the cast changes I lost interest and I never really made an effort to watch the later seasons. That was, until now…
I have to say, I love the later seasons. It always was a bit Indiana Jones meets Star Wars, but it goes all out with the questing. Take the season nine finale for example. One moment Daniel and Cam are searching for Merlin's lost treasure on a medieval planet and Cam winds up fighting the black knight with a sword, the next everyone and their dog is involved in a massive space battle complete, of course, with lasers and explosions. And sure, it kind of jumped the shark in The Quest the moment it had the team fight a dragon, but who the hell cares because that scene was hilarious.
I didn't have the ability to watch the whole seasons, so I pretty much concentrated on the major episodes such as the season opener, two-parters and finales, plus any episode that focused heavily on Sam, because she is my favourite character on the show. (Lately I've decided Samantha Carter is the illegitimate daughter of the Doctor and Brigadier. Well, she's a career solider who follows orders 99% of the time and tends to shoot at things a lot, but then half the problems on the show seem to be resolved by her using her engineering the fix-it device of the week using no more than an ordinary laptop and her genius. And everybody she loves dies).
Being that I have major adoration for Carter, I of course had to watch Gemini/Reckoning, the episodes in which RepliCarter manipulates actual Carter into giving her immunity to the Replicator defences, screws over Fifth and then takes over the galaxy.
I remember being horrifically sceptical about the human form replicators. Why take a perfectly brilliant bug like mass-reproducing villain and give them the ability to think and communicate and worst of all, give them emotions? I didn't like how creatures that were unstoppable could be stopped by emotional manipulation. But they won me over in the end since emotions made the replicators on the whole more dangerous because vengeance at the emotional manipulation turned their attention to the Milky Way galaxy.
I've decided that Daniel's defeat of RepliCarter was the show finally giving us showdown of actual Carter's scientific rationality against Daniel's faith in stuff outsides of scientific knowledge that we only have hinted at in the show. If my vague recollection of Daniel's death in season five serves me right, the real Sam was quite sceptical of the whole ascension thing, and this seems to point to her dismissal of things beyond her scientific comprehension as her weakness. It was touched up on series ten as well, in Line in the Sand when she thinks she's dying and has a little freak out about whether anything is waiting for her if she does.
Although it may have been intelligence vs. wisdom rather than rationality vs. faith. And of course Daniel's strength is wisdom, which is what stops the replicators. But then, Daniel cannot actually destroy the replicators himself. That job falls down to actual Carter, Jacob/Selmak and Baal. So really, you need both intelligence and wisdom as well was rationality and faith. Yay show.
It's interesting, for a show that spends it's time with characters fighting and disproving the power of 'gods,' it sure does place a lot of emphasis on the power of faith. But really, the show isn't anti-religion, it's just against religion being used as a tool of control of the masses and for religion being a personal choice and about personal growth and rather than violence.
And I love Baal. Who doesn't?
Threads (i.e. the Sam/Jack kind-of resolution episode in which they kill Jacob/Selmak but make up for it with unexpected naked!Daniel wrapped in a flag)
I was a Sam/Jack shipper, then somewhere around the time that the show started advocating Sam/Jack as the main ship I lost interest and expected this episode to be kind of awful. But it wasn't. Sam/Jack worked entirely because it was left open-ended. I don't think we every find out if they got together, do we? I think I read somewhere there was a cut scene in an Atlantis episode that hints at something, but there are no names. But I quite like the idea that they may be having a secret relationship.
(BTW love in how the show seems to acknowledge both the shippers and anti-shippers with the dream Sam/Jack wedding scene in 200 and response "yeah, if you want to torture your audience")
Moebius
Moebius completely wins as both a series and season finale. I can't think of anything more perfect than having the team not only go into the past and create the initial chain of events that led Ra to abandon Earth, but also go about creating themselves. Having the main characters create themselves is fantastic. Geek!Daniel and Geek!Sam were adorably cute and hilarious.
And okay, despite my reservations about the ship, I loved the kiss. There were sparks. I'm such a sucker for kisses with sparks.
Avalon
I have to admit I wanted to hate Cam. It's pretty freaking obvious (and something the show acknowledges in 200) that he's the Jack replacement. And why does he get to lead SG-1? Sam put in the hard work for eight years, so Cam just stinks of the show not being willing to place a female as the lead (although, Carter was already 'the scientist' archetype. Having her as 'the scientist' and 'the leader' would be difficult, but not impossible, see for example House, every single CSI). But Cam is likeable and he won me over.
So did Vala for that matter. She's like Jack Harkness before they made him all boring for Torchwood. She's the best kind of new character, while the show did fine for eight years without her and your not left feeling but that the show is missing something without her, but when she is there, her presence adds to the show.
Ripple Effect
Not much to say about this one other than what a waste of a good concept. Multiple SG-1s could have been done way better than it was. And the return of Janet and Martouf which deserved and episode in themselves were rushed over.
Camelot
Again not much to say but it deserves a mention because the space battle was freaking awesome.
200
Crack, glorious crack! I can't tell you what I loved more about this episode, the Ewoks, Star Trek, Farscape or wizard of Oz rip-offs, invisible O'Neil, the show completely sending itself up and breaching the fourth wall. It was possibly Stargate puppets that were the best bit. But not only did it manage to send itself up, but it was the most gorgeous tribute to the show. Oh, this episode was fantastic.
Unending (i.e. the series finale)
I'm not a fan of old-age makeup since its never convincing and all I can think of is the makeup and cringe. But of all the shows that have attempted to age characters, this was the best effort I've seen done. Old age!team was still distracting, but I love how the episode focused on the results of their being trapped for so long.
My favourite ship of Stargate is Sam/Teal'c. It's really rare, but this happens to be the most shippy Sam/Teal'c episode ever. First of all, he hugged her and there was totally a look in the final scene when they were talking about him not being able to tell them what happened. It was glorious. And come on, we're supposed to believe that Daniel and Vala were the only people getting some in that fifty years? There has got to be some Cam/Sam/Teal'c action going on (OT3!)
Now I'm going to have to watch Ark of Truth and Continuum.
As a result, for me Earth defending teams are always judged against SG-1 standards: they have to be competent, for the most part professional, snarky, genre-aware and, most importantly, like each other. Because, really, it's that last bit that makes SG-1 work so well as a show. Jack, Sam, Daniel and Teal'c (and later Cam and Vala) actually enjoy each other's company and work so well as a team and generally don't screw each other over unless there is some major thing going on.
Unfortunately, somewhere around season seven due to bad scheduling and the cast changes I lost interest and I never really made an effort to watch the later seasons. That was, until now…
I have to say, I love the later seasons. It always was a bit Indiana Jones meets Star Wars, but it goes all out with the questing. Take the season nine finale for example. One moment Daniel and Cam are searching for Merlin's lost treasure on a medieval planet and Cam winds up fighting the black knight with a sword, the next everyone and their dog is involved in a massive space battle complete, of course, with lasers and explosions. And sure, it kind of jumped the shark in The Quest the moment it had the team fight a dragon, but who the hell cares because that scene was hilarious.
I didn't have the ability to watch the whole seasons, so I pretty much concentrated on the major episodes such as the season opener, two-parters and finales, plus any episode that focused heavily on Sam, because she is my favourite character on the show. (Lately I've decided Samantha Carter is the illegitimate daughter of the Doctor and Brigadier. Well, she's a career solider who follows orders 99% of the time and tends to shoot at things a lot, but then half the problems on the show seem to be resolved by her using her engineering the fix-it device of the week using no more than an ordinary laptop and her genius. And everybody she loves dies).
Being that I have major adoration for Carter, I of course had to watch Gemini/Reckoning, the episodes in which RepliCarter manipulates actual Carter into giving her immunity to the Replicator defences, screws over Fifth and then takes over the galaxy.
I remember being horrifically sceptical about the human form replicators. Why take a perfectly brilliant bug like mass-reproducing villain and give them the ability to think and communicate and worst of all, give them emotions? I didn't like how creatures that were unstoppable could be stopped by emotional manipulation. But they won me over in the end since emotions made the replicators on the whole more dangerous because vengeance at the emotional manipulation turned their attention to the Milky Way galaxy.
I've decided that Daniel's defeat of RepliCarter was the show finally giving us showdown of actual Carter's scientific rationality against Daniel's faith in stuff outsides of scientific knowledge that we only have hinted at in the show. If my vague recollection of Daniel's death in season five serves me right, the real Sam was quite sceptical of the whole ascension thing, and this seems to point to her dismissal of things beyond her scientific comprehension as her weakness. It was touched up on series ten as well, in Line in the Sand when she thinks she's dying and has a little freak out about whether anything is waiting for her if she does.
Although it may have been intelligence vs. wisdom rather than rationality vs. faith. And of course Daniel's strength is wisdom, which is what stops the replicators. But then, Daniel cannot actually destroy the replicators himself. That job falls down to actual Carter, Jacob/Selmak and Baal. So really, you need both intelligence and wisdom as well was rationality and faith. Yay show.
It's interesting, for a show that spends it's time with characters fighting and disproving the power of 'gods,' it sure does place a lot of emphasis on the power of faith. But really, the show isn't anti-religion, it's just against religion being used as a tool of control of the masses and for religion being a personal choice and about personal growth and rather than violence.
And I love Baal. Who doesn't?
Threads (i.e. the Sam/Jack kind-of resolution episode in which they kill Jacob/Selmak but make up for it with unexpected naked!Daniel wrapped in a flag)
I was a Sam/Jack shipper, then somewhere around the time that the show started advocating Sam/Jack as the main ship I lost interest and expected this episode to be kind of awful. But it wasn't. Sam/Jack worked entirely because it was left open-ended. I don't think we every find out if they got together, do we? I think I read somewhere there was a cut scene in an Atlantis episode that hints at something, but there are no names. But I quite like the idea that they may be having a secret relationship.
(BTW love in how the show seems to acknowledge both the shippers and anti-shippers with the dream Sam/Jack wedding scene in 200 and response "yeah, if you want to torture your audience")
Moebius
Moebius completely wins as both a series and season finale. I can't think of anything more perfect than having the team not only go into the past and create the initial chain of events that led Ra to abandon Earth, but also go about creating themselves. Having the main characters create themselves is fantastic. Geek!Daniel and Geek!Sam were adorably cute and hilarious.
And okay, despite my reservations about the ship, I loved the kiss. There were sparks. I'm such a sucker for kisses with sparks.
Avalon
I have to admit I wanted to hate Cam. It's pretty freaking obvious (and something the show acknowledges in 200) that he's the Jack replacement. And why does he get to lead SG-1? Sam put in the hard work for eight years, so Cam just stinks of the show not being willing to place a female as the lead (although, Carter was already 'the scientist' archetype. Having her as 'the scientist' and 'the leader' would be difficult, but not impossible, see for example House, every single CSI). But Cam is likeable and he won me over.
So did Vala for that matter. She's like Jack Harkness before they made him all boring for Torchwood. She's the best kind of new character, while the show did fine for eight years without her and your not left feeling but that the show is missing something without her, but when she is there, her presence adds to the show.
Ripple Effect
Not much to say about this one other than what a waste of a good concept. Multiple SG-1s could have been done way better than it was. And the return of Janet and Martouf which deserved and episode in themselves were rushed over.
Camelot
Again not much to say but it deserves a mention because the space battle was freaking awesome.
200
Crack, glorious crack! I can't tell you what I loved more about this episode, the Ewoks, Star Trek, Farscape or wizard of Oz rip-offs, invisible O'Neil, the show completely sending itself up and breaching the fourth wall. It was possibly Stargate puppets that were the best bit. But not only did it manage to send itself up, but it was the most gorgeous tribute to the show. Oh, this episode was fantastic.
Unending (i.e. the series finale)
I'm not a fan of old-age makeup since its never convincing and all I can think of is the makeup and cringe. But of all the shows that have attempted to age characters, this was the best effort I've seen done. Old age!team was still distracting, but I love how the episode focused on the results of their being trapped for so long.
My favourite ship of Stargate is Sam/Teal'c. It's really rare, but this happens to be the most shippy Sam/Teal'c episode ever. First of all, he hugged her and there was totally a look in the final scene when they were talking about him not being able to tell them what happened. It was glorious. And come on, we're supposed to believe that Daniel and Vala were the only people getting some in that fifty years? There has got to be some Cam/Sam/Teal'c action going on (OT3!)
Now I'm going to have to watch Ark of Truth and Continuum.
no subject
John and AerynI can't remember their SG-1 character names went to his high school reunion and they had the most wonderful siblingy thing. XD(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
200 ranks as one of my favourite TV eps ever. It's such a brilliant tribute to the show and the fans!
And why does he get to lead SG-1?
I like Cam well enough, but this never made sense to me either. I guess they sort of explained it away by having all the other team members leave the team, but I don't know how he could keep the leader position once they all came back when he was so obviously less qualified than Sam.
(no subject)
no subject
200 is just - there are no words! I could watch that particular ep over and over again and still laugh out loud.
Ark of Truth is a bit limp, I'm afraid, as it's entirely focussed on tying up the loose ends left by the Ori storyline but Continnum is just brilliant. And, of course, it has Baal. Lots and lots of Baal!!
MM
(no subject)