Dial the Gate: Disclosure

[fignewton]

redial_the_gate does Disclosure today. I go into this one knowing that it's the source of the screencap that Daniel was born in Olympia (whether that's Olympia, Greece or a fictional Olympia, Oregon is unclear), that it's a clip show, and that Thor pwns Kinsey. No real ep discussion here, just liveblogging my reactions. Onward!

Chekov! I like him a lot, oddly enough. It's fun to watch him progress from antagonist to protagonist - as I said last week, he works marvelously well with Jack in the panic of Full Alert.

Interesting - the French, English, and Chinese guys are all ambassadors. Why not a Russian ambassador too? Why a Russian colonel? Is it just to give us a familiar face?

GEORGE! ::squishes him:: He's so cute with that faint smirk on his face. And Paul Davis, wheeeee! And cute efficient female Russian attache! Her Russian sounds a bit American-accented to me, but I'm no expert.

I'm a little less impressed with the implication that poor Chekov has been spinning wildly without knowing that disclosure was imminent (that's the reason for the ep name, right?). Hammond could've briefed him beforehand. Or maybe he did, and Chekov was just stalling until the official announcement.

I am cracking up that Davis apologizes for security measures to protect the Pentagon and the ambassadors from the eeeeevil forces of the MEDIA.

Does that focus on George as the teaser ends mean this is going to be Hammond-centric? We can hope so!

DANIEL! Hi! Although I'm disappointed (yes, Daniel fangirl that I am) that Catherine doesn't get a mention.

Annnnd here comes the clip show aspect. I can happily type my reactions without pausing, hee! And I'll say again, as I commented back when we did the ep in question, that it feels very... wrong to me that Sam and Jack appropriated the Stargate at such expense to the program.

"Asgard... ship. The Asgard..." Hee hee hee. Poor Paul. :)

Ah, Kinsey. Smarm personified. And what does it say about the character that he has twice been a major player in a clip show? The problem with Kinsey, for me, is not that he's against the Stargate program; in some cases, he actually has a point. My problem is that he's such an over-the-top cliche that it's impossible to avoid the neon sign floating over his head that says, "You are supposed to hate me!" Also, the constant harping on SG-1, making two civilians and two relatively low-ranking Air Force officers as his scapegoats? Not pretty. Also, playing the ambassadors against his country? Pretty ugly all round.

Y'know something? This is a lousy clip show. A lot of the clips have little to do with the discussion they're supposed to highlight. (Although the one from The Sentinel was well done.) It seems the clips are there in an attempt to bring the main characters into the storyline. Sorry, writers, but it doesn't really work.

And now Kinsey is trying to drag Hammond down too?! Oooh, those are fighting words, Senator. ::rolls up sleeves::

When do we learn that Anubis was behind the asteroid in Failsafe? That's news to me.

"The government of China does not believe in keeping secrets from its people." Okay, I never inject RL politics here, but BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

"We're talking about a full-scale attack from space! I'm afraid people are going to notice." Heh - yes, that was surely supposed to be an example of British understatement, but beautifully said. :)

HAMMOND! ::squishes him again:: Love him defending his people against Kinsey's insinuations.

"...The Goa'uld have a fatal flaw: arrogance." And pointed look at Kinsey. Hee hee hee.

When the British Ambassador protests that "nothing on this planet" can fight the Goa'uld, why didn't Hammond point out that they blew up the Supreme System Lord with a nuclear bomb? Not to mention taking out two motherships with some well-placed C4...

Davis has a good point here - Anubis tried to destory Earth by blowing up the Stargate, and it was a fully human ship that played the role in getting the Gate off-planet in time. Not bad, eh?

The Chinese ambassador has a good point too - balance of power could shift dramatically. That's what the Tollans feared, after all.

The Prometheus is still an incredibly ugly ship. Just sayin'.

It's not unfair to suggest that the Stargate might be better placed on neutral ground, and that a coalition of personnel from multiple nations might better serve the planet's needs. It's also not unfair to suggest that rule by committee is usually a disaster and that Anubis would have merrily taken over the planet before the squabbling committee members could decide on the new color for the SG uniforms.

Kinsey wants to step over Hammond's corpse to gain power for himself, and he doesn't care that such arguing in front of foreign nationals might cause major damage. Yeah. As I said: neon signal. That little reminder about the NID taking Tessa and Keyla for a ride...? ::shivers::

Whee! An actual clip with a glimpse of Daniel! :D Now we just need a glimpse of Jonas too to round out the team satisfactorily.

I like Chekov's sideways support here. Nicely done. :)

Hammond is never, ever not awesome. I love how he speaks for the program, for its people, for the allies they've made.

THOR! That's quite some ace, George. :)

...And here again, the focus is all on SG-1. Sigh. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm fully aware that Thor is founding member and president of the Jack O'Neill Alien Fan Club. But it's a disservice to all SGC personnel, whether it's the gate teams or on-base support, to reduce the program to SG-1 (again, in big neon letters).

That business with the fingers had me giggling like crazy. :) :) "Supreme Commander." Hee hee hee.

As nice as it is to see Thor giving Kinsey the smackdown, one aspect I don't like is that Thor is basically taking on his usual role of benevolent deity here: guiding the young primitives on the right course of action.

"Well played." Yeah - to Kinsey, all this is a game.

So. No Jonas at all? Poor guy, always getting left in the cold. And now I'm flashing on that S9 ep where Nerus comes in and is all bubbly about meeting the famous SG-1, and when he gets to Mitchell who is standing all straight and proud, he basically says, "Meh." And now I'm wondering why I'm enjoying Jonas so very much when I never learned to like Mitchell. Maybe it's because the team dynamic changes so drastically in S9-10?

Bottom line: not as mind-numbingly boring as I'd been warned :) but a pretty blah episode, complete with literal deus ex machina. Hope for a better one next time!

Comments

[green_grrl]

This one goes in my book as worst Stargate episode ever. There are certainly other episodes I don't like, but this one is just flat, pointless, and built around an idiot plot. They basically made George sit around and take getting yelled at for forty minutes to "build tension" and do the dramatic Thor reveal. Sorry, but the first thing out of his mouth when people complained about making dangerous enemies would have been, "We've met some amazing allies, too." But then the episode would have been over in ten minutes.

The only thing I like about it is Paul Davis terrifically cute fanboying of Daniel. :-)

[fignewton]

::nods:: There were so many times he could have offered a defense to Kinsey's insinuations, and he just SAT there. Sigh.

The British ambassador seemed reasonably human, though. :) And I always love it when Davis gets to display his knowledge of all things Stargate!