I have to watch 'Unending'!

[elgrey]

I 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. :)

Comments

[foliogal.livejournal.com]

Whoops. I never thought about the spoilers when I sent you that. Sorry, hon! In all honesty, I didn't even know what season Unending came from, I've been away from SG1 for so long. But I'm very glad it made your little Sam/Teal'c heart so happy. :) And I have to ask myself, is it really that difficult for writers to show actual friendship-without-romance between male and female characters on TV? From what I've seen too many times, all I can think is, yes it must be. (And then, of course, I want to know 'why?' Is it lack of imagination? At a loss as to how to write a male-female friendship without romance? The writers don't actually think it's possible? ...which makes me wonder about their workplace experiences; they certainy haven't been the same as mine, which have resulted in being involved in and seeing lots of male-female friendships without any sort of romance.) Although, up to this point, SGA has done a very, very good job of showing us a team who care for one another like a family without the 'inevitable' romance. Of course, I said the same thing about SG1 through the first three seasons...

[ankh-lj.livejournal.com]

There isn't any Sam/Teal'c in Unending. Trust me, I'd have squeed at you and tied you to a chair and made you watch it if there had been. Mallozzi is being sarcastic and the S/J shipper who made the comment, well, I'm not sure what they're on about. Perhaps they missed season 4 and 8? S/T barely had any scenes together. If there was any hint of S/T I'd have spotted it because I was looking for it. I thought the writers might use the opportunity to play since they had a huge honkin' reset button but, as usual, they're only capable of writing one 'ship' (their One True Chosen Ship, whatever it is at the time). You know how those AUs are always the same despite the huge potential they offer? Think AU but with Daniel/Vala as the Chosen Pairing. :-(