Stargate SG-1 1020 Unending

[fignewton]

So, Unending. Not just the season finale, but the series finale. What would you want, if you could choose what the final episode would be like? I would want adventures through the Stargate, and triumph, and teamy goodness, and an affectionate tribute to the show and characters that we’ve loved for the past decade.

Instead, we got about five minutes of loveliness and over half an hour of travesty.

In the immortal words of Charlie Brown: AUGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Let’s cover the five minutes of loveliness first.

I was quite amused by Daniel and Vala at the beginning:

“I told you to bring something to amuse yourself. I didn’t mean me or the crew.”

“The last time I was this bored, I took hostages!”

“I was there!”

The Asgard again! Whee! And the in-joke about Daniel explaining to Vala how to tell the Asgard apart – “It’s the voice” – is exactly the kind of in-joke I love. Those fans who know that Michael Shanks does Thor’s voice will be amused; those who don’t will take the words at face value, with no harm done. Very nice.

Affirmation of the Tau’ri as the Fifth Race – all together now! – Awwwwww. :)

Leapfrogging to the time bubble: Daniel arguing to preserve the legacy of the Asgard, and spending as much time as he could learning about that legacy: very Daniel. But Torment of Tantalus all over again, that he could learn so much and never share that knowledge with others.

Sam playing the cello was bittersweet and very, very Sam, to use her rest-breaks to learn a new talent and create a different kind of beauty, something beyond the exact, clean numbers and vectors of science.

Thor reduced to the equivalent of that really annoying paper clip from Microsoft Word was so ridiculous that it was actually funny – especially when Sam turned him off. :)

Mitchell going stir-crazy, literally, and trashing his room. And sitting in that cockpit, frozen in inaction and utterly lost. A marvelous flash of characterization.

Wee little snippets of teamy goodness: the salt-shaker with napkin as Superman. Mistletoe. Teal’c comforting Sam after Landry’s death.

Teal’c being awesome, as usual. You can never go wrong with Teal’c!

Then another leap to the ending, which, if you ignore the entire episode that led up to it, was just wonderful. Walter counting off the chevrons, one by one, as SG-1 wait in the Gateroom, talking together with humor and friendship. The chorus of “Indeed,” and “Good luck, SG-1,” and heading into the wormhole together. Perfect! I’ll even forgive the lack of the wormhole effect to end the series, since it would no doubt have been the SGA one instead of the original.

So much for what I liked.

Okay, the ships. One of the greatest charms of Stargate has always been that even though it’s sci-fi, it’s taking place now, and not in the future. I’ve muttered about this before. The more ships that are integrated into the show, the less “now” vibe it has. So whose brilliant idea was it to make the very last episode of the series take place without a Stargate until the very last two minutes of the show?

Why drag Landry along? The idea of the CO of the SGC leaving the facility is so wrong. The idea of saying goodbye to the Asgard without Jack is even more wrong. And if they couldn’t get RDA, why not Hammond? I didn’t care in the slightest that Landry died, except that it made Sam feel like a failure. If that had been George, now, I would have been in real tears together with Sam.

Wiping out the Asgard? Say WHAT? No. sense. whatsoever. We have never been given even the slightest impression that suicide is part of the Asgard mindset; and the reasons given are ridiculous. They can’t ascend? So what? Why would they want to ascend? If there’s some stupid reason why the writers need to make sure the Asgard aren’t around to help in the upcoming movies, why not put them into stasis until such a time as the Tau’ri discover some way to help them? Millennia wouldn’t matter, as we learned in Revelations. We know the Asgard have little regard for their physical bodies, as long as their consciousnesses are preserved. So why not preserve those minds? Because an explosion would look cool?

And truly, why this insane need on the part of the writers to destroy every ally the Tau’ri have? The Asgard, while not always around when we need them, have been a genuine force for good for thousands of years – the only one of the Four Races who took a true interest in preserving humanity, even if they tended to look down on humans as being “much too young.” Now, we’ve been kickstarted decades or centuries into the future, technology wise, which harkens back to my complaint about dragging SG-1 away from the “now” charm of its original setting. Bad, bad idea all around.

What are the Ori doing in the Asgard galaxy? How do they even know the Asgard exist, much less where they live?

The Asgard’s decision to press the big red button without first zapping the three Ori ships in orbit, instead of merely allowing two of them to accidently get caught in the explosion, makes no sense. The ability of the Ori to pursue the ship so promptly and accurately through hyperspace, without even losing seconds in their effort to track them, makes no sense. The idea that the Asgard would only give the Tau’ri a single copy of their collective knowledge, without even an effort at a back-up of some kind, makes no sense. The inability of the ship – or, should I say, the people in charge of the ship – to be ready to shoot the second the Ori appeared and then flee again into hyperspace, makes no sense. The idea that they had enough time to beam people down to safety, but not to shoot at their pursuers or come up with some intelligent evasive action, makes no sense. Sam’s failure to consider getting the shields back to maximum, dropping the bubble to wipe out the Ori ship, and then returning to the time bubble, if necessary, to figure out how to fix anything else, makes no sense. In fact, I can only conclude that they wanted a fifty-year time bubble and didn’t care how many plotholes would be sucked into the bubble together with the team.

At the briefing, they calmly speculated about the Ori tipping off the Priors, and that the Ancients in the Milky Way might not stop the Ori from using their powers. Er, excuse me? Didn’t we say the Ori are… y’know… dead? Or was Ba’al really lying after all? And why isn’t anyone reacting with a little more alarm to the discovery that the Ori are still around, and that Daniel went though all that, and they opened the Supergate for more invasions, for absolutely nothing?

WHY WAS SAM WORKING ALONE? This was the part I actually hated most of all. There was no teamy goodness, other than taking meals together. Except for a single scene when Vala helped her, we saw Sam doing everything herself. Where were the scenes of the team working together, that I would expect in these circumstances? Fifty years was more than enough time for Sam to teach the others enough to work alongside her. Even if Daniel doesn’t remember all the details, Teal’c will certainly remember the lessons of Window of Opportunity, when he and Jack sat down and slogged through Daniel’s Latin lessons until they’d learned so much that they were able to correct Daniel themselves while he and they worked at translating. Mitchell should have been there, all enthusiastic with ideas, with Sam patiently explaining, over and over again, that no, there are no real short-cuts. Daniel should have been there, reveling in the opportunity to get the equivalent of his fourth Ph.D, with literally all the time in the world for it, especially when he couldn’t help Sam in 100 Days, the last time she needed to pull a science miracle out of her brain. Vala, with her lateral, non-Tau’ri thinking, should have been there to bounce ideas off of Sam and irritate her enough to inspire her further – we got it once. Why not more? And Teal’c should have been there, with his century of wisdom and sheer force of will, to encourage her and ask the questions that would lead her along the right path.

Instead? Instead we get Teal’c stacking boxes and occasionally sparring with Mitchell; and Mitchell going insane with boredom and the inability to do anything (when he could have been helping Sam); and Landry tending his plants, which I didn’t care about, since I don’t care about Landry at all; and Daniel and Vala making me want to scream at the screen.

Yeah. You knew that was coming, didn’t you? :)

Any time the writers decided to make the Sam/Jack fans happy, they made sure it wasn’t our Sam and Jack (thank goodness). It was two different universes, and a different timeline, and a deliberate hallucination. The Sam/Jack fans got the squee and the clips for music vids, and the non-shippers got the satisfaction of knowing it wasn’t our Sam and Jack.

Here? Despite the reset button, this was our Daniel and Vala. And we are supposed to accept, from that last scene before they hit the reset button, that this is a realistic choice for our Daniel and Vala to take, despite Vala’s blithe query to Teal’c, in the aftermath, about everyone except Daniel.

No. No. The Daniel I know would never, ever spew with such venom at a person he even pretended to care about. And while I am the very first to say that he has never been even remotely Saint Daniel, such cruelty and self-centeredness is utterly beyond his nature. The only way I could even remotely accept his reaction is if he genuinely doesn’t care about her; he’s reacting to be treated as a toy and as a diversion, whereas he believes in love and commitment – all those years of looking after Sha’re, and finally beginning to get over her, as he says here. Daniel has been used by women looking for a diversion before. If he’s reacting to Vala on the level of Hathor and Shyla, then, well… But we’re expected to accept that Daniel would reel off a rant of utter vitriol, and then turn around and confess to loving her? Are we supposed to believe that Daniel’s rant is actually a mask for his fear that Vala sees him as a plaything, but her tears convince him that she really means it, and that’s what he’s wanted all along? Because that’s just… ugh. That’s just sick.

Then there’s Vala. The Vala I know would never, ever just sit there and take it; she’d turn on him, wipe the floor (and possibly ceiling) with him, and stalk out with her head held high, leaving him a huddled mass of blood and bruises. Didn’t we just get that exchange at the beginning of the ep – not to mention “I’m going to go crazy, and I’m taking you with me” – which confirmed that Vala sees Daniel as a source of amusement, not as someone that she actually loves? Vala openly says that there’s no one else around to entertain her. Vala has, in fact, used Daniel as a source of entertainment from the moment they met. Where, in those tears of hers, is there any indication that this time is anything different?

If they really wanted to push the Daniel/Vala ship, why in such an utterly bizarre matter? Why not build it up slowly, during that montage (which, annoying music aside, had some very nice points)? As far as I can tell, though, the ship served two purposes: to make the Daniel/Vala shippers happy, and to utterly destroy any chance of teaminess, because it split Daniel and Vala off from the rest of the group.

[And on a completely shallow tangent, I was distracted during his awful rant by his long sleeves. We haven’t seen Daniel in a long-sleeved T-shirt for a long, long time. I would assume that they were conserving energy by lowering temperatures on the ship; but only Daniel and Mitchell are wearing long sleeves, and why should they have to do that if they have a Trek-like replicator at their disposal?]

Why fifty years, anyway? Why not ten, or twenty? Teal’c after fifty years would not look like himself with some pretty gray streaks in his hair. Fifty years makes him twenty years older than Bra’tac. Would he still be in good shape? Most probably. But he would also look old.

Sam could replicate oxygen and food and water and even tretonin, but she couldn’t manage a simple pair of scissors? Why wouldn’t the men cut their hair? I can understand the women preferring the simplicity of a ponytail – which they didn’t bother with, actually – but there was no excuse for that appalling straggly hair of Daniel, Mitchell, and Landry. And anyway, Daniel is supposed to go bald when he gets old. So there.

We’ve gone a decade without playing whatever song is currently popular in the U.S.; we’ve gotten some really beautiful instrumental music, which is ever so much nicer. Why the change now, at the last moment? It doesn’t bode well for the movies.

Teal’c’s offer to be the one who retained the fifty years made sense, technically, with the caveat that, as I mentioned earlier, he should look more like Bra’tac than himself with some gray streaks. But why, why, why do we torture Teal’c like this? The sheer loneliness and huge weight of that burden makes my heart ache. And can we hope, at least, that the crystal he carried contained all the breakthroughs Sam made during those five decades, instead of only the immediate info they needed to break free of the trap?

Sigh.

Bottom line: I hated this ep. I did. But I love, love, love SG-1, and my dislike for this episode – as well as most of the last two seasons, if I’m going to be really honest – doesn’t change that. So thanks, guys – the actors, the directors, the producers, the guys who did all the massive grunt work behind the scenes that never get thanked, that adorable white-haired woman who is (I think) in charge of costumes – thank you for a wonderful show, a wonderful universe, and a wonderful playground that I hope will never, ever grow stale.

Looking forward to redialling the Gate again, and starting from the very beginning… :)

Comments

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Someone else said, "you mean everyone except Daniel and Vala were celibate for 50 years?" Personally, I'm waiting for OT7 fic- Mitchell/Sam/Teal'c/Daniel/Vala/Landry/Thor... (yes, wash out your brain with soap if you feel you need to..)

And as for: And anyway, Daniel is supposed to go bald when he gets old. So there.
I think Cassie may have been messing with him...

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

yes, wash out your brain with soap if you feel you need to..

Why, yes, thank you, I will. :)

And anyway, Daniel is supposed to go bald when he gets old. So there.
I think Cassie may have been messing with him...

Possibly, yes. But it was an odd venue for it - Cassie is expressing delight at seeing them again, especially so young. Throwing in a joke at that point would have been a little off-character.

On the other hand, maybe she meant long, floppy hair vs. short cut. Or even hair vs glowy tentacles, who knows? :)

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I didn't write up my own reaction (though I think I still might). I just had to wait for yours :)

I had a conversation over at shutthef_up's LJ yesterday about Daniel's rant and I'm...a little bit more comfortable with it, though I still think it would be much, much more believable with a few minor changes to the scene.

But, yeah, what drove me INSANE was the complete lack of teaminess. SG-1's biggest strength is that they are a team. When faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, they come together, work together to solve the problem and support each other. Even though they were stuck together forever it was "Hey, Sam, you go work on getting us out of this, we're gonna go mess around and occasionally snipe at you for not fixing it yet."

What was up with Cam? I get that he might go stir crazy, but this is the guy who never, ever, ever gives up. This is the guy who learns what he needs, who thinks outsie the box, who comes up with new ideas and tries and tries again. And he gave up almost right away? He's pretty smart, why wasn't he there working with Sam and encouraging her?
Once we saw Vala try to help, but it didn't appear to be common and it took long enough. I think, maybe, Daniel studying the database was also trying to help Sam - see if he could learn something useful, and I firmly believe Teal'c was backing her up but WE DIDN'T SEE THAT!
*flails*

And the scene with Sam and Daniel when they were old - I loved that they got a scene but I flipped out at it. In my eyes, those two have shared a pretty deep understanding from the first time they met. Sam was THERE at Heliopolis. So why is she even asking Daniel why he's spent all that time studying the Asgard database? It is EXACTLY what Daniel would do in that situation. And when Sam said she gave up? I might have gotten cranky at that too...

Okay. Maybe I do need to write up my own reactions....Though I will say you said almost exactly what I expected from you. (When Mitchell pointed to the stargate and commented that that was how they were supposed to travel through space, I thought of you)

(I've seen other people say it too - why do we know Daniel would go bald?)

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Oh, and go check out the moonshayde post I linked to, because she does the best handwave ever for why the characters act how they do and someone in comments expanded it to be even more perfect.

[cyren-2132.livejournal.com]

In "1969" they accidentally go way forward in time, and Future!Cassie says something like "Daniel?! I hardly recognized you with hair!"

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oh, do write up your reaction! Then we can simultaneously squee and grouse some more! :)

I'll check out Courser's LJ. Thanks for the heads-up.

SG-1's biggest strength is that they are a team.

Yes, exactly! And instead we got Sam working working working working. Thank goodness she took time off to learn the cello, because she dserved it.

I never thought of Mitchell as an "outside-the-box" guy, but I do agree that it's strange that he, of all people, should be the first to lose his optimism. But I saw his losing it as a reflection of his feeling adrift at forced inaction, moreso than actual despair.

I like your suggestion that Daniel made an effort to search the database for something that might help Sam, and that Teal'c backed her up, and so on... but as you say, WE DIDN'T SEE THAT! Argh.

n my eyes, those two have shared a pretty deep understanding from the first time they met. Sam was THERE at Heliopolis. So why is she even asking Daniel why he's spent all that time studying the Asgard database? It is EXACTLY what Daniel would do in that situation.

Yes, I wondered about it, too. It was the part of their time in the bubble that they got most right, I think - that even after he's concluded that the Asgard caused their own fate, he still kept learning, and mastering their legacy. So why would Sam, of all people, find it bewildering?

Regarding Daniel going bald: as cyren_2132 says, it's from 1969, when they accidently went too far forward into the future. Cassie gives this little incredulous laugh and says, "Daniel?! I hardly recognized you with hair!" It's adorable, to be frank. As I suggest upthread to Redbyrd, she might have meant the cute floppy hair vs the cut that Hathor gave him in the very next episode. Or maybe Cassie met Daniel as a glowly tentacle a few times too many to remember his regular features. :) Or, as Redbyrd suggests, Cassie was just teasing. I mentioned in the review only because it was too good an opportunity to snark to pass up. ;)

[surreallis.livejournal.com]

In fact, I can only conclude that they wanted a fifty-year time bubble and didn’t care how many plotholes would be sucked into the bubble together with the team.

Aaaand, I think that's the crux of it all right there. I read somewhere that the show's producers were sort of giddy with glee at how they'd given the fans what they want: "The team together alone at the end, finally!"

Well, yes, but we sort of wanted them to INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER!

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

we sort of wanted them to INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER!

YES YES OMG YES!

*jumps up and down*

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but we sort of wanted them to INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER!

Heh. Little minor detail that slipped their minds, apparently!

Team TOGETHER, boys. Not just alone.

::hugs team::

[lyore.livejournal.com]

My biggest problem was Daniel's rant - it hurt to watch, it was so vicious. Regardless of what you believe about Vala's motivations (I'm in the half-and-half camp - I think she has some genuine affection for him, but a lot of it is for the amusement value), I couldn't buy him so completely loosing control without a lot bigger catalyst.

The rest I could kind of... not think about, try to ignore the lack of teamy-ness and focus on the (few) good character moments we got instead, but that was in-my-face painful.

Perhaps I'll have less of a reaction to it when I watch again, I don't know.

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

See, what bugged me about this? They totally ruin the whole Vala/Tomin thing. Which I thought was one of the better parts of Bounty- where she talks about being married like she takes it seriously. So okay, maybe she isn't so happy with him after their last meeting, but he does save her life. And so now, a few months later she's just forgotten all about it? Gah. Why do character development if you're just going to throw it out the window at the end?

[cyren-2132.livejournal.com]

It really, truly did hurt, didn't it?

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. It hurt to watch. It went on so long - it moved right out of the realm of possible loss of temper into deliberate viciousness.

I can totally understand your POV of the half-and-half Vala motivation thing. I might even feel a smidgen of it myself. But to go from that sheer poison of a speech into "Oh, I love you, as long as this is serious," is just too whiplashy for words.

There were a few good character moments. But they were too few, and... waaahh!! I wanted my team!

Three cheers for fanfic, at least. :)

[cyren-2132.livejournal.com]

I think I disagree with a lot.

While I would have loved the opportunity to see Hammond once more, I think the writers would have had to have gone to an even bigger "How Come?" room for that. Since Jack was promoted to head of homeworld security, it's been really unclear what Hammond's capacity with the Stargate program is, whereas Landry is still directly involved and in charge.

As for the Asgard mass suicide, if they had gone into stasis, what? Earth would have been spread over three galaxies as they defend the incapacitated Asgard? What would be stopping the Ori from waking them up and getting the all the knowledge through nefarious means? And if they couldn't figure it out, they'd still probably blow up the planet so the Asgard would never be a threat, even if the Tauri were able to do what the Asgard couldn't over all that time (unless it really is just a matter of accomplishing more by virtue of being dumber :)

I do agree that it's absolutely silly that the Asgard apparently have weapons that can take out Ori ships in all of three or four shots and they didn't do anything to help with that first batch of ships, or even apparently tell anyone what the weapons were capable of before blowing up their planet. And yeah, the whole instantaneous tracking was just dumb. Why wouldn't the Ori have discovered the Asgard a long time ago, then?

I also agree with the whole bit about Sam not just fixing the shields, going out of the bubble, and then dealing with things after that. That was just one massive plot contrivance.

I don't think it's really fair to compare Jack and Teal'c's time loop learning to this, though. They mostly just had to memorize things. I don't think they were really learning latin and correcting Daniel(despite Jack's leafing through the book...he's Jack, he's got to have things to mess with) so much as, if Daniel spends a whole loop on one passage, they can pick it up after that on the next loop, and if a few loops down the line they realize there was a mistake up top, they'd be able to fix that the next time. This would be learning a whole new science, which I don't think Daniel would be as enthused about, given the entire Asgard legacy at his fingertips. But, yeah, it would have been great if everyone were bouncing ideas around here and there, instead of Vala saying one or two things and Cam's incessant whining.

Regarding your comments about Daniel's blowup, I think toy treatment for Vala's amusement is exactly how he felt, and he doesn't have to not care about her at all, in any way, to get that angry. I don't think it was based on fear of being her plaything, but straight-out annoyance and anger, because casual just isn't what Daniel does. And as for Vala's reaction...I think in her own, weird, Vala way she really did love Daniel or the idea of Daniel, but she's not the type to get all schmoopy. The way she acted is just her way that makes no sense to the rest of the universe. If it were grade school she'd be knocking him down and pulling his hair. (Except, I do freely admit that the behavior didn't line up with her behavior around Tomin, but I see it as more a defense mechanism.) I think there comes a time when not everyone can always be a strong as they were in the past, because they just hurt too much. So, I guess I'm not opposed to the idea of them getting together over 50 years, but I will say it was definitely, definitely too quick in this case.

I wondered about Bra'tac's age, but I just couldn't remember it. And yes, that was some truly god-awful hair on the men. But Salt Shaker Superman was made of awesome.

Overall, I wasn't as happy with the whole of the episode as I was with a lot of the individual parts, but I didn't hate it.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Hurray for disagreement! I'm really, really glad that you were able to enjoy it. At least someone could.

You're right that Jack would have made sense for all the right reasons: Homeworld Security, Jack's odd connection with Thor, his apparently official ambassadorship to the Asgard. Hammond might have been more questionable. OTOH, Thor et al have met Hammond and dealt with him; Landry has met only a single Asgard, the one from Ripple Effect. And let's not forget that the Asgard didn't tell the SGC why they were sending for them, so why bother sending Landry at all? Including him was a mistake, and apparently only for the sake of having a death to angst about.

Stasis could've taken place anywhere, not just on Orilla. And there is no clear explanation whatsoever why the Ori are suddenly invading two galaxies and not just one. If Mitchell was right, and they were tracking Asgard tech, did they detect it from a galaxy away and come chasing after it?

Re WoO: There is at least one instance where Jack and Teal'c correct Daniel's translation. The flummoxed look on his face, and his slightly bewildered but still polite, "Thank you," makes me grin every time. And, of course, by the next loop, Daniel is actually sitting and watching while the others fill in the blanks. Yes, much of it is memorization, but they certainly actually learned quite a bit of it.

Of course it's not the same, though! One is three months, or possibly four or five. The other covers fifty years. More than enough time to learn something, I should think, and offer Sam some support.

I think toy treatment for Vala's amusement is exactly how he felt, and he doesn't have to not care about her at all, in any way, to get that angry.

I agree with this, even if it went on a little too long for my personal comfort. And I could accept that. It was the writers expecting us to swallow the rant, AND accept that it was out of fear that his love wasn't returned or something, that I can't accept. You can have the rant or the relationship, writers. Not. Both.

I guess I'm not opposed to the idea of them getting together over 50 years, but I will say it was definitely, definitely too quick in this case.

I'm an anti-shipper, but if the scenario was as you suggest: Vala softening, mourning Tomin, acting as a friend instead of a vamp... then yes, over the years, the ship would be plausible. After three months? No way.

Bra'tac was 130 when we met him in Bloodlines back in S1.

Salt Shaker Superman was made of awesome.

Hee, yes! And I loved that we got a shout-out to Sam snarking about bad sci-fi movies. Has it been only fanon until now? I know she complained about a movie with Daniel in Orpheus but I don't remember the details.

[(Anonymous)]

If that "that adorable white haired woman" you refer to is the wone who you've probably seen in the last day of filming pictures--I saw at least one of her hugging AT, then she is Jan Newman, who's been in charge of the makeup dept. all thru SG1, and before that, she was in charge of MacGyver makeup in the 4 years they shot in Vancouver. So she has a long history with RDA. If you want to see a good pic of the two of them together, let me know at tom@asde.net and I'll find the link for you. I've read a couple of articles about her and all the cast seems to love her. I've also seen her in some of the behind the scenes things on dvd and she was also in Wormhole Xtreme as the makeup woman who brought the green alien woman over for Martin Lloyd to see and he says "oh, you decided to go with the green. OK."

I agree with you that whatever we may think of this final episode (and I've thought very little of the last two seasons), SG1 is a wonderful show overall, and we have at least 8 good seasons there to truly enjoy watching over as many times as we like. We owe all those who made that happen a big Thank You!

Melissa M.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's who I mean. Jan Newman. Thank you for the name! If you check out whisper99's beautiful pic post of the cast and crew on the final day of filming, she's right there, grinning up at CJ and posing with him. Just lovely. I know she's featured in at least one of the "Making of" specials, too.

at least 8 good seasons

Hee! A woman after my own heart. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry for my typo above--I meant to type "woman" and it came out "wone" (first line of my comment above.)

Melissa M.

[dunv-i.livejournal.com]

Poke about the Cello - a) that was actually really good matching - there was only one little spot at the beginning where the bow and fingers didn't match the music quite, and b) Music is very much math (only reason I still bring out my violin every now and then) and can really be taught completely through math. Of course, that's also a recipe for brain explosions.

As much as I wish RDA had done it and believe that it would have made more sense with him rather than Laundry, I feel Beau Bridges really pulled it off, to the point where this is one of the episodes where I really loved Laundry rather than going, "But, but, Hammond wouldn't -" and such.

Overall, I think this is an episode that just wasn't tied together right. If things had been strung out differently, it would have been three times better right off.

And, unfortunately, when we had more episodes coming, you could always count on better episodes coming (eventually) when you were disappointed by one. I think that the lack of this hope is making the episode even more disappointing.

... and you guys just gave me another bunny to add to my growing list from this episode. Damn.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Music is very much math (only reason I still bring out my violin every now and then)

Yes, I know. And that's why I love it as the perfect foil for Sam: it's an art that is essentially applied science, expressed in the beauty of sound instead of the beauty of space-time.

this is one of the episodes where I really loved Laundry rather than going, "But, but, Hammond wouldn't -" and such.

Wow. Full credit to you, then, for actually trying! I'd reached the point where, if Landry is speaking, my brain just drifts away. Or I scowl at the screen. In two years, I never got the impression he seriously cares for the people in the SGC. The SGC itself and the world, yes; the people? Not so much. That may be unfair, especially considering the HUGE handicap of trying to replace Hammond (not Jack, IMO), but what can I do?

If things had been strung out differently, it would have been three times better right off.

If they'd included A LITTLE TEAMY GOODNESS it might have made all the difference, yes. And timing too. And less plotholes. And... I think I'd better stop. :)

... and you guys just gave me another bunny to add to my growing list from this episode.

Whoo! Yay for plot bunnies, proliferating with endless glee!

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

TWINS!!! I am so sorry you had this reaction to the ep, but I pretty much knew you would. And the fact that it exactly matches my reaction -- well, I'm laughing, not in the funny way. A surprising number of my friends were okay with it, some of whom had been warned in advance so it wasn't so shocking, but I don't get the people who love this ep.

I was handwaving away the idiot plotting like crazy, but when Daniel went into his vicious rant, my hands starting stabbing at midair because I felt like I was reading a fic that I wanted to push the backbutton on. Wrong! OOC! OMG! But it was my show -- no backbutton! Gah. It took me not one but two rants to purge the horrible betrayal I felt. There have been a few eps I didn't like before, but this is the only one I've actively hated. I did not rewatch it this weekend. Dominion is my series ender, and I'm just waiting for the movie now.

So, finally, links for you:
Inside the Writers Room: The Unending Story Meeting - a rant in fictional form (http://green-grrl.livejournal.com/47805.html)
Why Daniel/Vala doesn't work for me (http://green-grrl.livejournal.com/48342.html)

Don't forget to weigh in (http://community.livejournal.com/sg1_solutions/37145.html). I commented on the March airing (http://community.livejournal.com/sg1_solutions/27108.html?thread=83940#t83940).

*clings*

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

I can't complain. You certainly warned me. I just didn't know what I was being warned about. What disturbed you the most? The lack of team, or the shipping?

I felt like I was reading a fic that I wanted to push the backbutton on.

Ooooh. A very apt metaphor, that.

It just seems so pointless and flat. Dominon as season ender? I could consider that.

I'm just waiting for the movie now.

Hm. I'm not, so much. I mean, I want Adria gone and Reynolds to take over the SGC and Daniel to get his medal (I'm making this up; I'm spoiler-free, so far), but even if it ended now, there's a LOT to be said for a closed canon that allows the fandom to carry it ever on from the road where it began. (Sorry, there are my roots showing, so to speak!) I'm afraid I have very little trust in the writers to do right by the characters I love. I plan to kick back and redial_the_gate for my squee a while. There's nothing like classic SG-1, anyway. :)

Off to check out your links in a bit...

[niamaea.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was waiting for you to throw your hat in on 'Unending'... I'm not surprised you didn't like it. I ended up passing on writing up my full episode thoughts on it, because I...really didn't like it either, but everyone seems to be articulating why a lot better than I was, when I tried to write it up.

Hated the lack of team, hated that entire Daniel/Vala thing, what they did to Teal'c is unspeakably cruel, and I still can't get over the fact that they didn't move heaven and earth, if they had to, to get RDA in the last episode. I mean, come on, they'll waste him swimming around all day on Atlantis, but can't or wont put him in the last episode of the show that is Jack O'Neill. *uncontrollable flailing*

But at this point...and I talked about this once before, I think with paian but I can't remember, I'm so far beyond trusting TPTB with the Stargate universe that I don't think I necessarily give what happens in the actual episodes all that much more weight than I give what happens in AU episodes or fanfic. I mean...I know it's their show, but I guess I've started looking at canon as one way the story could go, and there are others. Otherwise, I'd probably just end up hating everything and throwing in the towel.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Hated the lack of team, hated that entire Daniel/Vala thing, what they did to Teal'c is unspeakably cruel

Word, word, and word. We all angst our hearts out for Daniel, and his history certainly entitles him to it; but Teal'c? Nearly as tragic as Daniel, only with seven decades more of angst accumulated. Did he really need another fifty years' worth?

I do wish Jack was there. Even if just a hologram sent to say good-bye to Thor. A mention of him, even.

I'm so far beyond trusting TPTB with the Stargate universe that I don't think I necessarily give what happens in the actual episodes all that much more weight than I give what happens in AU episodes or fanfic.

Does that mean I can stop writing canon vs. fanon posts? :)

I understand you quite well, though. It's like that meme still doing the rounds, with people's "20 personal canon facts" or whatever it's called. There's a lot that the writers have thrown at us that I simply can't, or won't, accept. And that's where fandom comes in, so that people who love our characters, instead of writing about them for a paycheck, can treat them with the affection they deserve.

(I'm not trying to trash the writers as people. But speaking from personal experience: there's a vast difference between writing for a paycheck and writing out of love. One might be a bit more polished, but the other will invariably have a lot more heart.)

[grooni.livejournal.com]

Well said! I agree with almost everything you said. I wasn't impressed with the finale either. If it were just an ep somewhere in the middle it would've been okay (and fit with the last two year), but not a series finale (though it does fit with the last two years).

What annoyed me the most was the whole Asgard thing. What exactly did we do to deserve being the fifth race? Don't we have the exact same problems on earth as we had 10 years ago. The Asgard and Nox are so way out of our league, it's not even funny. We have some fancy ships now, but our thinking hasn't changed at all.

And like you, some of the things I loved most was that SG1 always was present day. It was about a group of ordinary people who do the extraordinary. One of the funniest jokes was way back when the 'shuttle' was our great spaceship. And now we have everything, including an Asgard replicator thingy. Right.

And the other thing that bugged me so much was, again like you said, that they just left Sam to figure it out for 50 years. Wow, great bunch of friends. But then for me the real teamy feeling hasn't been there since about season 6 or so.

Jack should've been there, that shouldn't even have been a question. But I've ranted about that enough, so I'm going to leave it at that.

[grooni.livejournal.com]

Oh and how come the guys shave every day but can't cut their hair?

Agree to disagree -- sharing the bright side of dark

[randomfreshink.livejournal.com]

I have to say I loved this episode. Here's what I got--

Yes, these folks love each other, but five, ten, and more years with the same faces? No wonder they lose it at times and it's about finding individual space. The same damn walls and sky, no input from the outside? It'd be like being stuck in a roomy sensory depravation tank.

Daniel and the Asgard database--I love that he trust Sam to get them out but knows they may have to leave the knowledge behind. So he puts as much in his head as he can. It echos Heliopolis. Does he share what he learns--Teal'c says that he's learned things from Daniel about that. So there's get togethers we don't see on screen with knowledge exchanged.

Daniel and Vala and that scene that folks seem to love or hate--I'm on the love side. And that probably says some weird things about my relationships. But I've said hateful things to people I care about--with the intent of hurting. It's stuff that's come out under stress, so my take on this is, first off, Vala's been pushing and Daniel's not out of line to call her on treating him as she has. (Fuzzy handcuffs?) Does he go too far--yeah, and he's done that before.

For me Vala hits his emotional buttons. I think Daniel needs to be encouraged to sometimes vent, because he does bottle it up, and it comes out in not good ways (think Daniel going after others when he's siding with Linea/Kera, or Daniel telling Teal'c he's not leaving when Sha're is having her baby and he's not nice about how he says this, or Daniel losing it in when he's under stress from the sound and the naked folks are dying).

So, to me, this is about folks under stress--after months, sharp edges are showing. Vala talks to Teal'c about hearing things--she is losing it. There's got to be some bagging about that (and that scene with her crying in Daniel's arms is really about this going on and on). Her coping mechanism is Daniel--but she doesn't know how to approach him with honest emotion.

So, back to the explosion. After Daniel rips into her, it's head down time--as in he knows he's gone too far. But we get echos of the last time he took her apart--which ended in fake tears. But the tears are real this time. She is losing it. And I'm so glad they both go for not talking--they've said too much. It's about action--will this work? Can they really care. That kiss is partly experiment. What he gets back is something honest--and that's when he smiles. Vala earlier was going for his belt--Daniel is now going for emotional intimacy. For me, these two are about mutual support, and I love they get a chance here. (And that in mid-rant Daniel's honset enough to say he's not much better at anything stable.)

As to Cam--god, I love that he has to run. An action junky without action. But Teal'c has the patience for this. It's the first time I've liked Landry--that he keeps himself grounded, and keeps Cam from flying into killing himself. Sam breaks my heart with the cello and the struggle, and Thor's hologram hounding her.

Yes, I would have loved more. More interactions. (Yeah holiday scene.) More Vala and Sam heads together. More Sam poking in to find if Daniel's found anything new. (Two-hour finale wouldn't have been long enough.)

As to the long hair--it was cut up until they stopped caring. Look how indifferent they were at that last meal. Such a contrast from the early holiday one. That Daniel wants to say the words, but Vala still can't hear it, so Daniel speaks her language for an answer.

And the Asgard dying--I cried, but the message was right. They screwed up--we might, too, and it's time to get our act together. To step up and be the fifth race. This is the SGC legacy now. For the Asgard to destroy their world--their fate had to be horrific, as in they were going to first devolve into something dangerous that could lead to harming others.

Now, I'm not sure Daniel and Vala can get together outside of time. But I love they had a chance. And I like that Teal'c had this time with his team--and just love, love that Sam goes to Teal'c when she needs comfort on that ship. Yeah, that those two connect like that.

And I do look forward to all the fic that fills in the gaps. But I still love this episode. Which is why I'm sharing.

Re: Agree to disagree -- sharing the bright side of dark

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you chimed in! I was hoping someone who really liked the ep would try and convince me. I'm not saying it worked, mind you... :)

You have some lovely thoughts here on Daniel - that he trusts Sam enough to throw himself into learning about the Asgard's legacy (which does, as you say, echo Torment of Tantalus, when he let the others worry about getting them back while he stayed and studied in the inner room). And yes, he must have talked things over with Teal'c, since Teal'c specifically mentioned it in the aftermath. However:

So there's get togethers we don't see on screen with knowledge exchanged.

This is something I truly have trouble with. In earlier seasons, we didn't have to assume there was teamy goodness; it was right there for us to see. Nowadays, the writers seem to assume that we'll automatically fill the teamy goodness in on our own, so why should they bother portraying it? And that's frustrating and unfair, both to the characters and the audience.

There's not much to say about your interpretation of the Daniel/Vala scene. While everything you suggest certainly makes sense, it doesn't explain a three-minute long rant. That to me was unforgiveable. As for Vala... ::shrugs:: I know you're a fan, and I'm not. I can't get into her mind, I can't like her as a protagonist, and as long as her background remains the way it is, I don't think I ever will.

An action junky without action. But Teal'c has the patience for this.

Hnm, yes. Lovely insight, there. Teal'c was marvelous throughout.

Two-hour finale wouldn't have been long enough.

No one will disagree with that. :)

As to the long hair--it was cut up until they stopped caring.

And yet, as grooni points out up-thread, they continued to shave... :)

For the Asgard to destroy their world--their fate had to be horrific, as in they were going to first devolve into something dangerous that could lead to harming others.

That's an... interesting interpretation. I didn't see it like that at all. Thor implied, to me, that rapid and painful degeneration was immiment, not that their minds would go kablooey and they would start rampaging across the galaxies.

love that Sam goes to Teal'c when she needs comfort on that ship. Yeah, that those two connect like that.

Sam and Teal'c deserve more fics spotlighting them. As do Daniel and Teal'c... ::looks hopeful for upcoming story::

I still love this episode. Which is why I'm sharing.

Thanks for that. :)