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Oh, Abyssis. You have my extreme sympathy that you put all that effort into catching up with… this.
Well. Two bright spots.
First of all, Sam and Vala going shopping together is delightful. If I’m not mistaken, this is our first true glimpse of them as casual friends, instead of teammates with a decent working relationship. And while my mind usually doesn’t work like this, I had the distinct impression that Mitchell’s “gallantry” in allowing “ladies first” was more for the chance to watch them in their nice new civvies for a little while longer. :)
Second, Landry’s ex-wife Kim is a truly beautiful woman.
…Okay, two and a half. We got a lot of SG-1-in-civvies scenes, which I always enjoy.
Er. That’s it, really.
I found this episode to be seriously awful. Awful enough, in fact, to rival Avenger 2.0 for the not-so-coveted spot as Worst Episode Ever. I can’t believe they wasted an entire episode on this absolutely awful dreck.
I don’t care enough to go through it bit by bit, so I’ll just highlight all the really wincing points:
They decided to spend an episode on highlighting Vala’s past. Okay, fair enough, I suppose, even if it’s not the wisest decision only three eps from the end of the series. Still, there’s so much intriguing fodder for a truly powerful ep – Qetesh, for example, and a closer look at her post-host years, or even a confrontation with the planet where she was taken as host.
So what do we get instead? Her smarmy father – not even a mention of stepmother Adria. Not a single reference to her lost years as a host. Her box of keepsakes were something Qetesh took along with her, perhaps?
There was no confirmation that dear Dad’s intel was accurate, except for the presence of people on the planet and a heavy concentration of naquadah. And they took his word for it blindly and shot those people and ships without even trying to communicate. For all the SGC might know, those were innocent people that dear Dad just happened to frame for convenience, and his entire story was cooked up in order to get those people killed. Putting this together with the way they killed the guys at the beginning of Bounty, and I’m beginning to wonder just what has happened to the SGC.
It took Teal’c eight years to be allowed off-base, and thanks to the Trust, he was back to living at the SGC in less than a month. He’s still there now, as Mitchell’s suggestion about finding him an apartment last season confirms for us. Vala, as is clearly indicated in this very ep, is also still living on-base. So they give dear Dad permission to waltz off-base to live with the Tau’ri? Why did “sanctuary” automatically mean allowing him to live on Earth? I know he asked for it, but why grant it? The Land of Light, Cimmeria, Edora – or, if you prefer, any planet that wasn’t on the Abydos cartouche, and thus is unknown to the general population. Or toss him through the wormhole to the Pegasus galaxy, and have Weir shift him to one of the planets there. He wouldn’t have been able to complain that he wasn’t safe. …But of course, they needed him on Earth to finish a dangling plot line from ONE EPISODE AGO that no one even knew was dangling. How lovely.
By the way, this makes two eps in a row when the SGC ignores the opinions/concerns of an alien that has supposedly been accepted as part of the team. At least Teal’c had Daniel vociferously defending his views. Vala has nobody. Maybe Jonas should count his blessings that the SGC is content to leave him languishing under the rule of the Ori.
Yawn. Again we need to drag in the Dr. Lam/Landry familial connection? Aside from the concept of father and daughter, there is no similarity whatsoever between Lam/Landry and Vala/dear Dad. Landry’s patronizing attitude is so off-base that it hurts, even without the fatherly attitude towards Vala that made me definitely cringe.
An absolute alien fits seamlessly into Tau’ri culture, just like that? No matter how long his career as a scam artist, there’s no way he could pick up all the tricks and twists of scam artistry on Earth so quickly – never mind the bingo games.
Apparently, the writers wanted to trash any suggestion of Vala/Daniel. While that’s a sentiment that pleases me, I have never seen Daniel so patronizing in ten seasons, despite his tendencies towards arrogance. And where is this attitude coming from? Daniel knows all about not-so-happy families and people who aren’t very good at parentage (yeah, I’m looking at you, Nick, even if you might have been right to make that decision).
How did Teal’c become The Girl of SG-1? He’s been whumped more this season than every other SG-1 member combined, and that includes Daniel being abducted and Priorized. Why did they have to come up with a plan that involves Teal’c being deliberately zatted?
A ship full of weapons-grade naquadah. This means a big boost to the budget, right? And everyone a lot happier with the SGC and the new ability to build more ships and so on, right? …Of course not.
Sam drinking on-base, huh? First Mitchell last season, now this. Shame on you, writers.
You don’t mock Teal’c, writers. You just don’t. And I didn’t see Teal’c sliding down in that chair – I saw Chistopher Judge.
Oh, yes – and broad meta hints about how meeeean the PTB are to end Stargate in the middle of a really awful episode? It doesn’t work very well.
Sigh. 0.5 out of ten, I think. Please, please let next week’s ep be better!
no subject
Loki's second cousin replaced them with clones? You could write the clean-up detail afterwards! :)
You have to dip your toe in the parody pool some time...
no subject
You have to dip your toe in the parody pool some time...
I do??! Do you know what kinds of things *grow* in the parody pool? I mean, marshmellow peeps and god knows what else! *g* (Just kidding.)
Honestly though- the impetus that drives most of my fics is the idea, "this would be such a great story if I could just explain a, b and c that really bug me". And I'm not getting that from S9 and S10, for the most part. There isn't enough 'great story potential' to hang a fic on.
As I was saying to loriel_eris this morning, the Arthurian background of the Ori/Ancients was a horrible turn-off for me. To have Ancients running around on Earth during our recorded history really screwed with established timelines, plus the source material is *so* heavily used in written fantasy.
What they really needed was the pre-Roman mythos (tying into the earlier 'builders of roads' references and the Latin-related language). I mean, why *Arthur* and have him speaking a form of Latin? Gah.
The idea that I am totally resisting (or maybe saving for retirement), is the urge to completely rewrite S9 and 10. With more emphasis on the post-Goa'uld galaxy, the Ori as creepier but less overwhelmingly powerful enemies, the Stargate going public on Earth... because it's really silly that they it hasn't been blown yet: (Okay my train of thought just became totally derailed by commentfic, and since it's a boring afternoon at the office...)
It was a slow day at the SuperShop, and Bill glanced around to see what his buddy Steve was doing. The store had a mix of retirees and high-school kids, but Bill frequently wasn't even sure what language the teenagers were speaking. The two age groups tended to naturally segregate, like oil and water. "'Air Force Teams Journey to Other Planets!'" Bill laughed as his fellow cashier looked up from the newspaper. "Why do you read that tabloid trash?"
"C'mon, Bill," his friend urged. "Don't tell me you still buy the cover-up? Everyone knows there're aliens out there. It'd be on the front page of the New York Times, except that everyone's so terrified of looking silly they won't go to press without overwhelming proof. Remember Alec Colson?"
"I remember that he tried to scam the public into some kind of alien story when he was being indited for securities fraud," Bill said stubbornly.
"He was only indited *after* he put an alien on live television!"
"Which was proved to be some new hologram technology that he was working on for the government."
"Some people think the aliens gave us the hologram technology," Steve said.
"Which is why the government is licensing it to create the new VirtualWorld theme park?" Bill yawned. "Yeah, aliens. I'll believe it when I see it."
A young man came up to his checkout, and Bill turned to him with a smile for one of his regulars, "Good morning, Nyan," he eyed the assortment of basic foodstuffs in the basket. "Traveling again?"
Nyan laughed, "Yeah, sludge in the fridge when I got home. I don't know why I bother."
"You need to freeze more," Bill told him, briskly running his purchases thorough the scanner. "My wife freezes all our leftovers religiously."
"But who'd want to worship frozen broccoli?" the young man joked. Then he got a thoughtful look in his eye.
"Your receipt?" Bill handed it to him.
Nyan took it with a mumbled 'thank you', and hurried out.
"Weird kid," Steve said. "What kind of a name is 'Nyan'?"
"It's a family name, he told me once," Bill said. "He's a nice guy. Works for the Air Force. Weird schedule though, I never know when he'll be in."
Steve lost interest and put away his newspaper. "Well, quiet as it is, I'll go see if I can help with stocking, if you'll hold down the front."
Bill nodded, as Steve locked his register and turned away. Aliens, right. Who the heck was going to fall for that?
Warning: this is just a random free-floating idea. There is *nothing* that will induce me to start working on this. Really. I need to retain the illusion that my writing goals can be achieved in some non-infinite timespan. Like my lifetime.
no subject
"But who'd want to worship frozen broccoli?" the young man joked. Then he got a thoughtful look in his eye.
Can't you just see Nyan bursting into Daniel's office with the horrible news that the Ori have secretly planted worship me nanocytes into the local vegetable patches?
Seriously, though (can we be serious about this?) I understand exactly what you mean: the storyline of S9-10 isn't enough to truly interest me, or charm me, to want to write about it.
The idea that I am totally resisting (or maybe saving for retirement), is the urge to completely rewrite S9 and 10. With more emphasis on the post-Goa'uld galaxy, the Ori as creepier but less overwhelmingly powerful enemies, the Stargate going public on Earth... because it's really silly that they it hasn't been blown yet
I don't care if you don't write this now, or if your Nyan snippet gets thrown away. But I do hope you write this someday, because while I don't care for Mitchell much and Vala makes me crazy as she's presented to us now, I would dearly love to see some kind of sense made out of these last two seasons of SG-1.
no subject
You're channeling the parody *g*. Actually, it's a rather clever insight to some iconography that's been baffling the archeology team. But Daniel totally understood how he got there from frozen broccoli. (It'll probably turn up somewhere eventually- I never throw these bits out!)
And I think they went the easy/lazy route
by picking Arthurian legend
Oh, god, yes. This was the 'gee, we don't have to explain anything because *everyone*'s seen "The Sword in the Stone". Pardon me while I go thump the heavy bag a few times.... okay, better now.