I have to watch 'Unending'!
Jul. 26th, 2007 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elgreyI never read Joseph Mallozzi's weblog (Joseph Mallozz is a writer/producer on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis for any people reading this who are not in SG-1 or SGA fandom and so don't know who he is) because I'm worried about seeing any SG-1 or SGA spoilers. (I haven't seen the second half of S10 of SG-1 yet so it would be perfectly reasonable for him or people asking him questions on his blog to post about those episodes without spoiler warnings as most people have seen them already rather than waiting for the DVD to come out.) But today's answers to some questions (sent to me by a kindly friend) - despite having a small spoiler - made me squee.
Disgusted Sam-Jack Shipper writes: “So Sam/Teal'c got more in one single episode than Sam/Jack ever would.”
Answer: You mean the so-subtle-everyone-missed-it suggestion of a Sam/Teal’c relationship in Unending which was undone at episode’s end is, in your opinion, more than anything we’ve done in relation to the Sam-Jack ship? Okay, I‘d buy it, if this happened to be the one and only episode of SG-1 you’ve ever watched.
Obviously, I'm sorry that the Sam/Jack shipper who posted was upset, but my Sam/Teal'c loving heart did a little tango there. There was Sam/Teal'c in 'Unending' - however subtle - and nobody told me?? I'm so excited about seeing this episode now.
WARNING - SOME SG-1 WHINING FOLLOWS
To be honest I was somewhat dreading that episode as I heard there is a lot of Daniel/Vala in it, and Daniel/Vala now irks me almost as much as the Sam/Jack moments in S4 of SG-1 used to. (Not a bash of the S/J ship or the shippers who like it, I hasten to add. I'm all for people liking what they like, but I didn't like the Sam/Jack in S4 of SG-1 because I felt it took away from the team dynamic.)
The damage to the team dynamic is exactly the same problem I have with the execution of the Daniel/Vala ship in the first half of S10 (and possibly the second half too, but I haven't seen it so I can't comment yet). There were just too many moments where IMO - as with Jack in S4 of SG-1 - the writers and directors wanted to show how much Daniel cared about Vala while not bothering to put in the balancing moments that felt necessary (to me) which showed he also still cared about Sam and Teal'c. (Not Sam/Teal'c, obviously, as there is no reason why Daniel should care about that as I have never seen him wearing an 'I support the Sam/Teal'c ship' t-shirt, oddly enough.)
I really felt the lack on a couple of occasions of a reaction shot or a line from Daniel suggesting that he might actually be concerned about Teal'c being blown up or Sam having been killed, which, as he's known these people for a decade and they have repeatedly risked their lives to save his (as he has for them), makes him look a bit crappy IMO. I think that writers and producers and directors just assume that viewers will take it as read that characters who are canonically shown to care about one another are upset about their friends being in danger, and, logically, one knows they must be, but I don't like having to fanwank what feels like the essential building blocks of why I care about a show in the first place - that the main characters love each other like a family. A one second reaction shot showing that Daniel cared about Sam and Teal'c being in peril when they were would have really helped me not get so fed up with the Daniel/Vala thing so quickly and got me so pissed off with Daniel's apparent lack of concern for Sam and Teal'c. I could feel my liking for Daniel dropping like a rock in some of those episodes, just as with Jack in the past. I think directors sometimes forget that the characters haven't read the script and don't therefore know that someone is still alive when they appear to be dead and it would be a good idea to put in the character beat where we see their concern. (Sam not being given a concerned moment about her father being in enemy hands in 'Evolution' still irks me as it was such a huge WTF? for me.)
Even that wouldn't have solved the other problem for me of Daniel/Vala, whic was the lack of turn and turn around in how people were paired up (non-romantically) in the episodes. I enjoyed S9 and the first half of S10 very much but I was still starting to get bored with the waste of two new characters and all those different permutations and combinations of friendships not being explored. Every other episode (if not every episode) seemed to feature Daniel and Vala together with no chance to see Sam or Teal'c or Mitchell interacting with Vala or Daniel. I thought Vala and Mitchell were both wonderful additions to the team, but I felt increasingly cheated, as the episodes went on, of seeing them interacting with everyone. I was really impatient for Sam to come back in S9 so I could see what she made of Vala and Mitchell, and by mid-Season 10 I rather felt I was still waiting. Daniel and Vala certainly got explored up the wazoo and to a lesser extent so did Mitchell and Teal'c but there didn't seem to be anything like enough Sam and Vala, Teal'c and Vala, Sam and Mitchell, and Daniel and Mitchell in the episodes for me, or - as usual - enough Daniel and Teal'c, Sam and Daniel, and Sam and Teal'c. Daniel and Vala have fantastic chemistry, IMO, but I thought CB had chemistry with everyone and everything - in the little bits I got to see of her interacting with people who weren't Daniel - including the furniture, and it seemed a bit of a waste of her character to only see her doing that naughty schoolgirl with flustered teacher thing in what felt like every other episode.
So - to summarize long, dull, whiny and over-excited ramble - much excitement from me if there was Sam and Teal'c interaction in 'Unending' even if it's so subtle one has to be really really looking to see it. After years of a Sam-Teal'c interaction starvation diet I'll take what I can get. :)
Disgusted Sam-Jack Shipper writes: “So Sam/Teal'c got more in one single episode than Sam/Jack ever would.”
Answer: You mean the so-subtle-everyone-missed-it suggestion of a Sam/Teal’c relationship in Unending which was undone at episode’s end is, in your opinion, more than anything we’ve done in relation to the Sam-Jack ship? Okay, I‘d buy it, if this happened to be the one and only episode of SG-1 you’ve ever watched.
Obviously, I'm sorry that the Sam/Jack shipper who posted was upset, but my Sam/Teal'c loving heart did a little tango there. There was Sam/Teal'c in 'Unending' - however subtle - and nobody told me?? I'm so excited about seeing this episode now.
WARNING - SOME SG-1 WHINING FOLLOWS
To be honest I was somewhat dreading that episode as I heard there is a lot of Daniel/Vala in it, and Daniel/Vala now irks me almost as much as the Sam/Jack moments in S4 of SG-1 used to. (Not a bash of the S/J ship or the shippers who like it, I hasten to add. I'm all for people liking what they like, but I didn't like the Sam/Jack in S4 of SG-1 because I felt it took away from the team dynamic.)
The damage to the team dynamic is exactly the same problem I have with the execution of the Daniel/Vala ship in the first half of S10 (and possibly the second half too, but I haven't seen it so I can't comment yet). There were just too many moments where IMO - as with Jack in S4 of SG-1 - the writers and directors wanted to show how much Daniel cared about Vala while not bothering to put in the balancing moments that felt necessary (to me) which showed he also still cared about Sam and Teal'c. (Not Sam/Teal'c, obviously, as there is no reason why Daniel should care about that as I have never seen him wearing an 'I support the Sam/Teal'c ship' t-shirt, oddly enough.)
I really felt the lack on a couple of occasions of a reaction shot or a line from Daniel suggesting that he might actually be concerned about Teal'c being blown up or Sam having been killed, which, as he's known these people for a decade and they have repeatedly risked their lives to save his (as he has for them), makes him look a bit crappy IMO. I think that writers and producers and directors just assume that viewers will take it as read that characters who are canonically shown to care about one another are upset about their friends being in danger, and, logically, one knows they must be, but I don't like having to fanwank what feels like the essential building blocks of why I care about a show in the first place - that the main characters love each other like a family. A one second reaction shot showing that Daniel cared about Sam and Teal'c being in peril when they were would have really helped me not get so fed up with the Daniel/Vala thing so quickly and got me so pissed off with Daniel's apparent lack of concern for Sam and Teal'c. I could feel my liking for Daniel dropping like a rock in some of those episodes, just as with Jack in the past. I think directors sometimes forget that the characters haven't read the script and don't therefore know that someone is still alive when they appear to be dead and it would be a good idea to put in the character beat where we see their concern. (Sam not being given a concerned moment about her father being in enemy hands in 'Evolution' still irks me as it was such a huge WTF? for me.)
Even that wouldn't have solved the other problem for me of Daniel/Vala, whic was the lack of turn and turn around in how people were paired up (non-romantically) in the episodes. I enjoyed S9 and the first half of S10 very much but I was still starting to get bored with the waste of two new characters and all those different permutations and combinations of friendships not being explored. Every other episode (if not every episode) seemed to feature Daniel and Vala together with no chance to see Sam or Teal'c or Mitchell interacting with Vala or Daniel. I thought Vala and Mitchell were both wonderful additions to the team, but I felt increasingly cheated, as the episodes went on, of seeing them interacting with everyone. I was really impatient for Sam to come back in S9 so I could see what she made of Vala and Mitchell, and by mid-Season 10 I rather felt I was still waiting. Daniel and Vala certainly got explored up the wazoo and to a lesser extent so did Mitchell and Teal'c but there didn't seem to be anything like enough Sam and Vala, Teal'c and Vala, Sam and Mitchell, and Daniel and Mitchell in the episodes for me, or - as usual - enough Daniel and Teal'c, Sam and Daniel, and Sam and Teal'c. Daniel and Vala have fantastic chemistry, IMO, but I thought CB had chemistry with everyone and everything - in the little bits I got to see of her interacting with people who weren't Daniel - including the furniture, and it seemed a bit of a waste of her character to only see her doing that naughty schoolgirl with flustered teacher thing in what felt like every other episode.
So - to summarize long, dull, whiny and over-excited ramble - much excitement from me if there was Sam and Teal'c interaction in 'Unending' even if it's so subtle one has to be really really looking to see it. After years of a Sam-Teal'c interaction starvation diet I'll take what I can get. :)
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Date: 2007-07-26 04:07 pm (UTC)This is so true. I think Zoe may have raised the bar on awesome to almost unattainable levels for any other character.
I want to see this as a mini series. Mal bitch-slapped by every other character every time he uttered the word 'whore' would be in every episode.
I would have loved five seasons of 'Firefly', or indeed an extra mini-series, even with Mal being such an annoying w*nker, but if someone could have just smartly kicked him in the shins when he came out with that or even said 'Whore yourself, slutboy' a few times, I admit I would have enjoyed it more.