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Tin Man. One of the saddest episodes from S1.
"Daniel?"
"Uh... sort of."
Your heart can't help but break for SG-1 there, at the end.
Two interesting thoughts on this week's ep: one regarding Daniel, and one regarding Sam and Teal'c.
All Saint Daniel fanon aside, one of Daniel's most fascinating personality quirks is the dichotomy of his unquestionable empathy and his tendency to allow scientific fascination to overwhelm social niceties. His reaction to Kawalsky's operation and his determination to stay behind in Torment of Tantalus are two of the easiest examples. Right here in Tin Man, though, we get both at once.
It's Daniel who first notices that Teal'c's reactions are off, when Harlan accidently blends Teal'c's mind with that of his symbiote. (He notices later, too, when they're back on Altair.) Daniel watches him for several minutes before asking him directly if he's okay.
"Why?" Teal'c replies.
"Well..." Daniel swallows. "For starters, you've lost your - infant Goa'uld."
"I still feel its presence," Teal'c tells him, and suddenly the concerned friend is overwhelmed by the fascinated scientist.
"Really! That must be like continuing to feel a limb after it's been lost."
It takes Jack's "For crying out loud, Daniel!" to change the topic.
I love this little quirk of Daniel's personality. The care and concern is always there, of course, but it can get subsumed in his enthusiasm.
Then there's the Sam and Teal'c aspect. It's a little thing, and I'm unsure if it hit me because I'm reccing Sam and Teal'c friendship this month or because of the story I wrote that touches on the robots, which would make me a little more sensitive. But when they first discovered their human selves, Jack spent a lot of time staring at his own self, but Sam went straight to Teal'c and peeled off the gag/paralyzer/whatever it was immediately and announced, "Colonel, he's all right," in tones of huge relief. A lot of that is because they just watched Teal'c die, but it's an extra lovely touch to the friendship between Sam and Teal'c.
The real Jack knew Harlan, but didn't know what he'd been doing to them. I'm trying to figure out what Harlan could have possibly told them.
Jack has never been able to tolerate copies of himself - not the robot, not the clone, and he was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of alternate selves. I think it fits his personality marvelously, and it's worth a whole meta essay of its own... but not from me.. :)
"Daniel?"
"Uh... sort of."
Your heart can't help but break for SG-1 there, at the end.
Two interesting thoughts on this week's ep: one regarding Daniel, and one regarding Sam and Teal'c.
All Saint Daniel fanon aside, one of Daniel's most fascinating personality quirks is the dichotomy of his unquestionable empathy and his tendency to allow scientific fascination to overwhelm social niceties. His reaction to Kawalsky's operation and his determination to stay behind in Torment of Tantalus are two of the easiest examples. Right here in Tin Man, though, we get both at once.
It's Daniel who first notices that Teal'c's reactions are off, when Harlan accidently blends Teal'c's mind with that of his symbiote. (He notices later, too, when they're back on Altair.) Daniel watches him for several minutes before asking him directly if he's okay.
"Why?" Teal'c replies.
"Well..." Daniel swallows. "For starters, you've lost your - infant Goa'uld."
"I still feel its presence," Teal'c tells him, and suddenly the concerned friend is overwhelmed by the fascinated scientist.
"Really! That must be like continuing to feel a limb after it's been lost."
It takes Jack's "For crying out loud, Daniel!" to change the topic.
I love this little quirk of Daniel's personality. The care and concern is always there, of course, but it can get subsumed in his enthusiasm.
Then there's the Sam and Teal'c aspect. It's a little thing, and I'm unsure if it hit me because I'm reccing Sam and Teal'c friendship this month or because of the story I wrote that touches on the robots, which would make me a little more sensitive. But when they first discovered their human selves, Jack spent a lot of time staring at his own self, but Sam went straight to Teal'c and peeled off the gag/paralyzer/whatever it was immediately and announced, "Colonel, he's all right," in tones of huge relief. A lot of that is because they just watched Teal'c die, but it's an extra lovely touch to the friendship between Sam and Teal'c.
The real Jack knew Harlan, but didn't know what he'd been doing to them. I'm trying to figure out what Harlan could have possibly told them.
Jack has never been able to tolerate copies of himself - not the robot, not the clone, and he was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of alternate selves. I think it fits his personality marvelously, and it's worth a whole meta essay of its own... but not from me.. :)
checkpoints
Actually, I think Vala does work on a restrain on Daniel in that he has to pull himself back first before he can grab her--he has to hold himself to a standard and then he can nail her to it, too.
With Jack, Daniel actually let Jack do the pulling him back--I think he kind of counted on it. Without that, he has no one (hense you have Daniel coming up with bonehead plans like in The Shroud, which involved Daniel trying to take everything on all all his own).
Vala serves much like a similar checkpoint in that Vala jumps into things even faster than Daniel (I've always thought Daniel jumps in because he just gets there so fast with a thought process, but Vala really is impulsive). So just the act of checking her makes him check himself. It's one of the ways she's actually good for him.
Re: checkpoints
It's almost like Jack is Daniel's big brother--he can keep him in line. And Daniel is forced into the role of Vala's big brother--to keep her in line, he has to keep himself in line first. Makes him think before he leaps.
So: what you said. :-)
Re: checkpoints