Redial the Gate squee: Enigma

[fignewton]

Some random thoughts on Enigma, because redial_the_gate goes live with the recap sometime tonight:

"No argument from me - wait, what's that?" <= Please note Daniel's idea of "no argument."

"This one's had it!" Ah, Sam, that's the sensitive cultural expert speaking... :)

Such love for early SG-1, when Hammond proudly compliments SG-1 for doing nothing more than saving people. Happy sigh.

I adore Omoc. He's unquestionably a good guy, but largely unlikeable with no social graces whatsoever. In short, he's real.

Daniel drinks more coffee in this episode than any other. Tollans, evidently, make him thirsty.

The female SF from Hathor is quite prominent in this one! Sadly, I don't think we ever see her again. ::mutters:: Bet Maybourne fired her, the rat.

Love the Sam and Daniel banter in the Gateroom. "New toy?" "One of them keeps asking a lot of questions about you." And the control room later, heh. "Whoops."

I loved Sam and Jack and Hammond honoring Tuplo by wearing their dress blues. And Tuplo took Omoc's rudeness with remarkable graciousness, which just goes to show that primitives are capable of class. In fact, we got a lot of dress blues this episode. Bonus!

Considering the VIP room that Hathor got, couldn't they find something a little nice than metal bunks for the Tollan?

I have an incredible fondness for young!Walter with hair.

Maybourne is a sleaze. I do not comprehend why so many people like him, I really don't. Yes, I very much enjoy the sheer antagnosim between Jack and Maybourne, and it's right up front from the very beginning - but like Maybourne? No way.

Hammond, on the other hand, rocks. And his ploy with the quarantine is exactly the kind of thing we should have seen from the entire SGC during Chain Reaction, but sadly didn't.

I love Teal'c's passion on behalf of the Tollan. He's been there. He suffered with Kennedy. He knows exactly what the NID are capable of doing.

"You know, the Pentagon, Intelligence, that I can understand. But the President? I voted for him!" Hee! Daniel's righteous indignation makes me giggle. This is the only kind of politics that gets a pass in my personal fandom, thank you.

Daniel the civilian as secret weapon. Oh, I love it. His ability to inspire trust is one of his absolute greatest assets. Omoc was actually willing to explain something to him, even if it was totally over Daniel's head.

Narim is one of the nicest guys that fell for Sam, isn't he? Although the slightly stalkerish thing in S5 about using her voice for his home's audio system makes it kinda borderline.

Daniel and Teal'c, civilians, defying the NID. Oh, I love them. Daniel snarking wordlessly at Maybourne - huh? what'd you say? - is absolutely squeeful, every time.

I love Lya. I love her face when she sees Daniel, and Daniel's when he greets her. In fact, Daniel is particularly beautiful in this episode. I just think that needed to be said.

Maybourne ordered the SFs to fire after the Tollan had already disappeared. In short, he was essentially telling the men to fire at Daniel and Teal'c, although admittedly Teal'c wasn't actually standing in the line of fire the way that Daniel was. Tell me again why people like him?

And now I want someone to write me the AU where the soldiers did fire before Lya vanished their weapons, and both Teal'c and Daniel are hurt or killed, and Lya spirits them away with her to the Nox planet to heal them, and Teal'c and Daniel have all sorts of adventures together before they finally make it back to Earth just in time to rescue Sam and Jack in Antarctica.

Yes. Someone write that. Please? :)

Jack: "I love those people." See? See? It's not just the Asgard! Jack likes Good Guys, that's all.

Jack, again: "You did good, Daniel." All together, now: Awwwww. :)

I always did wonder, though, why all four of them were staring at an inactive Stargate at the end.

Comments

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

I am enormously amused that a discussion about a S1 ep turned into an analysis of Vala.

Everything is viewed through the lens of our perspective. You saw it as Vala giving them a fighting chance; I saw it as Vala not being willing to kill in cold blood, but having no qualms about letting people die a slow, suffocating death when the power eventually ran out. I'm not quite sure how you could translate the ease with which Vala took them down as anywhere near competency, but chalk that up to the attempt of the writers to be funnier than they are. ;)

I should clarify that I actually liked Vala in PU, even though the comedy ran over-broad. I liked her quite a lot as an antagonist. It's the shoehorning of that past with her new role as protagonist that I have the most difficulty accepting. (I don't know if you were around at the time, but I have a meta post, around the time that Line in the Sand aired in the US, explaining why I find Vala so frustrating.)

She makes a hash of the bracelets; she has no more power over Daniel than he has over her.

Vala slapped that bracelet on Daniel's wrist, knowing it would kill him if he got too far away from each other. She had no way of knowing if she would be informed, say, before he went off-world. All it would have taken was a tiny little twist of events for that to prove unquestionably fatal.

She didn't know it would affect her? True enough. But Vala did always have the power to stop it, because Vala always had the ability to deactivate the bracelets. She chose NOT to do so, and why in the world the SGC didn't impound her luggage and try gadget after trinket is utterly beyond me.

I'll be honest with you - I hate it when people try to compare Teal'c and Vala. Teal'c was choiceless. Vala was not. Teal'c did what he could to minimize atrocities. Vala willfully chose piracy. Teal'c came to the SGC after having turned on Apophis and saving SG-1. Vala came to the SGC with the deliberate plan of chaining Daniel to her will and getting her hands on some treasure.

As I said before, Vala has no monopoly on a tragic background. Sam's loss of her mother as a teenager is the least traumatic past from any member of SG-1.

Re Hathor: y'know, I've heard a lot of people say that there are fans who think Hathor was "cool" or "sexy," or that Daniel was "lucky" (gag). But I have never, not once, seen an actual citation. That's not to suggest that there aren't idiots out there who think that way, but I have never actually met a fan who does. I do wonder if the notion is as widespread as so many people think.

If you're referring to the reactions on the show itself, then, yes. Although Daniel himself might not have remembered much, and the others (outside Sam, who saw him catatonic) might not realize how the DNA was obtained or how unwilling Daniel was at the time. But the show definitely loses lots of points for not showing the repercussions. That isn't exactly news, though, is it? :)

(Can't help with Lucius. Never heard of him. Something from SGA? Because I'm thinking Harry Potter again... ::g::)

I agree that Vala isn't quite sane. That doesn't excuse her misdeeds, although it might explain why SG-1 forgives them. Doesn't explain why she's part of the team, though!

I love Claudia Black.

Yes, well, I hope I have never given the impression that my dislike for the character translates to the actress! Claudia is marvelous onscreen, and I love that she's beautiful without being sterotypically pretty. I personally think she's got oodles of chemistry with everyone on SG-1 except Daniel, but that's another story entirely. :)

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Sorry! I didn't mean to hijack your thread! I objected to the equation of Maybourne with Vala, much as you object to the equation of Teal'c and Vala--and, as I said, my comparison of the two only works so far. I do, however, think Teal'c is not choiceless. Teal'c did terrible things, but he could have chosen not to do them--and ultimately, that's the choice he does make. He could have done it sooner, perhaps with less positive effect, but he does have a choice, as he later admits in "Cor-Ai."

I can't give you citations without digging through the Sci Fi SG-1 board, and I don't have time to do that now. I have seen lots of comments from, at the very least, several different people--not so much men who think Daniel's "lucky," but women who say things like "I wish was Hathor"! That board is also where I've seen the most strenuous defenses of Lucius, who is an indeed an SGA character (and came up in the context of Hathor). I've seen it occasionally in fic, but it's the sort of thing that makes me stop reading an author entirely, so I can't dig those stories up. I guess you have to take my word for it, but when I got into the fandom, I was outraged that people didn't see a problem with rape.

No, you hadn't ever made me think you didn't like Claudia; I just wanted to explain that I was predisposed to like the character, and I'm aware that some of my defense of her comes from simply wanting to like both actress and character. You like the actress and are frustrated with the character (I'll have to look for your "Line in the Sand" comments sometime): I get that.

My original point was that I think Maybourne is rotten to the core, and he doesn't have a tortured past and perhaps even some lack of sanity to explain his behavior.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

There is no such think as hijacking threads on my LJ. I love this kind of drift.

Hm, yes, Teal'c isn't blameless. He is, however, essentially a slave, whether or not he chooses to rebel against his master.

Whew. Never visited the Sci-Fi SG-1 board, and hoo boy am I glad about that now. That's just incredibly... sick. I will definitely take your word for it!

I think Maybourne is rotten to the core

Heh. On that, at least, we are in most emphatic agreement. :)

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I'm glad you like drift! I think I might be annoyed if, say, someone put huge responses defending Maybourne or SGA's Lucius in my item. (Hard to say. My items don't drift. I just don't seem to have that many people reading them! Or maybe my own posts are too narrow.)

I only go to the Sci Fi board occasionally now to see how a few friends are doing. Here's the good thing about the board: even though there are plenty of nuts and occasional trolls, I met daniel4ever, delphia2000, gatechic, and or_mabinogi there! I think I met abyssinia4077, lunachickk, and nialla42 there (I just can't remember now; some in both groups had different names on the Sci Fi board). At one time, there were a lot of great people there! (Sorry if I've forgotten any of my LJ friends whom I first me there, or if I've put somebody on the list that I didn't meet there; the mind is the first thing to go, they say!)

Sadly, the combination of trolls, nutcases, and technical problems have caused most of those people to flee (there are a few good people left, though). I was very happy when I finally got to LJ to find so many of the people I'd missed on the board! And now I've met a number of great new friends! The sort who let you run off at the fingertips on their LJ and then say they like item drift!

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

I've never been there so I doubt you met me there....probably ran into me at Fig's journal. Not that it matters.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

I very much doubt I would have ever become active in the fandom if LJ hadn't been so tailor-made to help me find just the right niche.

Because small fandoms I can handle, but this one can be a little bit scary. :)

So run off your fingertips to your heart's content! It's all good from here.