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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.
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What I hated about the memory machine, though? Was that I had pretty much figured they'd done something to Vala to slip her past Adria -- but I'd figured they'd hypnotized her, and would just snap her memory back with a trigger word. Wouldn't that have been a whole hell of a lot easier? (The Bridge boys get SO into their tech the plots just fall over from the weight, I swear.)
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?
Even funnier? She disses Daniel in the meeting for rambling, then rambles even worse herself!
I'm one of those who thinks Ba'al is smokin' hot, though, as well as smart, so I was a little sad to see all the dead Ba'als. Couldn't I keep just one? All tied up, of course. ;-)
Waiting for the Tok'ra, supersurgicalassistant!Sam, the flashlight of ascension: bah, bah, bah. I'll just go back and rewatch Teal'c's muscles as he pries open the door...
The usual amount of plot holes (how did they know which planet to plant Vala on to catch Adria?) and idiot plotting, but lots of favorite faces and a good ramp up of the arc heading into the movie. After Unending, I really don't mind this ep too much at all. ;-)
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Oh, yeah, be practical. ;p Seriously, though, I think we could fairly argue that Adria might have been able to detect hypnosis. The way I understand it, the real memories didn't even exist when Vala met Adria. I still say the machine is an appalling abuse of power, but it really did seem to fit the bill. That's because they wrote the story so the bill would fit, so to speak. Silly Bridge boys, as you say, with their squeeing over tech and things that go boom!
She disses Daniel in the meeting for rambling, then rambles even worse herself!
Yeah, noticed that. :) Whoever designed the memories definitely did a good job of it, I'll give them that.
the flashlight of ascension
Bwah! Oh, that's perfect, and exactly what they did to save the special effects budget! And Teal'c is always, always awesome. Why the writers haven't caught on by now and given him lines is utterly beyond me.
Idiot plots, and their holes, are sadly par for the course these days. This was a nice actiony ep, I guess, and what a Vala backstory should be. And hoo boy am I wincing in anticpating for Unending!
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But I did not one but two rants after Unending, and I'll link you next weekend.
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CJ doesn't like having too much dialogue? He's entitled, I suppose. But as you say, Teal'c is amazing at giving whole speeches without saing a word, and we don't get too much of that, either. More Teal'c! That's what we need. :)
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More Teal'c would always be a good thing. *sigh*
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More Teal'c! It is our rallying battle cry. :)
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See, that's one of the worst weaknesses of this use of the memory device to my mind. In the first show with it, Mitchell gets memories of the murder- from the mind of the real killer. Fair enough.
But how does one fabricate completely false memories? They never explain that. Personally, I think what it means is they had to act out the whole thing, and just suppress Vala's memories that it was all a plot. (Okay, I think they specifically contradict that in the episode, but.. it just makes way more sense to me.) And I firmly believe that Reynolds took a rather mean-spirited satisfaction in playing his part. One he's not entirely proud of- but he's never really forgiven Vala for taking out his team not just once, but twice on Prometheus.
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Oh, I don't know. They can modify pre-existing memories, maybe - for example, I'm sure Vala has interrupted Daniel in briefings many times before. I would imagine it takes a real expert to do the job properly. Maybe they hired a Galoran for the actual memory work?
I firmly believe that Reynolds took a rather mean-spirited satisfaction in playing his part. One he's not entirely proud of- but he's never really forgiven Vala for taking out his team not just once, but twice on Prometheus.
Ooh, lovely point! And why should he forgive her? It's not as if she apologized to anyone. :p