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After a month away, I've wandered back online and seized the opportunity to watch The Quest. Overall, I liked it. So I'll get the irritating parts out of the way first so I can properly appreciate it.
So... good team interaction with everyone contributing, great work from the minor guest stars, passable work from the regular guest stars, and a story I want to see continue. Nice work this time.
Now it's time to see what everyone else thought of this. :)
Hated hated hated that Daniel had absolutely no reaction whatsoever to the books being burned. None, nothing, nada. Argggghh! That's worse than his writing in the margins of Merlin's book on Camelot and then dumping it on the floor to wake up Mitchell. I wanted Sam or Teal'c to grab his arms as soon as the oil was poured on the books, knowing how Daniel ought to react at the destruction of the past. No one reacted, in fact, except the dramatic music. That's just wrong.
Despised Sam being made into The Girl (tm), again. She's threatened, and Daniel caves. I suppose that's slightly better than Sam caving when someone else is threatened, but not by much... Which leads to argh argh argh, that Sam's capitulation to Ba'al when Barrett was threatened means that Ba'al's here now, that Ba'al was better at figuring out Ancient puzzles than Daniel in order to get there first, and have I mentioned how much I detest the non-Goa'ulded voiced Ba'al, who may or may not be a clone. Hate hate hate it. And why are they letting Ba'al and Adria stroll along behind them? Why isn't Ba'al cuffed, at the very least? And if not that, why aren't they constantly under guard, instead of us seeing SG-1 turn their backs on them over and over again?
Ahem. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln... well, yeah, I liked the ep. :)
Liked the team interaction in the beginning - Mitchell wanting to goof off, Teal'c ignoring this to listen to Daniel, Vala scrambling to catch up with her face mask still on, Sam with her confident assertion of hundreds of permutations and her wide-eyed admission that maybe it was just one. Then off to a set that looks just a tad familiar, but hey, all these Arthurian villages are supposed to look alike, right? Liked Osric, and I do hope that the original Osric was real, and that Adria just snapped up the map before it was burned, or saved it from being burned at all. (Just occurred to me - seeing that particular Prior show up should've been a hint that Adria was around, I suppose, since he seems to be her personal one.) Loved the innkeeper, especially her matter-of-fact line that she'd be fine, because she'd blame everything on SG-1. :) She looks vaguely like a guest star or two we've seen before... Maybe from Gamekeeper, or even one of the Langaran ambassadors? They tend to use the same actors over and over again, which kinda sucks the realism out of things a bit.
Adored Sam in the time trap, despite the irritating tendency to use technobabble words instead of honest English. I loved how she first went with technological knowhow, then resorted to prosaic stones as a solution. That's the Sam I know and love - go with her brains, then resort to whatever works. (Wish we saw her more often, but... ah, never mind, this is supposed to be the "I liked it" section.)
The "charity" part was interesting, and I liked Daniel's solution. I'm sorry that Osric wasn't real, then, because his willingness to give up the ring seemed quite poignant at the time. Of course, what I interpreted then as Daniel's compassion was actually Daniel's suspicion... Ah, well.
Which leads to the confrontation with Adria/Osric. When, exactly, did Daniel have time to pass his suspicions on to the others? And how intruiging that Daniel has been studing The Book of Origin so carefully - we know he knew it well enough to send back a challenging reply in last season's Camelot, but this vamps it up a new level. Know your enemy, and all that - but sheesh, when did the guy have time? And again, we get Adria's intense and menacing focus on Daniel. Of course I'm going to love that part. :)
SG-1, including Vala, plus Adria and Ba'al make for quite a crowd. Vala's comic relief wasn't much of one, but I let it slide because it did fit her personality. Glad Jack wasn't there to watch an apparent kid suffer. Off through the riddles, and how fascinating that Adria apparently also reads Ancient, and in some cases better than Daniel when she figures out the last riddle first! Makes sense, I suppose.
Great visual of Daniel walking through the flames - not so much the CGI or whatever, but that it was Daniel who did it. Hearkens way back to Maternal Instinct and Daniel's faith in an Ancient back then.
During that entire final scene, I kept muttering, "Dragon, remember? The reason you dragged Ba'al with you, remember?" but no such luck. OTOH, we got that delicious confrontation, previous hinted at when Adria didn't kill Ba'al (although I did think that Adria had lifted the bars with her powers at the time), when Daniel stares Adria down. And despite his quip about not being pure enough, I think it's because they still had the dragon to face.
Not much of a dragon, as far as I'm concerned. It looked kinda like a bat on steroids. But a fun cliffhanger, nonetheless.
Speaking of Adria's assertion that "pure of heart" equals Ancient of former Ancient, I think that answers a question I've been wondering about - whether Adria is as brainwashed as the rest of the Ori's followers, a literal mouthpiece with little or no self-will of her own, or someone who is conscious of the Ori's manipulations and deliberately taking part of it. It looks like Door #3, because she's openly acknowledging that not only is Daniel "pure of heart," but that she herself doesn't qualify.
I'm not worried about the dragon, although I am concerned about what Adria has planned for Daniel. After all, one much have one's priorities straight. :)
Despised Sam being made into The Girl (tm), again. She's threatened, and Daniel caves. I suppose that's slightly better than Sam caving when someone else is threatened, but not by much... Which leads to argh argh argh, that Sam's capitulation to Ba'al when Barrett was threatened means that Ba'al's here now, that Ba'al was better at figuring out Ancient puzzles than Daniel in order to get there first, and have I mentioned how much I detest the non-Goa'ulded voiced Ba'al, who may or may not be a clone. Hate hate hate it. And why are they letting Ba'al and Adria stroll along behind them? Why isn't Ba'al cuffed, at the very least? And if not that, why aren't they constantly under guard, instead of us seeing SG-1 turn their backs on them over and over again?
Ahem. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln... well, yeah, I liked the ep. :)
Liked the team interaction in the beginning - Mitchell wanting to goof off, Teal'c ignoring this to listen to Daniel, Vala scrambling to catch up with her face mask still on, Sam with her confident assertion of hundreds of permutations and her wide-eyed admission that maybe it was just one. Then off to a set that looks just a tad familiar, but hey, all these Arthurian villages are supposed to look alike, right? Liked Osric, and I do hope that the original Osric was real, and that Adria just snapped up the map before it was burned, or saved it from being burned at all. (Just occurred to me - seeing that particular Prior show up should've been a hint that Adria was around, I suppose, since he seems to be her personal one.) Loved the innkeeper, especially her matter-of-fact line that she'd be fine, because she'd blame everything on SG-1. :) She looks vaguely like a guest star or two we've seen before... Maybe from Gamekeeper, or even one of the Langaran ambassadors? They tend to use the same actors over and over again, which kinda sucks the realism out of things a bit.
Adored Sam in the time trap, despite the irritating tendency to use technobabble words instead of honest English. I loved how she first went with technological knowhow, then resorted to prosaic stones as a solution. That's the Sam I know and love - go with her brains, then resort to whatever works. (Wish we saw her more often, but... ah, never mind, this is supposed to be the "I liked it" section.)
The "charity" part was interesting, and I liked Daniel's solution. I'm sorry that Osric wasn't real, then, because his willingness to give up the ring seemed quite poignant at the time. Of course, what I interpreted then as Daniel's compassion was actually Daniel's suspicion... Ah, well.
Which leads to the confrontation with Adria/Osric. When, exactly, did Daniel have time to pass his suspicions on to the others? And how intruiging that Daniel has been studing The Book of Origin so carefully - we know he knew it well enough to send back a challenging reply in last season's Camelot, but this vamps it up a new level. Know your enemy, and all that - but sheesh, when did the guy have time? And again, we get Adria's intense and menacing focus on Daniel. Of course I'm going to love that part. :)
SG-1, including Vala, plus Adria and Ba'al make for quite a crowd. Vala's comic relief wasn't much of one, but I let it slide because it did fit her personality. Glad Jack wasn't there to watch an apparent kid suffer. Off through the riddles, and how fascinating that Adria apparently also reads Ancient, and in some cases better than Daniel when she figures out the last riddle first! Makes sense, I suppose.
Great visual of Daniel walking through the flames - not so much the CGI or whatever, but that it was Daniel who did it. Hearkens way back to Maternal Instinct and Daniel's faith in an Ancient back then.
During that entire final scene, I kept muttering, "Dragon, remember? The reason you dragged Ba'al with you, remember?" but no such luck. OTOH, we got that delicious confrontation, previous hinted at when Adria didn't kill Ba'al (although I did think that Adria had lifted the bars with her powers at the time), when Daniel stares Adria down. And despite his quip about not being pure enough, I think it's because they still had the dragon to face.
Not much of a dragon, as far as I'm concerned. It looked kinda like a bat on steroids. But a fun cliffhanger, nonetheless.
Speaking of Adria's assertion that "pure of heart" equals Ancient of former Ancient, I think that answers a question I've been wondering about - whether Adria is as brainwashed as the rest of the Ori's followers, a literal mouthpiece with little or no self-will of her own, or someone who is conscious of the Ori's manipulations and deliberately taking part of it. It looks like Door #3, because she's openly acknowledging that not only is Daniel "pure of heart," but that she herself doesn't qualify.
I'm not worried about the dragon, although I am concerned about what Adria has planned for Daniel. After all, one much have one's priorities straight. :)
So... good team interaction with everyone contributing, great work from the minor guest stars, passable work from the regular guest stars, and a story I want to see continue. Nice work this time.
Now it's time to see what everyone else thought of this. :)
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