Redial the Gate: Season Five!

[fignewton]

Signups for Season Five are going on at redial_the_gate right now! Twenty-five minutes, and six eps already snagged. :)

Go! Sign up, and join the squee. :D

Comments

[yvi]

Whee, I snagged one :) It'll be interesting to see which one goes last this time.

[fignewton]

Heh, yes - that's always intriguing!

Jaffa storylines are usually least popular (not Teal'c ones, but Jaffa ones). I wonder if that means The Warrior will be last? My own money is on The Sentintel, though. :)

[yvi]

Yes, I think The Sentinel or Ascension. 'The Warrior' and 'The Tomb' both bugged me a lot, though. Season 5 isn't my favorite ;)

[fignewton]

The Tomb is funny. It has all the elements to make a fantastic ep - mythology and exploration and being stalked by the monster and Jack's antagonism with the Russians and just... everything. Yet it all falls flat, somehow.

Maybe someone should do a meta on that. :)

[yvi]

Oh, I am planning meta on the completely irrational hate directed towards the Russians by almost everyone on the show. Because I sat there screaming at the screen during one of those episodes. I am just not sure when to best post this.

[fignewton]

That should be interesting reading, because I've never really seen that. Jack, unquestionably, and there's been plenty of fanon theory to explain it. And Hammond is pretty exasperated with Chekov when Anubis makes the Gate go kablooey and Chekov doesn't get the danger of setting up the Russian one. And, of course, Daniel tries to find "an adult" in Continuum. :) Other than that? I don't see it.

[yvi]

Well, depends on what you mean with 'other than that'. I mean, Jack is really openly hostile, as is Hammond in my opinion, and on at least one occasion Daniel is as well if my memory serves right. This is hostility directed at people because of their ethnicity, which really enraged me when I re-watched those episodes a few weeks ago.

*shrugs* The whole 'Russians are evil' is a very sore spot for me, so maybe I shouldn't do that meta.

[fignewton]

I don't see it as "anti-Russian" as much as "anti-Russian government" - but nonetheless, I would be very interested in reading such meta. Because it's a sore spot for you, you will probably do it justice.

::wheedles:: Go on, sign up. You know you want to.... :)

[yvi]

Heh, I'll think about it. It would be post-season 5 meta then, I suppose. Will definitely need to re-read some transcripts as no specific scenes come to my mind now. I suck at remembering scenes in general, though :) I just remember me and my boyfriend talked about it a lot while watching season 5.

[abyssinia]

Huh. The only one I've noticed being actively hostile was Jack, and given that he was career military during a lot of the Cold War and given the kinds of missions canon implies he has, it feels very in character for me.
(and even then, he seems to develop a degree of respectful working relationship with Chekov by season 8)

Be interesting to see your meta on it.

[yvi]

Oh, but being 'in-character' doesn't mean it can't be irrational and I don't want to throw heavy things at the TV screen :)

[abyssinia]

Hee :)
You have a point. I'm not sure Jack ever claimed to be rational.

Don't break your poor tv!

[also, that's interesting to me. It's probably a cultural thing, but the anti-Russian thing is something I barely notice - it just seems so expected, having grown up at the end of the Cold War and being used to it in American society I expect it from someone like Jack. Huh.]

[fignewton]

::nods:: I've always seen the anti-Russian thing as Jack's knee-jerk reaction to what he's dealt with sometime in the past - as you say, career military during the Cold War.

And yes, consider that ep in S8 when they're at the brink of nuclear war - Jack deals very very well with Chekov there.

::still muttering that Chekov dies in S10 with nary a remark about it::

[aurora_novarum]

He might not be dead! There were six survivors, and none of them were named!

(P.S. I agree with aby. The Tomb is AWESOME!)

[fignewton]

LOL - I cling to that possibility, too. I mean, they would've beamed people from the bridge, right? And I liked him. A lot.

I guess I'll just have to wait for the recap to help me get properly squeeful about the Tomb! :)

[abyssinia]

Huh. Odd. I love The Tomb. I mean, it's not one of my favorite episodes, but it's good solid adventure and puzzle and team and it's one I put in when I want to just sit back and enjoy SG-1.
(plus, I swear they are all EXTRA pretty in it)

[zats_clear]

it is all the fabulous low lighting and dark hallway mystique

[abyssinia]

And Daniel in a bandanna. And I love Teal'c and Sam going on a monster hunt. And at the beginning everyone snarking at Daniel when he's trying to open it. And the intrigue. And the suspense. And, just, it's a fun classic adventure.

[fignewton]

Well, yes, it should be. For some reason, for me, it falls flat. And I've noted that there's practically no fanfic based on it, too.

But I hope the recap (and rewatch) will help make it more squeeful! Because YAY they are indeed all very pretty. :)

[abyssinia]

Eh, different strokes for different folks. It's not one of their best episodes by any means, so I can believe it falling flat. I think I enjoy it for being something fun I can just watch mindlessly, if that makes any sense.

[I'm not sure if fanfic is necessarily a strong correlation with goodness/interestingness of episode. "Reckoning" is pretty widely loved and I've seen very few fics based on it.]

And, at the worst, you can just enjoy the pretty.

[fignewton]

Heh, yes. Really good eps either have tons of related fanfic or none - sometimes because something's neat enough not to have any loose edges.

Of course, you can say the same thing about bad eps. So, pretty useless.

And there is ALWAYS pretty to enjoy!

[abyssinia]

Yep. It's that way for shows too, a lot of the time. The really well-written tightly plotted shows don't often have large fandoms, while the ones like the gateverse that are a lot of fun but ultimately a bit silly and plot-holey, can land tons of fic.

Though again, ultimately, you can never really predict anything.

(also, WHY IS THERE NO TEAL'C LOVE? C'mon, Threshold. I wasn't going to do a recap this season but....TEAL'C AND BRA'TAC BACKSTORY HOW DO PEOPLE NOT LOVE IT!)

[fignewton]

Jaffa storylines are never popular, I'm afraid. (Bloodlines and Family were among the last to go in S1-2.) I would've expected Teal'c and Bra'tac story to trump that, but... guess not. ::is sad::

[abyssinia]

It's true, though I would also argue that Bloodlines and Family are among the weakest Jaffa storylines. Threshold is so much about Teal'c rather than Jaffa in general - who, is, of course, probably the least popular main character outside of Jonas.

Ah, well. If no one else grabs it, I am SO there.

[fignewton]

Huh. Outside the Jack and Daniel friendship thing? I find Teal'c much more fascinating than Jack. But putting Jack as last of the four is definitely unusual, I know. :)

And I disagree re Bloodlines, because it's BRA'TAC. Arguably, the real beginning of the Jaffa Rebellion, right there. Certainly, if Bra'tac hadn't met them, he wouldn't have bothered talking his way into being Klorel's First Prime and trying to save the Tau'ri...

Family, though, yeah. I blame the change of actresses for a lot of that, but that's because I have an inexplicable fondness for actors/actresses that look good when they're scruffy. :)

[samantilles]

Jaffa storylines may not be popular simply because of the fact that generally they were thought of collectively (rarely individually outside of Teal'c and Family and Bra'tac) as either the enemies (as the SG teams used automatic gun fire to wipe out Jaffa defenses) or as slaves who need to be saved. By the time we get into really seeing Jaffa culture (at the alpha site, in the jaffa free nation council, hyk'tyl or the sodan) we've already seen them as "extras" so to speak for so long. I think also the 180 degree flip from "enemies" to "slaves who need to be rescued from their captors" without getting involved in the Jaffa culture earlier didn't help either.

[abyssinia]

Honestly, I think it sadly has a lot more to do with the fact that fandom is predominately interested in Jack and Daniel followed by Sam and that Teal'c has generally been a distant last place and Jaffa episodes tend to not use Jack, Daniel and Sam as heavily.

[samantilles]

Teal'c definitely needs more love! (and Teal'c ranks up much higher than Carter for me, so he's definitely getting a bit of my love!)

[fignewton]

Speaking from my experiences as a fic hunter (for recs, I mean), Teal'c has gotten a lot more popular in the fandom over the last two or three years. Perhaps it's because my own haunts have broaded a bit, but I genuinely don't think that's the case.

I've always seen Stargate as being Daniel's journey (no surprise, heh) but Teal'c's own journey is pretty amazing too. One of the few scenes I genuinely loved in AoT is that discussion he has with Tomin - such incredible depth to the man. (He is just so deep...)

And while I usually have little to no interest in discussing actors, CJ amazes me. Because he is absolutely the antithesis of Teal'c in personality, and yet he projects Teal'c with such power and subtlety. Don't tell me that's not impressive!

[abyssinia]

Oh, Teal'c is definitely a lot more popular now than he was back when I joined the fandom. I think it has to do with a combination of him REALLY coming into his own in seasons 9 and 10 and being extra awesome and visible and also fandom realizing they haven't given him enough love and making a concerted effort to change that.

There are a lot of ways in which Stargate is strongly Daniel's journey, though I think I could make decent arguments for it being Sam and Teal'c's journeys also, if possibly a bit secondarily. Jack doesn't seem quite as journey character-shifting, life-shifting as the others.

CJ is SO the completely opposite of Teal'c, it's true. There's a lot of jokes about CJ always goofing off but I do think he put a lot of talent and effort into TEal'c to pull off something that well.

[pepper]

Oh, hey - I just put in a claim for it, but if you want it, I'll happily hand it over.

[abyssinia]

no, no. I was going to not do a recap this season, but I'm sad not seeing Teal'c get enough love

[pepper]

Yeah - again. Poor Teal'c. *squishes Teal'c*

It's funny that it's the first and last eps that haven't yet gone. I guess because the first is OMG too soon, and the last is post-Daniel (where are all the Thor fans, eh?).

[fignewton]

I, too, am hugely amused that the first and last eps are the last ones to go. Whatever the reasons, it's definitely a new one!