Redial the Gate and Bane, and Ark of Truth

[fignewton]

Do you know what I love most about Bane? It's the only Teal'c-heavy episode that isn't Jaffa-based. Love Teal'c bodily lifting the punk aside while he tells him how the tattoo was formed! And, of course, Maybourne being pointedly informed that he stinks. :)

holdouttrout will be recapping Bane later tonight over at redial_the_gate. Come and join us for the squee!

And speaking of squee...

I'm not the first one to mention this, but it's well worth repeating. Delighted as I am for the SG-1 fans in America who are excitedly looking forward to getting their copy of Ark of Truth today, please remember that SG-1 is an international fandom. Most other countries have to wait a month or more before Ark of Truth is available. So yes - squee and post reviews and create icons and music vids and fic, by all means.  But put it behind a cut, and post spoiler warnings.

I have selfish reasons to be particularly anxious about this, as I'm privileged to tag for sg1_debrief. That means that I look at a very wide spectrum of LJs in the fandom. The only thing I know about Ark of Truth is that it wraps up the Ori storyline. I've even refrained from watching the promos that came with the boxed set of all ten seasons. But I'm worried that someone is going to spoil me before I get the chance to enjoy it myself.

I hope SG-1 fandom will show its usual class in our corner of LJ and that everyone will remember to use LJ cuts and avoid using spoilerish-icons for their posts.

Comments

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

I wish they'd done more with the trio in Season 8 rather than focusing on O'Neill at the base so much.

It was cheaper to have so many Earth-based and SGC-based eps, which allowed more budget to be funneled over to the New Shiny. It's one of the biggest drawbacks of S8, that we almost never went through the Gate. And when it did, it usually involved ships and Things Blowing Up.

Teal'c love is always good, though. :)

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

But...are parks in Vancouver that expensive to film in? I bet you could do pretty cheap off-world episodes (certainly cheaper than in-space episodes). Though I guess outdoor scenes might be more expensive than on-set scenes.

And they still could have had more teamy goodness. *pouts*

(I still remember getting to "It's Good To Be King" and being so excited that, over halfway through the season, we FINALLY see the TEAM go off-world together through the Stargate)

Actually, I wonder how much of my crankiness is related to the fact that we never really got to see Sam be in charge and adjust to leading before Cam came to lead instead.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

You'd think so, wouldn't you? And yet how many eps took place off-world that weren't mostly on ships?

Season opener two-parter: on ships and a bit of Asgard homeworld. Lockdown: SGC. Zero Hour: three minutes off-world, rest SGC. (Except for my version, hah!) Icon off-world, but only for Daniel. Avatar, Affinity, Covenant, Sacrifices, Endgame: all on-world, with brief forays to the Alpha Site or an alkesh orbiting the planet. Gemini (still haven't watched yet!) - either on-world or Alpha Site. Prometheus Unbound - ship. IGTBK - off-world, team plus Jack! Full Alert - on world or on ship, with the lovely saving grace of Daniel running around the Prometheus in his good suit. Citizen Joe. Reckoning, which for all its fantasticness is all on ships or in the SGC or in Daniel's head. :) Threads is either on-world on in the Waffle House at the End of the Universe. Moebius? At least the AU team makes it to Chulak.

Sigh. It seems that for 90% of the season, they forgot about that big round thing in the basement.

And a big YES to Sam never getting a chance to really come into her own as a leader. She was treated with more authority in S2 in Spirits than she was in all of S8, and then WHAM! Here comes Mitchell, and Sam is dropped back to 2IC.

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Reckoning does have scenes on Chulak and Dakara too. But otherwise, yes. :(

Gemini (still haven't watched yet!)

Wait. WHAT?

But...but...GEMINI!
(aren't you one of the people still waiting for me to write my "why Gemini is awesome forever and ever Amen" post? And you haven't seen it?)

[but most of it takes place on the Alpha Site - which may as well be SGC]

*sigh* on Sam. And then they send her off to be in charge of Atlantis. Quite the jump.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

I have this automatic aversion to non-Daniel eps. I read the transcript and disliked it. Fan reaction is almost universally negative (I've come across ONE other fan besides you who likes it). So, yeah. Go write that meta and convince me to watch it!

Yep, talk about seesawing - she can't lead SG-1, but she can lead Atlantis? Mitchell should've been 2IC.

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

*sigh*
But It's So Good! (and, for the record, I've met others! Really!)

Man, I think you just landed on the one thing that will really get me to buckle down and finish that meta. (and the conversation with Daniel at the beginning is so cute and he totally ends up trapped in a broken elevator the rest of the episode :) )

Yep, talk about seesawing - she can't lead SG-1, but she can lead Atlantis? Mitchell should've been 2IC.

Honestly, and this is my handwave - it's not that she can't lead SG-1. Sam went off to go do important stuff at SGC, Mitchell got SG-1, they got pulled back. The way I saw the dynamics, Mitchell led SG-1 the way someone might try to herd cats - they'd do what he said when they felt like it and generally let him go do all the hard work "oh, you want our leader, creepy aliens, sure, talk to this guy"

Also, my take on Sam is...she's not precisely a leader. She's a pretty good manager of other scientists in terms of encouraging people and inspiring them to do their best, but leading isn't something that exactly comes naturally for her or drives her. She'd much rather work on interesting problems than expend energy keeping other people in line and dealing with stuff she doesn't want to have to worry about. So I see the SG-1 thing as more her choosing a spot on the team she's comfortable with. More often than not I felt like she and Mitchell were co-leaders in a lot of way, you know, leading three civilians who weren't likely to listen anyway.

Atlantis was something she needed to challenge herself and to let her career expand and grow - if she wants to keep climbing the advancement ladder, and she did a good job, but it's not her favorite thing at all and doesn't let her exercise her strengths as much. I think she'd actually be much better/happier commanding a ship than the Atlantis expedition.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

I think it's one of S9-10's greatest handicaps, actually: there's no real leader on SG-1. I read the transcript to one of the earlier non-Daniel scripts (I forget which) and there was an exchange between Mitchell and Landry where Mitchell openly admits that he knows he's not in charge. On the surface, it was amusing. But when you think about it, it's not funny at all.

That's why Jack was such a marvelous leader. He didn't nec'ly have the skills that Sam or Daniel or Teal'c had, but he led them. And you need that.

And maybe that's why Sam isn't such a good leader - she knows how good she is at doing things herself. How hard must it be to delegate that task to others?

There's nothing wrong with someone being happier as part of a team than in command. But if they were going to make her leader, then let her lead!!!

[rdamel.livejournal.com]

The odd thing is that in that SciFi SG1 special, the often boring one about the tapeworms and other weird stuff that supposedly related to Stargate, AT is the "host" of it, and when she appears at the beginning, she introduces herself as the actor who plays Sam Carter, who she says is The Leader of SG1 in season 10 (? I only rewatched bits of this, maybe she said 9 and 10).

I don't know if TPTB watched that and agreed with it, or what.

My own take is that they decided to bring Ben Browder on and to have his character replace Jack, regardless of logic or continuity in the series--Sam was supposed to be leading SG1 during season 8. We don't see much of it, but she was. Then season 9 comes along, they retool everything, and she is off in Area 51 for some time, so when she comes back it's not so surprising that Mitchell, who dragged SG1 back together, is the supposed leader, though I never thought he did too well at that, either, generally.

Just one more reason why seasons 9 and 10 did so little for me.

Melissa M.

[sg-wonderland.livejournal.com]

Pardon me for butting in, but I think RDA played into those decisions as he reportedly didn't want to do off-set shoots at that particular time.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. Technically, Jack was stuck on-world. But that doesn't mean that SG-1 couldn't have gone off-world instead of spending time arguing with rich guys that want to expose the SGC, or have to chase after the Stargate because it got so bored of being ignored that it went to pay an al'kesh a visit in orbit.

I believe Jack went off-world ONCE during all of S8 (if you don't include Moebius). His time was certainly reduced. So why couldn't SG-1 have gone off-world on missions?

[sg-wonderland.livejournal.com]

I agree, the writers should have figured out a way to do so. RDA was still an executive producer at the time, I wonder if he had a hand in those decisions? If he wanted a diminished role in the show, it only made sense to let the rest of the folks step up to the plate, doesn't it? I think Shanks had proven that he could carry an episode on his own and he actually did so a few times in S8. Icon and Prometheus Unbound spring to mind instantly.
Until I started looking at that season specifically, I hadn't realized how little the gate was used that year. I suppose if you'd been the gate, you'd have gone off to seek some companionship wherever you could find it.....