SG1 (tl;dr. Run for your lives!)
Apr. 29th, 2008 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragojustineMore random Stargate watching thoughts:
1. I kind of adore that I watched SPN's Ghostfacers and SG1's Wormhole X-Treme within like two days of each other. Wormhole X-Treme is better, but I think that's because I have greater familiarity with the genre it's mocking than with the reality TV that the SPN episode was mocking. Also? Those fake little "behind the scenes" bits at the end were the FUNNIEST THING EVER.
"I'm Christian Bocher, I'm portraying the character Raymond Gunne, who portrays the character of Dr. Levant, which is based on the character Daniel Jackson, portrayed by the actor Michael Shanks, originally portrayed by the actor James Spader in the feature film... Are you okay?"
*dies laughing*
2. So this is Rodney McKay. I HATE him. Except that I really sort of love him. Oh, Rodney, you horrible, awful, insulting, abrasive, brilliant, insufferable bastard, you are easily the most despicable character I've seen in years. Maybe I love to hate him? Except then all his arrogant bravado just falls apart to reveal the desperate pain of insecurity and social ineptitude covered by a pitiful, painful self-defensive shell. And he's so horribly isolated and helpless to overcome his own defenses to fix it, and so genuinely smitten with Sam, and so genuinely brilliant and lonely and trying to bond and... oh, Rodney. I love you forever. Not as much as Daniel, but still, a lot.
2a. Speaking of which, Sam/Rodney forever. Really. No joke. He is my favorite pairing for her. Probably because he pushes ALL my self-projection sympathy buttons so I want him to end up with the hottest chick. But mostly because I really think their dynamic would be just PERFECT for the both of them. Why isn't there more Sam/Rodney? I mean, I know he shows up in a bunch more SG1 episodes, and I know she spends a season on SGA... there IS Sam/Rodney out there, right? Please?
3. I'm finding all the guest stars on this show very disconcerting. Hardly an episode goes by that I don't spend the entire time going "Hey! It's that guy! He was on Star Trek once!" and then I can't watch until I hustle off to imdb.com to figure out the mystery. And lots of them are way more recognizable than just "was an alien on some variety of Star Trek once"- we've had Odo, and Deanna Troi, and Q, and the doctor off Voyager, and Dr. Phlox from Enterprise. Not to mention everybody from BSG- we've had Helo, and Boomer, and Tyrol, and others I know I'm forgetting. And a great job by Rick Worthy, who plays a Cylon on BSG but I'm a HUGE fan of from his stint on Eyes (Really, look him up. He's gorgeous and should get more fannish love). AND faces I keep recognizing but not being able to place, from The Sentinel, Quantum Leap, X-Files, Sliders... (ETA: Wait, Rick Worthy was on The Magnificent Seven? DUDE. It's, like, reason seven thousand, five hundred and twelve that I HAVE to watch that show)
Basically, I've come to the conclusion that science fiction television casting must be a very very small and somewhat incestuous world.
4. Meridian just ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it. Repeatedly. I mean, I'm making light now, because it's almost four days later. But when I watched it... God. Little bawling puddle on the couch. It was one of those where... by the time you get to the end of the episode, you're just exhausted. Drained. Wrung out like an old washcloth, without even the strength to stand up and turn off the TV. Completely and totally wrenchingly empty and numb. The Not-Death of Daniel Jackson is going on my list of most incredibly affecting TV moments right up there with the true greats (Henry Blake's chopper goes down. You know, that type of thing. It's up there with that) and this hour of TV goes right up next to something like "In My Time of Dying" for the most draining watching experience. Really, that's how much it affected me. And, because it leaves me sitting there numb and drained with my chest wrenched and my head spinning, just trying to digest for hours afterwards, it leads to a lot of meta thinky thoughts.
4a. Because I am first and foremost a slash fangirl, of course, I read the whole episode as the pivotal turning point in the epic love story of Jack and Daniel. It is one of those pivotal things, in that any Jack/Daniel that supposedly starts pre-ascension is a completely and totally different thing from Jack/Daniel that starts post-ascension. It's like a lens clicks into place and lets you read the entire series through a very different slashy narrative- Daniel's grief over Sha're in Season 3 magnified by his subconscious guilt over his attraction to Jack, his acceptance of that attraction during Season 4, his frustration and despair over Jack ever returning it leading to his growing distance from Jack in Season 5, culminating in that utterly horrible "you stupid son of a bitch" moment in Menace, and Jack finally accepts his love for Daniel at the same time that Daniel resigns himself and decides to move on- and Jack has to be willing to let him go. It's one hell of a heady narrative, that.
4b. I keep comparing this episode to In My Time of Dying and What Is and What Should Never Be, just because SPN is my main fandom right now, and they center on the interior psychology of my two current favorite characters. Except, of course, that Daniel and Dean are TOTALLY different. The thing that makes those two SPN episodes so powerful for me is Dean's complete lack of self-knowledge. WIAWSNB is a masterpiece of writing, in that it delves so deep into a character and yet leaves that character still so tragically lacking any real understanding of himself- which is such a huge part of Dean's fuckedupedness, really.
Meridian is the opposite- a huge part of what I find so powerful and so moving is Daniel's incredible capacity for very calm, rational self-analysis. Daniel really understands himself very, very well. His ability to rationally detach from his own body and his own emotions (something that I think has always been very present in the character) really comes to the fore here- he is able to step back and calmly and factually say that he considers his life a failure and doesn't deserve to Ascend. That belief isn't correct or reasonable or rational- but the calmly rational Daniel knows that the irrational part of his mind really believes it. That's his damage, that's part of what makes him such a sexy woobie- and he UNDERSTANDS that about himself. He is intellectually brilliant, but all that intelligence does is allow him to analyze his own damage- it can't keep him from really feeling worthless. My God, what a character. (In a similar vein, the scene when Daniel calmly describes his coming symptoms of radiation poising to Jack in that same intellectually detached way makes me cry so hard. Then it makes me hot for him. Cause I'm sick.)
4c. This show has really put together a sort of messed-up picture of Buddhist ideas, hasn't it? I mean, I'm not exactly any kind of expert- but I know it when I see it, and that ain't it. The show seems to think that that intellectual brilliance somehow qualifies Daniel for the ascension- similarly, that his ability to detach from his emotions helps. Both of those are pretty... not right. Daniel never releases himself from his single greatest burden- that sense of obligation, of personal responsibility to save everyone, that leads him to believe he has failed. Daniel doesn't go because he is truly released from all the bonds that hold him to this life. None of the motivations that you can possibly construct for the character have anything to do with true enlightenment. Hell, he actually says to Jack "I think I can do more this way," and is very clearly still acting on that fucked-up unhealthy sense of personal obligation that left him feeling worthless in the first place. Fine awakening, that!
Then again, anybody who spouts "The only thing you can control is whether you are good or evil" or "judge yourself by the intentions of your heart" is more Disney-feel-good-pop-psych than actual enlightenment, so whatever.
5. Jonas Quinn is like a master course in how NOT to replace a character. He looks too much like Daniel, is too similar to Daniel, and is given all Daniel's unique knowledge though an unrealistic handwave. He is too clearly set up to be forced into filling Daniel's role. It's all wrong. Look, the absence of Daniel leaves a huge hole in SG1. You can't simply create a similarly-shaped character to jam in that hole. He won't fit, and it feels... disrespectful. No one gets the chance to mourn, to miss him. You need to bring in a completely different character, and let the hole start to close not by trying to plug it with th new guy, but by letting the entire team slowly take on a new configuration. A truly new character can change everything- change the tone of the show, change the way our preexisting characters interact and how the audience perceives them. Go there. Take that chance. Don't just try to swap out pretty actors and keep everything else the same.
Everybody should be required to watch M*A*S*H all the way through. THAT is how you swap out characters.
6. Abyss (Jack is being tortured- Daniel comes to get him through it) is the slashiest episode of anything ever written. No, really. And oh, God, so much to say about both characters after their big conversation- the incredible way they still care for each other, the amazing faith they both have in each other, and yet the ways they still talk across and misunderstand and can't quite match up in the middle. *sniff*
7. SG1 does SO MANY alternate realities, and does them SO WELL. I mean, we have quantum mirror 1, with civilian Carter and Jack engaged. Quantum mirror 2, with Jack dead and Dr. Carter still alive. We've got the future of 2010. We've got Evil!Daniel AU. We've got the sort of quasi AU of enslaved-mine-workers-SG1. There's the quasi-AU of the Android-SG1. And now, FANTASTICALLY, BRILLIANTLY, we have Firefighter-SG1! I cannot tell you how much I adore the premise of Firefighter-SG1. Probie Jonas! T, who talks like a normal person! Psychologist-Daniel!
WHY is there no fic set in this AU? I want SO MUCH fic about Fire-Chief Jack and Fire-fighter Sam, and easy-going funny-guy T, and the way they mercilessly torment the Probie, and Jack's strange complicated relationship with his shrink Daniel... I wish I had been in this fandom five years ago. *sigh*
Other random note: I found that YouTube clip where Michael Shanks talks about Jack/Daniel slash. It's here, and it's the best thing ever. "Chris turned to me, and he goes 'heh. You guys are queers.' *pause* And the worst part about it was, I couldn't disagree with him!"
And that lead to me surfing every Michael Shanks interview on YouTube. Including the one where Michael Shanks and Lexa Doig inform Chris Judge of the existence of Furries. And now I have a massive crush on Michael Shanks (though nowhere near as massive as my crush on Daniel Jackson). And somehow, that led to me watching old MacGyver clips on YouTube (oh my God. I had forgotten SO MUCH of how utterly awesome that show was!). And that led to me watching the Mythbusters MacGyver special (Oh my God. I had forgotten how much I ADORE those guys!). So, basically, that was my entire day on Sunday. Heh.
Yup. That's it, all time-wasting TV from me, all the time. Because my actual life sucks right now, about as badly as it has ever sucked, what with the crushing loneliness and the inability to meet anyone in Dallas and the being completely broke and the utter failure of the hunt for any job that will actually allow me to keep doing what I came to Texas to do and the lingering goddmaned illness and the steady spiral into self-reinforcing unproductivity and depression. Yup, it's a party. I am going to need to give myself a massive kick in the pants soon, and try to break out of this. But it's... you know... easier, to just watch MacGyver do cool stuff on YouTube.
1. I kind of adore that I watched SPN's Ghostfacers and SG1's Wormhole X-Treme within like two days of each other. Wormhole X-Treme is better, but I think that's because I have greater familiarity with the genre it's mocking than with the reality TV that the SPN episode was mocking. Also? Those fake little "behind the scenes" bits at the end were the FUNNIEST THING EVER.
"I'm Christian Bocher, I'm portraying the character Raymond Gunne, who portrays the character of Dr. Levant, which is based on the character Daniel Jackson, portrayed by the actor Michael Shanks, originally portrayed by the actor James Spader in the feature film... Are you okay?"
*dies laughing*
2. So this is Rodney McKay. I HATE him. Except that I really sort of love him. Oh, Rodney, you horrible, awful, insulting, abrasive, brilliant, insufferable bastard, you are easily the most despicable character I've seen in years. Maybe I love to hate him? Except then all his arrogant bravado just falls apart to reveal the desperate pain of insecurity and social ineptitude covered by a pitiful, painful self-defensive shell. And he's so horribly isolated and helpless to overcome his own defenses to fix it, and so genuinely smitten with Sam, and so genuinely brilliant and lonely and trying to bond and... oh, Rodney. I love you forever. Not as much as Daniel, but still, a lot.
2a. Speaking of which, Sam/Rodney forever. Really. No joke. He is my favorite pairing for her. Probably because he pushes ALL my self-projection sympathy buttons so I want him to end up with the hottest chick. But mostly because I really think their dynamic would be just PERFECT for the both of them. Why isn't there more Sam/Rodney? I mean, I know he shows up in a bunch more SG1 episodes, and I know she spends a season on SGA... there IS Sam/Rodney out there, right? Please?
3. I'm finding all the guest stars on this show very disconcerting. Hardly an episode goes by that I don't spend the entire time going "Hey! It's that guy! He was on Star Trek once!" and then I can't watch until I hustle off to imdb.com to figure out the mystery. And lots of them are way more recognizable than just "was an alien on some variety of Star Trek once"- we've had Odo, and Deanna Troi, and Q, and the doctor off Voyager, and Dr. Phlox from Enterprise. Not to mention everybody from BSG- we've had Helo, and Boomer, and Tyrol, and others I know I'm forgetting. And a great job by Rick Worthy, who plays a Cylon on BSG but I'm a HUGE fan of from his stint on Eyes (Really, look him up. He's gorgeous and should get more fannish love). AND faces I keep recognizing but not being able to place, from The Sentinel, Quantum Leap, X-Files, Sliders... (ETA: Wait, Rick Worthy was on The Magnificent Seven? DUDE. It's, like, reason seven thousand, five hundred and twelve that I HAVE to watch that show)
Basically, I've come to the conclusion that science fiction television casting must be a very very small and somewhat incestuous world.
4. Meridian just ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it. Repeatedly. I mean, I'm making light now, because it's almost four days later. But when I watched it... God. Little bawling puddle on the couch. It was one of those where... by the time you get to the end of the episode, you're just exhausted. Drained. Wrung out like an old washcloth, without even the strength to stand up and turn off the TV. Completely and totally wrenchingly empty and numb. The Not-Death of Daniel Jackson is going on my list of most incredibly affecting TV moments right up there with the true greats (Henry Blake's chopper goes down. You know, that type of thing. It's up there with that) and this hour of TV goes right up next to something like "In My Time of Dying" for the most draining watching experience. Really, that's how much it affected me. And, because it leaves me sitting there numb and drained with my chest wrenched and my head spinning, just trying to digest for hours afterwards, it leads to a lot of meta thinky thoughts.
4a. Because I am first and foremost a slash fangirl, of course, I read the whole episode as the pivotal turning point in the epic love story of Jack and Daniel. It is one of those pivotal things, in that any Jack/Daniel that supposedly starts pre-ascension is a completely and totally different thing from Jack/Daniel that starts post-ascension. It's like a lens clicks into place and lets you read the entire series through a very different slashy narrative- Daniel's grief over Sha're in Season 3 magnified by his subconscious guilt over his attraction to Jack, his acceptance of that attraction during Season 4, his frustration and despair over Jack ever returning it leading to his growing distance from Jack in Season 5, culminating in that utterly horrible "you stupid son of a bitch" moment in Menace, and Jack finally accepts his love for Daniel at the same time that Daniel resigns himself and decides to move on- and Jack has to be willing to let him go. It's one hell of a heady narrative, that.
4b. I keep comparing this episode to In My Time of Dying and What Is and What Should Never Be, just because SPN is my main fandom right now, and they center on the interior psychology of my two current favorite characters. Except, of course, that Daniel and Dean are TOTALLY different. The thing that makes those two SPN episodes so powerful for me is Dean's complete lack of self-knowledge. WIAWSNB is a masterpiece of writing, in that it delves so deep into a character and yet leaves that character still so tragically lacking any real understanding of himself- which is such a huge part of Dean's fuckedupedness, really.
Meridian is the opposite- a huge part of what I find so powerful and so moving is Daniel's incredible capacity for very calm, rational self-analysis. Daniel really understands himself very, very well. His ability to rationally detach from his own body and his own emotions (something that I think has always been very present in the character) really comes to the fore here- he is able to step back and calmly and factually say that he considers his life a failure and doesn't deserve to Ascend. That belief isn't correct or reasonable or rational- but the calmly rational Daniel knows that the irrational part of his mind really believes it. That's his damage, that's part of what makes him such a sexy woobie- and he UNDERSTANDS that about himself. He is intellectually brilliant, but all that intelligence does is allow him to analyze his own damage- it can't keep him from really feeling worthless. My God, what a character. (In a similar vein, the scene when Daniel calmly describes his coming symptoms of radiation poising to Jack in that same intellectually detached way makes me cry so hard. Then it makes me hot for him. Cause I'm sick.)
4c. This show has really put together a sort of messed-up picture of Buddhist ideas, hasn't it? I mean, I'm not exactly any kind of expert- but I know it when I see it, and that ain't it. The show seems to think that that intellectual brilliance somehow qualifies Daniel for the ascension- similarly, that his ability to detach from his emotions helps. Both of those are pretty... not right. Daniel never releases himself from his single greatest burden- that sense of obligation, of personal responsibility to save everyone, that leads him to believe he has failed. Daniel doesn't go because he is truly released from all the bonds that hold him to this life. None of the motivations that you can possibly construct for the character have anything to do with true enlightenment. Hell, he actually says to Jack "I think I can do more this way," and is very clearly still acting on that fucked-up unhealthy sense of personal obligation that left him feeling worthless in the first place. Fine awakening, that!
Then again, anybody who spouts "The only thing you can control is whether you are good or evil" or "judge yourself by the intentions of your heart" is more Disney-feel-good-pop-psych than actual enlightenment, so whatever.
5. Jonas Quinn is like a master course in how NOT to replace a character. He looks too much like Daniel, is too similar to Daniel, and is given all Daniel's unique knowledge though an unrealistic handwave. He is too clearly set up to be forced into filling Daniel's role. It's all wrong. Look, the absence of Daniel leaves a huge hole in SG1. You can't simply create a similarly-shaped character to jam in that hole. He won't fit, and it feels... disrespectful. No one gets the chance to mourn, to miss him. You need to bring in a completely different character, and let the hole start to close not by trying to plug it with th new guy, but by letting the entire team slowly take on a new configuration. A truly new character can change everything- change the tone of the show, change the way our preexisting characters interact and how the audience perceives them. Go there. Take that chance. Don't just try to swap out pretty actors and keep everything else the same.
Everybody should be required to watch M*A*S*H all the way through. THAT is how you swap out characters.
6. Abyss (Jack is being tortured- Daniel comes to get him through it) is the slashiest episode of anything ever written. No, really. And oh, God, so much to say about both characters after their big conversation- the incredible way they still care for each other, the amazing faith they both have in each other, and yet the ways they still talk across and misunderstand and can't quite match up in the middle. *sniff*
7. SG1 does SO MANY alternate realities, and does them SO WELL. I mean, we have quantum mirror 1, with civilian Carter and Jack engaged. Quantum mirror 2, with Jack dead and Dr. Carter still alive. We've got the future of 2010. We've got Evil!Daniel AU. We've got the sort of quasi AU of enslaved-mine-workers-SG1. There's the quasi-AU of the Android-SG1. And now, FANTASTICALLY, BRILLIANTLY, we have Firefighter-SG1! I cannot tell you how much I adore the premise of Firefighter-SG1. Probie Jonas! T, who talks like a normal person! Psychologist-Daniel!
WHY is there no fic set in this AU? I want SO MUCH fic about Fire-Chief Jack and Fire-fighter Sam, and easy-going funny-guy T, and the way they mercilessly torment the Probie, and Jack's strange complicated relationship with his shrink Daniel... I wish I had been in this fandom five years ago. *sigh*
Other random note: I found that YouTube clip where Michael Shanks talks about Jack/Daniel slash. It's here, and it's the best thing ever. "Chris turned to me, and he goes 'heh. You guys are queers.' *pause* And the worst part about it was, I couldn't disagree with him!"
And that lead to me surfing every Michael Shanks interview on YouTube. Including the one where Michael Shanks and Lexa Doig inform Chris Judge of the existence of Furries. And now I have a massive crush on Michael Shanks (though nowhere near as massive as my crush on Daniel Jackson). And somehow, that led to me watching old MacGyver clips on YouTube (oh my God. I had forgotten SO MUCH of how utterly awesome that show was!). And that led to me watching the Mythbusters MacGyver special (Oh my God. I had forgotten how much I ADORE those guys!). So, basically, that was my entire day on Sunday. Heh.
Yup. That's it, all time-wasting TV from me, all the time. Because my actual life sucks right now, about as badly as it has ever sucked, what with the crushing loneliness and the inability to meet anyone in Dallas and the being completely broke and the utter failure of the hunt for any job that will actually allow me to keep doing what I came to Texas to do and the lingering goddmaned illness and the steady spiral into self-reinforcing unproductivity and depression. Yup, it's a party. I am going to need to give myself a massive kick in the pants soon, and try to break out of this. But it's... you know... easier, to just watch MacGyver do cool stuff on YouTube.
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Edited (2) - sorry, this one really will work!
Date: 2008-06-16 06:37 pm (UTC)I hope you don't mind but I came here via the fic you put on
I totally agree with your idea about messed up Buddhism, and specifically ( href="http://quarryquest.livejournal.com/391915.html#cutid1">links to an entry in my journal) what they did with Oma Desala.
I also thought the Ascension stuff was Buddhist but then I looked at it through comparative mythology and psychology glasses I realised it was something completely different. I wrote a big long meta on it href="http://http://quarryquest.livejournal.com/394263.html#cutid1"> part one and href="http://quarryquest.livejournal.com/395057.html#cutid1">part two.
Re: Edited (2) - sorry, this one really will work!
Date: 2008-06-16 08:17 pm (UTC)And, oh wow, Harcesis is a Hellenization of Heru-ur? MY GOD, that changes EVERYTHING! I can't believe I never tried to find the source for Harcesis, because that's FANTASTIC. Thanks so much!
Re: Edited (2) - sorry, this one really will work!
Date: 2008-06-16 09:14 pm (UTC)Glad you liked the meta though, I am still doing research for updating it (how about Oma Desala as Persephone and including information about Jean Cocteau films?) so I will tell you when I do.
Re: Edited (2) - sorry, this one really will work!
Date: 2008-06-16 09:23 pm (UTC)Don't get me going on the Quest/Shroud messing with Grail legends either (don't they love their myths)
p.p.s. Can I friend you?