SGA: season 1, eps 3-10
Aug. 31st, 2012 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI'm watching the Stargates in reverse order! Soooomeday I shall get to SG-1.
General reaction: yeah, I see why one might be put off by the SGU propensity to Leave People Places. Definitely a far different vibe, here. I think every single episode, at least almost, has had some version of "We don't leave people behind!"
"Hide and Seek": Okay, do you know what I really wanted from the Sheppard/Teyla football scene? I wanted Teyla to totally understand football as a metaphor of political strategy. Because she knows about that sort of thing. or should. Right? Also, MCKAY. He is awesome. But also, the comic timing of the scene where McKay's shield comes off was priceless. I laughed out loud, and I wasn't expecting to. I see why people ship McKay and Sheppard -- they are certainly awfully cute together -- but in a way that I, personally, don't really feel like shipping them.
"Thirty-eight minutes": Apparently I had absolutely no reaction to this.
"Suspicion": I enjoyed it, though I don't have a lot to say about it. I thought that the Athosians were being a little snippy about the whole thing, and was glad Teyla turned out to have a rudimentary understanding of politics. I did like the resolution.
"Childhood's End": OH. This is the first one where I actually figured out that the paradigm here is Star Trek rather than BSG. I GET IT. That's what I get for watching it after SGU. But, but... Adult ritual suicide as POPULATION CONTROL? Seriously?? ...whaaaaaat. Let me tell you about exponential growth with exponent greater than and lesser than one. I do not think this is a stable equilibrium we are looking at here. It also seems much easier to make a law that population can't get larger than a certain size than adult ritual suicide, but what do I know? And then, McKay boosted the coverage by fifty percent and that allows sizeable population growth what? Do I have to explain exponential growth again? And the shield might fail sometime just cuz? It seems like they're getting a pretty raw deal here, in all. On the other hand: McKay plus small child = adorable cuteness. ADORABLE.
"Poisoning the Well": First, the shallow reaction: It never struck me before, but in this ep I was all, "Huh, it was lucky the Ancients made conference tables!" Pretty nice ones, at that! But on a more serious note, wow, the Hoffans. (Though I keep wanting to call them Hoffmans.) 96 percent were cool with half of them dying! That's pretty hardcore. I feel sorry for the four percenters, though. Maybe the Stargate could take them on? This episode, with the moral dilemma and the part where SGA is all "OMG US-centric ethics stress about the possibility of terminally ill volunteer HAVING NEGATIVE EFFECTS FROM CLINICAL TRIAL OF UNTESTED MEDICATION!!" and the Hoffans are all "yeah, you haven't seen nothin' yet with with the ethics stress" -- it -- kind of sold me. BAH. Now I'm hooked. OKAY. But I still maintain that it's better watched while multitasking.
"Underground": Okay, who responds to "This is my daughter" with "You must be very proud"? (I mean, in a context where there is no prior knowledge of the daughter.) Sheppard wants to be John Crichton, doesn't he? But he's not. I suppose he'll probably grow on me -- Crichton did. But I don't know that Flanigan is nearly as good as Browder. Weir: Aw, I want Weir to do the negotiating. I want her to be like a super negotiator (although nothing she's done so far has convinced me she would be, quite frankly -- does she ever get to do anything?). And for the requisite McKay comment: "Major, most of my high school chess team could design an A-bomb." I... really want fic about McKay's high school chess team. Hee.
"Home": If Sheppard is Crichton, I guess that makes Teyla Aeryn Sun. Only SO NOT. I'm going to have to go rewatch Farscape after this, huh? Either that or the later seasons of SG-1. In related news, I... can't... deal with Teyla's Earth outfit.
"The Storm": I suppose I'll have more to say after finishing "The Eye," but hm, I do not think this is going to end well for Kolya and Miles O'Brien -- sure, only ten scientists, but Armed with the Power of Lightning!! I still totally love McKay. "I was just leaning!"
Are there ever shows were women scientists get to do the rapid-fire science exchanges like McKay and Other Scientist Dude get to do in this episode? Like Amanda Perry in SGU never did that with Rush, did she? Not the way McKay and Eli did it pretty much immediately after they met. I guess Ginn did, a little (love Ginn), but we didn't see it on-screen all that much -- Eli would describe them working together like that, but what we actually saw IIRC was Ginn gushing about Eli's work, not a partnership. (Another point for that Perry-Ginn fic that needs to be written...) I want to see women scientists doing that fighting-disagreeing-convincing-each-other-working-together-finishing-each-other's-sentences collaboration Thing that I love so much about technical fields, that Eli and McKay got to do, that McKay and the scientist in this episode got to do, and it occurs to me I'm not sure I've ever seen it with a woman scientist. (I think Scully and Mulder might have been the closest I can think of, and Mulder, of course, wasn't a scientist.) Does Samantha Carter get to?
General reaction: yeah, I see why one might be put off by the SGU propensity to Leave People Places. Definitely a far different vibe, here. I think every single episode, at least almost, has had some version of "We don't leave people behind!"
"Hide and Seek": Okay, do you know what I really wanted from the Sheppard/Teyla football scene? I wanted Teyla to totally understand football as a metaphor of political strategy. Because she knows about that sort of thing. or should. Right? Also, MCKAY. He is awesome. But also, the comic timing of the scene where McKay's shield comes off was priceless. I laughed out loud, and I wasn't expecting to. I see why people ship McKay and Sheppard -- they are certainly awfully cute together -- but in a way that I, personally, don't really feel like shipping them.
"Thirty-eight minutes": Apparently I had absolutely no reaction to this.
"Suspicion": I enjoyed it, though I don't have a lot to say about it. I thought that the Athosians were being a little snippy about the whole thing, and was glad Teyla turned out to have a rudimentary understanding of politics. I did like the resolution.
"Childhood's End": OH. This is the first one where I actually figured out that the paradigm here is Star Trek rather than BSG. I GET IT. That's what I get for watching it after SGU. But, but... Adult ritual suicide as POPULATION CONTROL? Seriously?? ...whaaaaaat. Let me tell you about exponential growth with exponent greater than and lesser than one. I do not think this is a stable equilibrium we are looking at here. It also seems much easier to make a law that population can't get larger than a certain size than adult ritual suicide, but what do I know? And then, McKay boosted the coverage by fifty percent and that allows sizeable population growth what? Do I have to explain exponential growth again? And the shield might fail sometime just cuz? It seems like they're getting a pretty raw deal here, in all. On the other hand: McKay plus small child = adorable cuteness. ADORABLE.
"Poisoning the Well": First, the shallow reaction: It never struck me before, but in this ep I was all, "Huh, it was lucky the Ancients made conference tables!" Pretty nice ones, at that! But on a more serious note, wow, the Hoffans. (Though I keep wanting to call them Hoffmans.) 96 percent were cool with half of them dying! That's pretty hardcore. I feel sorry for the four percenters, though. Maybe the Stargate could take them on? This episode, with the moral dilemma and the part where SGA is all "OMG US-centric ethics stress about the possibility of terminally ill volunteer HAVING NEGATIVE EFFECTS FROM CLINICAL TRIAL OF UNTESTED MEDICATION!!" and the Hoffans are all "yeah, you haven't seen nothin' yet with with the ethics stress" -- it -- kind of sold me. BAH. Now I'm hooked. OKAY. But I still maintain that it's better watched while multitasking.
"Underground": Okay, who responds to "This is my daughter" with "You must be very proud"? (I mean, in a context where there is no prior knowledge of the daughter.) Sheppard wants to be John Crichton, doesn't he? But he's not. I suppose he'll probably grow on me -- Crichton did. But I don't know that Flanigan is nearly as good as Browder. Weir: Aw, I want Weir to do the negotiating. I want her to be like a super negotiator (although nothing she's done so far has convinced me she would be, quite frankly -- does she ever get to do anything?). And for the requisite McKay comment: "Major, most of my high school chess team could design an A-bomb." I... really want fic about McKay's high school chess team. Hee.
"Home": If Sheppard is Crichton, I guess that makes Teyla Aeryn Sun. Only SO NOT. I'm going to have to go rewatch Farscape after this, huh? Either that or the later seasons of SG-1. In related news, I... can't... deal with Teyla's Earth outfit.
"The Storm": I suppose I'll have more to say after finishing "The Eye," but hm, I do not think this is going to end well for Kolya and Miles O'Brien -- sure, only ten scientists, but Armed with the Power of Lightning!! I still totally love McKay. "I was just leaning!"
Are there ever shows were women scientists get to do the rapid-fire science exchanges like McKay and Other Scientist Dude get to do in this episode? Like Amanda Perry in SGU never did that with Rush, did she? Not the way McKay and Eli did it pretty much immediately after they met. I guess Ginn did, a little (love Ginn), but we didn't see it on-screen all that much -- Eli would describe them working together like that, but what we actually saw IIRC was Ginn gushing about Eli's work, not a partnership. (Another point for that Perry-Ginn fic that needs to be written...) I want to see women scientists doing that fighting-disagreeing-convincing-each-other-working-together-finishing-each-other's-sentences collaboration Thing that I love so much about technical fields, that Eli and McKay got to do, that McKay and the scientist in this episode got to do, and it occurs to me I'm not sure I've ever seen it with a woman scientist. (I think Scully and Mulder might have been the closest I can think of, and Mulder, of course, wasn't a scientist.) Does Samantha Carter get to?
drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-01 04:46 am (UTC)More on Atlantis later! (Argh, basically.)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-01 05:38 am (UTC)If I had been doing ep recs, "38 Minutes" and "Home" would've been "skip, here's the fannish Cliff Notes" episodes.
Yay, paradigm filters! The plot in "Childhood's End" isn't great, but the emotional arc actually makes sense. It's also one of the few episodes to make good use of Lt. Ford's character, IMO.
First, the shallow reaction: It never struck me before, but in this ep I was all, "Huh, it was lucky the Ancients made conference tables!"
*snorts*
"Poisoning the Well" isn't the first example of Carson Beckett's medical ethics - seriously, "we're outside FDA jurisdiction*" is not justification for magic ATA gene therapy - but apparently he's a slow learner. (Oh, if Beckett had been on Icarus Base when the Lucian Alliance attacked...)
*Arguably, wrong, if the Atlantis expedition is run under the auspices of the US armed forces, NSF, NIH... any US institution. There's got to be a Research Use Only / clinical trial variance that's more applicable.
And for the requisite McKay comment: "Major, most of my high school chess team could design an A-bomb." I... really want fic about McKay's high school chess team. Hee.
You and me both. I was too busy reeling from the "high grade explosives for beans" proposal to even notice that remark.
There's a faction of SGA fandom that has written "John is a robot" fic. There's also an argument to be made that too much Ancient DNA messes with your head. A great deal of the "do not screw around with the Ancient stuff, it will mess you up" comes out of SG-1 and SGA canon. (There was that grabby-hands Ancient database that downloaded into and overwrote your brain. And that other time with the Ascension device. And...)
Are there ever shows were women scientists get to do the rapid-fire science exchanges like McKay and Other Scientist Dude get to do in this episode?
If there are, it would make me weep with joy. Although Carter gets to be super smart with the technobabble and save the day and occasionally wreak destruction with SCIENCE, Sam never gets a science BFF to bounce ideas off. She does get a BFF in Janet Frasier, the SGC's chief doctor, which is nearly as good.
Re: drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-01 10:12 am (UTC)*puts Warehouse 13 on list*
Yeah, I was warned about the argh factor of SGA :) Teyla and Weir... could their characters be any more wasted than they are?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-01 10:14 am (UTC)Heh. It wasn't the defenestration and shooting, well, okay, it was, but for me it was mostly the identical goofy grins with which they confront Weir afterwards. It was adorable and I totally see the ship. That being said, it was adorable in a similar way to the way I find my friends' six-year-old adorable; I don't ship them as a romantic couple but as a sort of Calvin and Hobbes pair bringing disaster in their wake :) (This is not to say I won't read McKay/Sheppard, of course! But it's got to have something else going for it besides the pairing alone.)
Sam Carter sometimes gets to interact with McKay, right? Does that ever fall into this kind of category, or is it all just McKay being sleazy? (I'd kill for two women hard scientists, but even in real life that's a bit hard to pull off -- I'd be happy with a mixed pair.) A BFF is totally awesome, though. I'll go for that.
Re: drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-01 06:34 pm (UTC)All the female characters on SGA are wasted (though many of them have excellent fandom lives). I was so interested in Teyla and Weir, and so, so disappointed with how little the show values or invests in them. Even Sam, when she shows up in s4, is a pale shade of her SG-1 self. Wait: there's the exception of McKay's sister, the very wonderful Jeannie Miller (played by Hewlett's real-life sister, who deserves an epic spacecomedy of her own), who can out-high-speed-science her bro any day. But she's only in about three episodes. If someone (*cough*) wrote sciencey-smart-ladies fic about her and Sam Carter, I'd be the happiest fangirl in the world.
I did end up getting attached to some of the boys, though – McKay is the only real character, for any substantial definition, among the principals, and I developed a pretty serious soft spot for him. And I just adore Zalenka.
Now, W13. Majority female cast, for starters. Complex, fully-developed characters. Deliberate, actual queerness (as in: canonically gay characters about whose gayness the show is quite casual). A leading-lady-leading-man-pair-of-agents set-up that consistently and deliberately resists and critiques the will-they-or-won't-they dynamic that's gotten so boring in television lately. Strong emphasis on relationships other than romantic ones, including alternative-family structures. And a rewardingly rich and funnily charming premise. It does a lot of smart things at the local level, too, but those are all spoilers. I liked the first season better on rewatching, partly because some of the cues it sets up are unexpectedly fulfilled much later, but it does demand some patience on the first go-round.
Oh, and a last note on SGA, regarding 'We don't leave anyone behind.' Yeah. Effing. Right. Is all I have to say about that. Jerks.
Re: drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-01 08:28 pm (UTC)Yeah. I am so getting that. (SGU had a lot of women -- they got the memo on the casting side -- but then wasted them. Weir and Teyla in principle should be absolutely awesome, and in practice aren't, and I keep wanting to rewrite them as awesome.)
there's the exception of McKay's sister, the very wonderful Jeannie Miller (played by Hewlett's real-life sister, who deserves an epic spacecomedy of her own), who can out-high-speed-science her bro any day.
...This I have to see.
And, okay, you have just convinced me to watch SG-1, if only to see Sam do science-rapport, although now that I've started SGA I will probably "finish" that up first (I'm told after season 2 I can start super-skipping around?) And now I want to write a fic with Sam and Jeannie and I haven't even seen Jeannie yet! (I did watch two episodes of SG-1, so I have "met" Sam, but she hasn't gotten a lot to do yet.)
Also, I think I may take a detour to W13 first, because whoa does that sound awesome, like they polled my mind to find out what I wanted from a TV show. (Part of the reason I still watch OUAT is that it does about half of those things... and then it fails miserably at the other half and makes me unhappy.)
Oh, and a last note on SGA, regarding 'We don't leave anyone behind.' Yeah. Effing. Right. Is all I have to say about that.
Huh. Okay. I must read spoilers, I guess!
no subject
Date: 2012-09-02 04:33 am (UTC)Yes, that was pretty much the moment that launched a thousand fics.
Sam and Rodney eventually get shared screen time on SGA, in S3 and S4 (plus that one S2 ep which I like to pretend didn't happen). And of course McKay started as a one-shot antagonist in SG-1 ("48 Hours", S5) which was definitely more in the "sleazy" category. While McKay never really grows up, their SGA interactions are usually closer to a peer relationship.
Oh, I owe you fic recs! Let me know when and where you want them.
Re: drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-02 04:44 am (UTC)Oh, and a last note on SGA, regarding 'We don't leave anyone behind.' Yeah. Effing. Right. Is all I have to say about that. Jerks.
Isn't it sad when you wonder which nonwhite and/or nonmale character that's referring to? SGA failed to develop what had been such a great premise.
Also, just me, or did SG-1's handling of female characters actually go retrograde over time? Or did the expectations change and the show not adapt?
Three cheers for Zelenka, he's a great science sidekick.
Re: drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-03 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 03:31 am (UTC)(I'm fine with spoilers, obviously, at least for this fandom. I would probably not be with a less frustrating show :) )
Any other eps I should definitely not watch? I may not make it through the entire thing, we'll see, but I'll look to get at least through season 2 and anything where Sam or Jeannie gets to show up.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-16 06:42 pm (UTC)I'm watching the Stargates in reverse order! Soooomeday I shall get to SG-1.
I'm betting...you'll like the serieses less as you go back in time. SG1 is much less arc-driven, a lot more stand alones and a lot more feel-good endings and facile resolutions. It's very much in the mode of scifi from previous decades, complete with camera push-ins and Repeated! Dramatic! Music! Cues! that are worthy of old school Star Trek. It loosened up in the second half and does get a little more arc-y, but it remains far more episodic than even SGA. It's not even on the same planet as SGU - in structure, in writing, in production values, in tight plotting....nada.
General reaction: yeah, I see why one might be put off by the SGU propensity to Leave People Places. Definitely a far different vibe, here. I think every single episode, at least almost, has had some version of "We don't leave people behind!"
I didn't understand (at ALL) why the SG fandom went so stupidly crazy about SGU (having just come off of BSG, myself) until we started watching SG1 last year. Asking SG1 and SGA fans to love a show like SGU, well, it's entirely unfair.
"Hide and Seek": [...] I see why people ship McKay and Sheppard -- they are certainly awfully cute together -- but in a way that I, personally, don't really feel like shipping them.
They get there :P
"Childhood's End": OH. This is the first one where I actually figured out that the paradigm here is Star Trek rather than BSG. I GET IT. That's what I get for watching it after SGU.
ROFL - yes, exactly.
But, but... Adult ritual suicide as POPULATION CONTROL? Seriously?? ...whaaaaaat. Let me tell you about exponential growth with exponent greater than and lesser than one. I do not think this is a stable equilibrium we are looking at here. It also seems much easier to make a law that population can't get larger than a certain size than adult ritual suicide, but what do I know? And then, McKay boosted the coverage by fifty percent and that allows sizeable population growth what? Do I have to explain exponential growth again? And the shield might fail sometime just cuz? It seems like they're getting a pretty raw deal here, in all. On the other hand: McKay plus small child = adorable cuteness. ADORABLE.
Hah - I'm not even a scientist, but my mantra watching most scifi tends to be, "Ignore the math, ignore the math, ignooooore the maaaath." McKay traumatizing, er, being traumatized by small children=priceless. Almost worth the shoddy math!
[...] "Underground": [...] And for the requisite McKay comment: "Major, most of my high school chess team could design an A-bomb." I... really want fic about McKay's high school chess team. Hee.
LOL!! Good call on S1 writers trying for Sheppard=Crichton, unfair to Flannigan who has more to offer in other directions.
"Home": If Sheppard is Crichton, I guess that makes Teyla Aeryn Sun. Only SO NOT.
*horrified look* I DID NOT HEAR YOU SAY THAT. THOSE WORDS, THEY WILL REMAIN UNSAID. Oh man, I hadn't even thought of this, and now Teyla (who was slotted under "harmless" in my mental filing system) is now ugraded to MISERABLE FAILURE. Arrgh!
"The Storm": [...] I still totally love McKay. "I was just leaning!"
The man can't lie his way out of a wet paper sack - but he's adorable while trying! In fact, the more over the top and horrific the circumstances they stick McKay in, the more fantastically adorable and layered Hewlett plays him. MAJOR ACTORS CHOPS.
Are there ever shows were women scientists get to do the rapid-fire science exchanges like McKay and Other Scientist Dude get to do in this episode? [...] Does Samantha Carter get to?
Yes! Yes she does. She doesn't often have another scientist around to finish sentences with, but when she does - it's great :) More often she gets the "omg, I think I can save our asses!" expression, and then can only spit out sentence fragments while she types/rewires/reprograms/moves crystals and SAVES THE DAY. Unlike all our men-folk scientists though, she's regular Air Force, and so she'll submit to Stupid Command Decisions on occasion when you KNOW she shouldn't. But she does have plenty of snap and push-back, technical dialog that Amanda Tapping spits out in fluent-rapid-fire, and a repertoire of seriously scathing looks for moments when ignorance=policy and might just get them all killed.
In razor sharp snark, she's not McKay and she's not Rush - but she is the central scientist for all SG1 and can out-think and out-code every damn man on the show. McKay's couple of guest star appearances are the only time she's got someone around who's an even match for her :)
Re: drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-16 06:46 pm (UTC)That's a HELL yes. Look at Sam in seasons one and two - she's respectful of the chain of command and she doesn't have an inflated ego, but she's utterly unapologetic about being far smarter than anyone around her.
They did not manage to keep up the strong women factor for very many seasons though.
Re: drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-16 11:52 pm (UTC)Re: drive-by commenting: not recommended
Date: 2012-09-17 04:59 am (UTC)SING IT. Man was I dissapointed in how little imagination they put into Vala's character. Claudia did the best she could with it...there just wasn't much to work with. Same with Cam's character :( Actor paychecks=good for long term fans though :D
I will say I rofl'd every time the similarities between Daniel & Cam's facial features was made fun of :D
You really felt that they didn't have a long term plan for seasons 9 and 10 - they just didn't hang together nearly as well, on any level.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-20 01:37 am (UTC)Yeah. In fact, one of the reasons I'm watching SGA instead of SG-1 (well, who are we kidding, the real reason is that ase promised me fic recs) is that I tried two episodes of SG-1 and I just could not get through any more than that right now. I think I may actually be more psyched for it after watching SGA. It was a bit of a wrench after SGU, though.
*horrified look* I DID NOT HEAR YOU SAY THAT. THOSE WORDS, THEY WILL REMAIN UNSAID.
Hee. Okay. Sheppard makes a terrible Crichton, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-21 05:32 pm (UTC)drugshow :PSHEPPARD =/= CRICHTON :D :D :D