Oh I didn't mind at all! It was a teeny spoiler (possibly even a non-spoiler depending on how subtle the Sam/Teal'c was - it might be so subtle that it's invisible to the naked eye) and I was thrilled to get it anyway.
I don't know on the friendship-without-romance thing. It's become so rare these days that I really treasure it when we do get it. There are plenty of romances on TV that I've enjoyed but they still don't move me quite as much on the whole as platonic friendships, and I don't know where there aren't more TV writers who don't get the squee factor of it. I suppose TV writers are just angsty shippers at heart and relationships like the Xander/Willow friendship where people move through a romance and come back to being best friends don't do it for them in the same way.
I don't mind romance per se, at all, but it has to be done well, whereas there does seem to be a tendency to short change romances on TV. Writers don't seem to always put the thought into them that they would a different kind of dramatic development so they tend to give the characters nothing to do that isn't mooning about each other. (I'm thinking of how little Awesome!Gunn and Crazy!Genius!Fred had to do once they became Gunn-and-Fred. And I'm saying that as someone who loved the idea of Gunn/Fred and then was wondering why all they got to do was eat breakfast and have dull conversations about their relationship when they had previously had lots of interesting things to do.) Even worse is when people who had a previously loving friendship became unpleasant to one another as soon as they start having UST which I thought happened with SG-1, where loving friends who had risked their lives for one another got turned into people who no longer even seemed to like each other. (I still find it hard to believe that Jack would have been such a total asshat about Sam landing on the ramp in 2001 before the shippy yearnings in S4. And yes, I am still bitter about that, thank you for asking...)
I think SGA has handled all the relationships beautifully so far, but then, like you said, they handled them beautifully on SG-1 for the first three seasons too. I've loved all the saving one another and caring for one another and moments of closeness between them so far. I particularly liked the Sheppard-Weir and Sheppard-McKay risking and saving of lives. Of course, as a Sam/McKay shipper (back off, Sheppard, you ho, Sam saw him first!) I am looking forward to S4 rather a lot.*g* As with Sam and Teal'c I get pretty excited by Sam and McKay being in the same galaxy, never mind the same room, so it will probably take me a few episodes to notice if other things are not as good as once they were before I come down from my first 'Sam and McKay are *interacting* and neither of them are hallucinations omigod - squee!' euphoria. Of course, too, if they gave them an actual romantic relationship on the show - unless it led to an angsty break up and McKay going off to LA to start his own vampire detective agency, which is always cool - I would probably not like it at all, but I'm hoping there will just be snarky/sexy interaction which doesn't actually do in the possibility of anyone else's imaginary ship while I think that in an AU Sam and McKay are having lots of snarky genius babies.
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I don't know on the friendship-without-romance thing. It's become so rare these days that I really treasure it when we do get it. There are plenty of romances on TV that I've enjoyed but they still don't move me quite as much on the whole as platonic friendships, and I don't know where there aren't more TV writers who don't get the squee factor of it. I suppose TV writers are just angsty shippers at heart and relationships like the Xander/Willow friendship where people move through a romance and come back to being best friends don't do it for them in the same way.
I don't mind romance per se, at all, but it has to be done well, whereas there does seem to be a tendency to short change romances on TV. Writers don't seem to always put the thought into them that they would a different kind of dramatic development so they tend to give the characters nothing to do that isn't mooning about each other. (I'm thinking of how little Awesome!Gunn and Crazy!Genius!Fred had to do once they became Gunn-and-Fred. And I'm saying that as someone who loved the idea of Gunn/Fred and then was wondering why all they got to do was eat breakfast and have dull conversations about their relationship when they had previously had lots of interesting things to do.) Even worse is when people who had a previously loving friendship became unpleasant to one another as soon as they start having UST which I thought happened with SG-1, where loving friends who had risked their lives for one another got turned into people who no longer even seemed to like each other. (I still find it hard to believe that Jack would have been such a total asshat about Sam landing on the ramp in 2001 before the shippy yearnings in S4. And yes, I am still bitter about that, thank you for asking...)
I think SGA has handled all the relationships beautifully so far, but then, like you said, they handled them beautifully on SG-1 for the first three seasons too. I've loved all the saving one another and caring for one another and moments of closeness between them so far. I particularly liked the Sheppard-Weir and Sheppard-McKay risking and saving of lives. Of course, as a Sam/McKay shipper (back off, Sheppard, you ho, Sam saw him first!) I am looking forward to S4 rather a lot.*g* As with Sam and Teal'c I get pretty excited by Sam and McKay being in the same galaxy, never mind the same room, so it will probably take me a few episodes to notice if other things are not as good as once they were before I come down from my first 'Sam and McKay are *interacting* and neither of them are hallucinations omigod - squee!' euphoria. Of course, too, if they gave them an actual romantic relationship on the show - unless it led to an angsty break up and McKay going off to LA to start his own vampire detective agency, which is always cool - I would probably not like it at all, but I'm hoping there will just be snarky/sexy interaction which doesn't actually do in the possibility of anyone else's imaginary ship while I think that in an AU Sam and McKay are having lots of snarky genius babies.