Stargate SG-1 1019 Dominion

[fignewton]

A solid story, I think. I ended up watching this one first, then going back to rewatch and comment, so there’s no real coherency of order in what I’ve written. Lots I didn’t like. Lots I did. So: Dominion.

May I say how much I hate that the memory machine has cropped up for the third time in two seasons? I was disturbed enough when it was first introduced, and incredulous that the SGC ended up not only taking it home, but evidently cooking up a mobile version that Mitchell had no qualms about leaving unguarded in a hospital room with low security. But to see it being used here for exactly the kind of abuse that disturbed me – deliberately manipulating a person’s memories, even with that person’s approval – was frankly awful. Changing a person’s past in this manner essentially changes the person that they are today. It’s immoral and unethical and the kind of scary technology that the Daniel I thought I knew would never, ever condone bringing to Earth, much less advocating its use on someone who is supposed to be a friend and teammate. It takes a lot for me to look past that and try to judge the story without that hanging over things.

Vala cheating so obviously? I expected so much better of her. At the very least, I wouldn’t expect her to be cheating in a way that she’d get caught. It doesn’t suit her background at all. Should I chalk this up to the memory machine damaging some circuits along the way? (I’ll try, I really will, to avoid snarking about this all episode…)

Why hasn't the SGC re-blocked the Supergate? Adria seems to imply that they're still sending more ships; at the very least, she had to get back to the Milky Way somehow. On the bright side, Adria finally dumped the stupid, stupid neck collar.

Loved how many regulars appeared in this episode! Reynolds, even in Vala’s fake memories, was fantastic. The Tok’ra still exist, and still wear those awful beige uniforms, even though they’ve gotten better pants! Barrett! Shout-out to tretonin! Gratuitous Daniel-whumping! :)

Can I just say that I’m kind of charmed that Vala insisted that the fake memories include her rudely interrupting Daniel in a briefing?

So who are we supposed to believe, Adria or Ba’al? Adria claims the Ori are still there. Ba’al asserts they aren’t. The word of both is highly suspect. I am desperately hoping that Ba’al was the one who was telling the truth, because otherwise? It means that the SGC spent over a season chasing after a will-o’-the-wisp of insanity for absolutely nothing. But honestly, given TPTB’s penchant for destroying any and all victories with subsequent failures, I’m not counting on it. It comes down to the upcoming movie, doesn’t it? Is it going to be Adria-the-Ascended in our galaxy vs Earth, or Adria-and-the-Ori (sounds like a garage band, doesn’t it?) in a galaxy-spanning adventure of breathtaking CGI and lots and lots of things going boom, with ships in use instead of that round thing in the basement that so happens to be included in the name of the show? I’ve been avoiding spoilers for the movie – all I know is its name – but really, past experiences tell me that the writers would prefer the latter option if possible. So they’ve essentially negated the efforts of the past two seasons and brought us back to square one.

That was downright creepy, the way they framed the Sam-as-backup on Ba’al’s ship to be exactly like the scene in The Serpent’s Lair, way back in the S2 opener. I was tempted to go back and compare to see if the two Jaffa running round the bend of the corridor were newly filmed, or actually the same two guys that Daniel took out back then. And I was actually a little worried about Sam there for a moment; how far was that similarity going to go?

What will it take to get the writers to remember the ORIGINAL WORMHOLE EFFECT? I loved that one. The SGA one is so boring and prosaic in comparison.

“Someone going to fill her in?”

“Absolutely. …Just not us.” Okay, highly amusing that even Landry is apprehensive about facing Vala’s wrath..

“So – no IOA? No Reynolds’ men?” I really liked that the deaths she thought she’d caused were one of the first things on her list.

I don’t understand the utter fannish glee so many people have with Ba’al – I chalk it up to the same bewildering love for Maybourne – but the guy is actually intelligent, isn’t he? He took off Adria’s necklace, something we've all been complaining about SG-1's failure to do when they had the chance. And wow! He acted like a Goa’uld for the first time since S8. Now that makes this ep a winner, even if it’s for that reason alone. Phlanged voice! Menace! OTT posturing! Happy sigh. :) And we dumped the stupid six-pack of Ba’als, thank goodness. I had quite a visceral pleasure in seeing them all dead, to be honest.

I confess to being a tad confused about exactly who was implanted in Adria. I assumed, when Ba’al first phlanged at Adria, that he was going to leave his host and transfer to her. But then he brought a symbiote into the room – not the one in him – for implantation. So I thought, okay, he’s not as clever as I thought he’d be; he’s going to implant a lesser Goa’uld that will submit to him. But when we meet up with Adria again, it is Ba’al in her. So – which one? I cannot believe that the “original” Ba’al would allow himself to sit in a symbiote tank and let his clones run around. He certainly seems to have made sure that he eliminated the rest of the six-pack. So who went into Adria, who captured Adria, and who really cares, since all of them are finally dead by the end of the episode?

Whee! Merlin’s parting gift to the Odyssey still works!

Whew! Daniel using a staff weapon is… heh. :) Can’t remember him doing that, actually, since way back in S1 in The Nox.

Ba’al went through the mouth? Didn’t want to scar her pretty little neck? It’s nothing to worry about, with her penchant for neck collars. Have to say, though, that I’ve never been much impressed with the actress who plays Adria, but she really sold me on Ba’al-in-Adria. Even her head gestures were Ba'al-like. Very nicely done.

“What do we do now?”

“Kill them both.” Teal’c was so right. (And so Teal’c, hee!) This was a perfect example of the characters acting stupid for the sake of the plot – after all, if Ba’al/Adria dies before she can ascend, we can’t have a movie, can we? Argh.

Daniel saying, “I’m sure they’ll make an exception in this case” was downright wrong. Creepily, horribly wrong. Daniel has such a visceral revulsion for what the Goa’uld do that even under such circumstances, I can’t envision him advocating it.

Sam is “not that kind of doctor,” just like Daniel, so it was odd to see her working with the Tok’ra. OTOH, Sam and the Tok’ra have always had that connection, and she’s often down medical stuff with Janet (Little Doc!) and others in the past. On the third hand, this seemed to be Tau’ri level technology, not Tok’ra, which is kinda disappointing. They did well in S3 with Skaara; if they’ve refined it so much in seven years, why aren’t they better at it now?

Euthenasia as recommended by the Tok’ra. Ewwww. OTOH, how fascinating that they left the decision up to Vala. As next of kin?

Adria is so much prettier with her hair down.

As I said earlier, I do get a sort of guilty pleasure out of Daniel-whumping. Seriously, though, I was really surprised that Adria wasn’t a lot more vindictive. The last time she saw Daniel, he’d utterly betrayed her – and, if Ba’al was telling the truth, killed the Ori. Throwing him into the corridor, and flooding the air he's breathing with toxic coolants, seems hardly as vicious as I would expect.

Did anyone notice that Teal’c’s protective goggles were infinitely cooler than Mitchell’s? :)

They didn’t even bother giving us Adria-the-glowy-tentacles; instead, we watched them wave a light on Vala's face. Saving the budget again, I see, and it truly pulled me right out of the story with its obviousness.

This episode was very Vala-centric, and in a good way. We get a glimpse of the Vala-that-was at the beginning; her jolt and pain at the percieved betrayal; her ability to escape the SGC (“they thought a locked door could hold me”); the humor of the video message to herself; the discussions with Mitchell and Daniel about how she’s dealing with a mission to take down and/or kill the Orici; the struggle to cope with watching Adria, with the mix of dislike/unease/unwilling compassion that she has for the girl, getting un-Goa’ulded. When I compare what we learned of Vala in this episode with the travesty of last week’s Family Ties, I find it even more frustrating that we wasted an entire episode, so close to the end of the series, on Daddy Mal Doran.

One ep left to go… ::sniffs:: And I’ve been warned about that one. We’ll see.