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Oh, SG-1. And you were doing so well in this second half of the season…
Most of this was typed out as I watched, although I went back and added some extra comments here and there. Spoilers ahead, obviously!With all the upheaval and struggle with the Ori, and worrying about the new warships that have entered the galaxy, SG-1 takes time out to go and worry about some addictive corn? And playing near-to-terrorist roles, in beaming onto a ship with people aboard and blowing it up? No. Just – NO.
The bad guys have Earth-like projectile weapons, instead of the usual energy stuff? And really, who cares about the Lucian Alliance and this guy whose name I can’t be bothered to remember, even though I just heard it on-screen? The premise of a thriving underworld in the galaxy, operating in spite of the Goa’uld, was intriguing. Its actual presentation? Mind-numbingly boring and cliched as anything. And I’m supposed to be worried about this LA guy setting a bounty on the heads of SG-1? Sorry, writers, but we did this already in S3, and it was entertaining then. We’d better at least have a guest appearance from Aris Boch before this episode ends!
Tremendous charm in SG-1 actually taking downtime for a change. What a pity we can expect this bounty thingy to interfere. Teal’c with the
::blinks:: Mitchell is from
Bill Lee! Bill and Sam at a conference together! Oh – it’s not down-time for her. Too bad. But it’s fun to see them together, and that’s actually quite an intelligent premise – that alien technology is slowly revealed via these kinds of conferences, by making them not-quite-right at first so that it seems sensible that they’re eventually perfected. Very nice. Bill seems to enjoy it more than Sam though – but huh? Why did I have the very distinct impression that Bill is happily married, with a couple of kids? Could it be… ::gasp:: FANON? :) Seriously, I’m sorry to see that my impression was wrong, because aside from Colonel Dixon and Simon Wells of SG-13, we never get to see any SGC members with families. But Bill’s happy advice to Sam, and the pole-axed expression on her face? Priceless.
Are we supposed to think it’s funny that Vala is talking to Mitchell’s parents like this? If she doesn’t realize how offensive she’s being, then yes, it’s funny – although it makes her look pretty stupid. If she’s doing it deliberately, why? It’s cruel and unneccesary, and Mitchell doesn’t deserve it.
On the other hand, Mitchell’s parents are wonderful. :)
Daniel in his natural habitat! Whee! Daniel looking mighty fine in his natural habitat! Daniel being… stalked in his natural habitat. Oops. This woman is definitely odd. And HEY! ::carefully rewinds:: She’s wearing a big honkin’ ring that looks decidedly like the one Martouf had before he got killed. Red Alert! We’ve got bounty hunter here, don’t we? And a rather clueless/shameless flirty one, too. If she’s going to stalk Daniel Jackson in a museum, do some research first! Silly bounty hunter.
Bounty Hunters From Outer Space! Sounds like a cheesy sci-fi movie, doesn’t it? And Star Trek makeup for the loss win! They have “three signals” but not four? Guys? Even I know there are five members of SG-1 nowadays, and the writers forget that? No one notices the mysterious explosions so close to Earth? And ARGH! This guy is supposed to be the Aris Boch of the episode, isn’t he? Just from that one line of dialogue, I can see that he’s nowhere near Boch’s class.
“I like your mother.” Yeah, I do too. “Your loss.” That is so Vala.
Teal’c of the Tau’ri with the
It is WONDERFUL to see Teal’c holding a staff weapon again. Teal’c with a P-90 just isn’t the same. And yes, a bounty hunter attacking Teal’c off-world is twenty times more believable than the apparent idea that at least two bounty hunters have snuck secretly onto Earth – and that they can easily track them. But it was hard to believe that both Teal’c and the other
::covers eyes and sighs:: Look, I’m not a Vala fan. I’m not. She annoys me and bothers me and I have a very hard time accepting Vala 3.0 as being the same person as Vala 2.0, much less the original Vala 1.0. But she’s played by a marvelous actress who, quite frankly, has chemistry with everybody (except Daniel in my opinion), and she should not be reduced to the role of eye-candy in those ridiculously skimpy shorts and midriff-baring shirt. Just… no. But I’m beginning to think that Vala was being clueless with Mitchell’s parents in the earlier scene, because she happily starts telling a very-obviously-off-world story before Mitchell – erm. Pinches her?
Am I really supposed to care about Mitchell’s childhood sweetheart? And, hey! That’s the woman from Euronda! Even the same hairstyle, if I'm not mistaken. Sweet SG-1 and its amazing ability to recycle guest stars. :) I did like Vala whapping Mitchell on the head. Why don’t they put Mitchell and Vala together more often? If it’s because the actors were major leads on Farscape – who CARES?
Darren is one of the more engaging minor characters we’ve gotten, I think. Decidedly clueless but a nice guy. Very likeable.
Oh, I laughed at Daniel’s expression when the woman told him she’d been watching him and why. He actually looked around and expected someone to jump out and shout, “You’re on Candid Camera!” And while he has certainly been incredibly impulsive in the past about attractive women, good for him for showing a little sense. Until – whoa! And shame on you, Daniel! Shield yourself with the laptop and not the valuable book. Daniel should have known better.
This is just one huge cliché, isn’t it? Woman (with child) in danger. Eeeevil bounty hunter with ridiculous spike heels. And then she gets HIT WITH A BUS??
…This is a fanfic, right?
So. Sam talking to Landry. Are we really supposed to blandly accept that anyone and their brother can waltz into Earth’s airspace in a cloaked ship? Why haven’t they figured out how to defeat a cloak yet? I’d say they’re incredibly luckly the Goa’uld didn’t send someone in a cloaked ship with a naquadah bomb to the coordinates of
I really enjoyed Lee’s presentation, especially since he was acting – as he said at the beginning of the ep, he knew it wasn’t going to work, but he went all-out anyway. Not quite sure when I became a Bill Lee fangirl, but apparently I am. :)
Sam or someone from her division must have come up with some way to get better reception in case of emergency. And surely Mitchell knew how bad reception was in his home town? It just seemed silly to me. But “Me and Daisy” was great. Now, that’s a pop reference that fits (especially with that insane outfit of hers) and is appropriate to the setting, unlike his blathering last ep about The Da Vinci Code to a bunch of natives off-world. And Vala as a dead-shot – “Accounts. Receivable.” Hee!
And here’s the bounty after Sam. Nice set-up with the hologram, and Sam after the bounty was Whoo! Go, Sam! :) She and Bill make a pretty good team, don’t they? “Nice demo.” Heh. And did anyone notice the actual (gasp) continuity, even if it was to a lousy ep like Covenant? And I liked the slight alienness of this bounty hunter – just a bit off, instead of the Star Trek putty-faces of the guys blown up in the solar system.
Teal’c sets himself up as bait and bags yet another bounty hunter.
Okay. Every. single. bit. of the reunion was awful. Innocent people killed, and played for laughs. Rings in public. It became a farce, and a really stupid one. The charm of “PDL for Class Secretary” and “Damian Kindler for President” wasn’t enough for me to avoid rolling my eyes at a member of the SGC reduced to using a pay phone. And the bounty hunters – are we supposed to believe these are the best in the business? – were more like the Keystone Kops. I only liked three bits, and astonishingly enough, they were all Vala’s. First, her inability to remember what a “cover story” is. Second, her mature discussion with Darren re Tomin. That really moved me, and Darren is still a very likeable character – “So you’re separated?” in that hopeful voice. Third, her natural assumption that the bounty hunter was after her, and her determination to do something about it. But that’s it. And I really didn’t like the way the bounty hunter hit her. Very ugly. Although it was nice of her to offer herself to protect the civilians.
So, there were only four tags instead of five because Vala had stayed with the ship when they were busy blowing up space corn? I did like Daniel’s distinct look of discomfort as Sam is explaining this, tough. Daniel + radiation is not a good mix, as far as he’s concerned.
Why are they wearing their SG patches for an on-world mission?
WHY DOES ANYONE EVEN PRETEND THAT THE STARGATE PROGRAM IS STILL A SECRET? Ahem. Excuse me. I just have no words left. At least they took off their patches before they beamed in. And Daniel as soothe-the-agitated-natives was at least the right choice.
“Yeah, but what happened to Vala?” Darren doesn’t seem too worried about Mitchell, does he?
Daniel quotes Scooby Doo? Er. Right.
Do I care that the LA guy – Natan, that’s it – is dead? Nope. Not in the slightest. Do I care about Mitchell’s girlfriend? Even less.
Conclusion: Despite some nice character bits here and there, this was not the ep of Stargate that we were supposed to see. Someone accidently filmed the screenplay of a badly-written fanfic instead.
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sd_ficathon back from my marvelous beta! Time for the fun stuff. :)
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Yeah, though even being the spouse of a "regular" special ops soldier is hard enough. Remember when Mitchell was missing on the Sodan planet? Or when he went out of phase? So whether a woman would be up for that kind of emotionally straining marriage just because decades ago she thought this guy was cute is one thing. This woman learned just enough to know that when Cam can't come home and talk about his top secret missions, it could also mean something about the safety of the entire planet. It's really asking a lot of someone to have them sign up for that.
Man, I'd love to read that JAG crossover! (I saw the first couple of seasons, so I even know the characters! ;-)
Hee! I edited the quote so as not to spoil you. The complete section (from an MS interview in Eclipse magazine (http://www.eclipsemagazine.com/node/1741)) is:
“It’s funny because we have two things that happen. There is the ongoing storyline that started in season nine with Vala, about her sort of being interested in him and Daniel not being interested in her. Then this year we have another sort of pseudo love interest in the part of her daughter, Adria, played by Morena Baccarin.”
At this point, Shanks lapses into moment of laughter over what he is about to say in regards to Daniel Jackson. Composing himself, he continues. “There is a bit of some sort of romantic entanglement that happens there and Daniel kind of pushes that aside as well. Then in the episode right after it, which is “Bounty”, where a beautiful girl pretty much propositions Daniel point blank and he lets that go by too. The most annoying thing is I sort of go, ‘I’m not saying he’s light in the loafers, and I know people have been saying that for years, but I’m starting to wonder myself where they are going with this.’” Michael Shanks further explains that Joe Mallozzi, the writer who wrote that part of the episode, told him it confirms Daniel as the gay icon that he is or something like that."
“Does it make things look ambiguous about Daniel’s sexuality? Yes. But it’s certainly annoying to be playing the character and not know.” Shanks is waving his hands, palms up at the mystery of it all.
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Okay, the JAG crossover. ::rummages through hard drive:: Ah, here we are! And, heh. I'd forgotten about the Jacob thing. I have a special fondness for crack!fic that involves the same actor playing multiple characters. There must be a fic or two out there that suggests that Seth somehow swiped Daniel's father's body and took it as a host... But I digress.
Eagles and Weasels, by Celli Lane. Have fun! :)
Thanks for the whole interview section!
Does it make things look ambiguous about Daniel’s sexuality?
I'd say it makes Daniel look remarkably intelligent, myself. :)
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Hee, and yay for actor crossover! I love that, too. As far as Melburne, I've only seen occasional mention of Daniel being a little disturbed by Seth's resemblance. (I'm waiting for the fic explaining why Weir's boyfriend Simon looks exactly like Narim. Oh, Bridge casting department! You need a bigger talent pool!)
Does it make things look ambiguous about Daniel’s sexuality?
I'd say it makes Daniel look remarkably intelligent, myself. :)
Yeah, MS was joking-complaining about turning down the women, but, um, Daniel really wouldn't want either of those women. Of course I can read your remark as saying that being bisexual is intelligent, and I'll agree with that, too! ;-)
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Here you go, then. A really moving fic by Emily; beautifully done, and if ever I rec a category on
As far as Melburne, I've only seen occasional mention of Daniel being a little disturbed by Seth's resemblance.
I just remembered - there is one. One of Jb's, I think, or possibly Corby's? One of the ladies at the Tablet. In the Zipfic section. Jack confirms something for Daniel. Not.
Oh, Bridge casting department! You need a bigger talent pool!
Yes indeed. Although really, most of their regular repeats are verrry likeable actors/actresses.
Daniel really wouldn't want either of those women.
As I said, intelligent. There are men out there like that! I'm sure of it!
(happily married fifteen years, and counting ::bg::)
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(The JAG fic was great, too! Heh!)
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More intelligent than the average guy, that's for sure!
But I have this image of Daniel routinely reporting anyone who hits on him, male or female, to security for a background check. Because after all these years in the SGC, he will *never* date anyone who doesn't have security clearance *and* has tested snake-free.
The Pentagon
Lieutenant Olson tapped hesitantly at Lieutenant Colonel Davis' door.
"Come in-" Davis called. He looked up from a steeply piled stack of manila folders, all stamped "TOP SECRET" in large red letters.
"Sir, I have a question?" Olson had only been working for Davis for about six weeks, and from what he had seen, Davis had needed a full-time aide for about six years. Olson was getting pretty good at figuring out which things he could handle on his own, but he still had to ask more questions than he liked.
"Sure," Davis straightened the pile so it stacked more securely and took the folder he was holding out. He flipped it open to show a photograph of a beautiful strawberry blonde young woman with a dusting of freckles across her nose. His eyebrows went up. "Nice."
"I think this was misdirected," Olson said. "A background check was requested, but I can't see any government connection at all let alone anything to do with Homeworld Security."
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Olson was still puzzled. "So after over ten years, we're investigating her niece?"
Davis glanced back down at the file. "No. This check was requested by Dr. Jackson." He pointed to the notation in the file.
"Dr. Jackson of SG-1?" Olson asked.
"Yeah," Davis closed the file and handed it back. "We ask SGC personnel to report any suspicious approaches. He probably wanted to be sure she was who she said she was."
"Oh." Olson accepted the file back. "So what should I do with this?"
"Just file it with the standard form, and copy Dr. Jackson."
Olson flipped open the file to look at the girl's guileless face, "But if she did something suspicious, shouldn't we do something more?"
"If she'd done anything *really* suspicious, Daniel would have said something," Davis said. "She probably just hit on him."
"What?" Olson was nonplussed. "He reported her for hitting on him?"
"Since there's nothing else there, I assume that's what it was," Davis said casually. He grinned again at the lieutenant's expression. "It's not as paranoid as it sounds. So far we've bagged one Goa'uld, one journalist, a Russian spy and a rogue NID agent this way." He shook his head. "They *will* always pick on Daniel."
"Yes, sir. Thank you sir." Olson excused himself and mentally filed the experience under 'more weird but useful information about the Stargate Program'. Before he put the file away, he took one more look at the candid photo of the girl smiling at someone off-camera. What would it be like to meet a girl like that and have your first thought be to wonder if she was an agent?
He filed the clearance and copied the result to Dr. Jackson at the SGC, looking at his watch. As he pulled on his jacket and hat, he was conscious of the weight of his government ID at his belt. Working at the Pentagon, being one of the few- well, okay thousands, but they were elite thousands- to know about the Gate was like being party to a gigantic delicious secret. Olson was already wondering if there was some way to get transferred to Colorado, perhaps even to the Alpha Site. But somehow that little file had made the whole thing seem a lot closer, more immediate, than it normally did.
Suddenly, things he had barely noticed took on a sinister significance. Colonel Davis carried a gun when he left the Pentagon, for example. And so did General Hammond. Uneasily, Olson wondered just how worried he should be, even as a lowly lieutenant. His buddy Karl had wanted to set him up on a blind date with one of his wife's girlfriends. It seemed the height of paranoia to suddenly wonder about that.
But maybe he'd suggest seeing if they could score tickets for a game instead.
(Yes, I'm spamming your journal... it's another excrutiatingly boring set of paperwork which I'm procrastinating about tackling. And poot- I'm too wordy- will have to post in pieces..)
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::snickers::
Daniel's love life as an issue of national security! I love it. Spam away, I assure you!