SG1 processing Tl;dr
Feb. 19th, 2009 01:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragojustineSo I recently set about watching the later seasons of SG1. Finally. After seeing just bits and pieces out of order- really no full episodes after mid-Season 7 (guilty admission: I am normally a fanatical in-order watcher, but by the time I got to Season 7, I was utterly spoiled and I knew the later seasons just wouldn't be the same and I wanted to digest Jack and Daniel a little better first... and so I stopped right before Heroes. Because I couldn't face that episode). So I saw Heroes and all the way through for the first time, and all Season 8, and the first time for Reckoning and Moebius, and now I'm watching the introductions of Cam and Vala again.
I have thoughts. None of them earth-shattering, just my normal processing by typing.
Finally, I feel like Teal'c is a "from the inside" character for me.
Avatar, the one where he's trapped in the VR game, is enough all by itself to make me forgive the writers years of Teal'c neglect. I mean, using actual video-game footage is a cutesy thing that runs the risk of being very dated very quickly, and of course there's a lot of eye rolling, "oh, nothing can go wrong with that," sort of thing during the set up... but my kink for characters being forced to face their subconscious in unlikely and avilicious ways knows pretty much no bounds. And this episode was the entire story of Teal'c distilled and concentrated.
Because this is his life, you know? Setting himself an impossible task against an undefeatable foe. He does the impossible over and over, wins victories that would have been unimaginable a short decade ago. But every time he overthrows a God, a stronger one rises. Every time he reaches the end of the race, someone moves the finish line. Every time he thinks he's won the game, the rules change. I completely believe that the young Teal'c, training under Bra'tac, truly believed that defeating the Goa'uld was impossible... and yet dedicated his life to it anyway. And I completely believe that after eight long years of ever-moving goalposts, he would believe that just as much as ever.
Teal'c is cursed: he is strong, and he knows it. He knows that he is the most physically capable, the most able to wage this war. He knows that if the Jaffa are going to be free, he must free them. He can fight, so he must fight. He is the most physically able, and so there is one thing that he will never ever be able to do: quit. And so he is trapped in a hell of his own making.
In ordinary life, it isn't so dire as all that. He wins victories, and he has time to rest and regroup before the war begins again, and he has friends and allies and small pleasures (like beating up bullies around Colorado Springs and flirting with Sam and watching hockey and jello wrestling with Jack and meditating with Daniel and baffling everybody with his dessicatingly dry sense of humor and keen knack for subtle cultural mindfuck). But when you strip the man bare, it is this: He can fight, so he must fight, and it will never end.
The episode expects us to believe that they won the game because of Daniel's two second advantage. That's bullshit. They won the game because somewhere, deep down in that same subconscious that knows he will never win and never quit, Teal'c knows that somehow, being part of SG1 changes everything. He is far stronger and wiser than all of them, but the basic magic of SG1 is that they are so much more than the sum of their parts.
(Is it just me, or was this episode very much Teal'c's Meridian? That shot of Teal'c sliding down the wall and refusing to even lift a hand as the base... it hits exactly the same chord of despair as Daniel carefully describing the symptoms of radiation poisoning. The inner demons are not quite the same - believing you will never win is not the same as believing yourself a failure, and those differences are interesting and hard to articulate - and the end result is different because Teal'c's immediate situation can be fixed in a way Daniel's couldn't... but anyway. I just really didn't expect this to be the stand-out star of Season 8 for me)
And the other random notes
- I expected to find Heroes gimmicky and exploitive. Actually, I think the show has started doing a really good job of dealing with the moral problems of secrecy. It's something I never expected them to handle with any nuance, and I'm so surprised that they let the camera guy be a good guy (and I'm surprised at how sympathetic and genuine and persuasive the proponents of openness have been). The only gimmicky part was the fake-out of Jack's death, the only weak spot in a surprisingly not manipulative episode.
Still want to think about Heroes versus Sunday, Civilian versus Military, and the very different ways SG1 and SGA went about killing the doctor.
- The more they push Sam/Jack on us, the more I like Sam/Teal'c. I mean, I saw Space Race for the first time and almost fell over at the sudden cuteness of the Sam/Teal'c... and, in Heroes, I found her moment with him so much more touching and sincere than her moment with Jack.
- Speaking of which, there is actually an episode where Teal'c becomes the Dudley Do-right of his neighborhood. He catches purse-snatchers! He teaches martial arts! He fights crime! And he does it all with this fabulous, very self-aware élan. Teal'c always gets so much more about Earth culture than he lets on.
- Despite my hatred for the Sam/Jack, I like her storyline with Pete. I like her concerns and her desire for a personal life, and I like the problems of her clinging to the unavailable and settling for the so-so because she doesn't think she'll find another. It's painful and I'm sad for her, and I kind of wish the show had given her a personal life storyline that was a little kinder, but. I believe it, and as long as I cover the specifically Sam/Jack bits of Threads and convince myself that she broke it off with Pete because it was the right thing for her to do and not because of Jack... I'm okay. And I like her interactions with her dad (so, so much).
- The thing with Jack and whats-her-face in Threads? Didn't happen. Seriously, people, one bedroom scene does not make up for that.
- I dearly wish Moebius had stuck with the courage of its convictions and shipped Sam/Daniel. But other than that, my love for that episode is just immense.
- Reckoning was fucking fabulous. The SG1 faction grab-bag! Rebel Jaffa! Ba'al! RepliCarter! Jacob! Anubis! Oma! Mentions of Thor, and the Tok'ra! The thing that is weird to me about Reckoning is that it totally feels like a series finale. It's a hugely satisfying conclusion to a lot of villains and a lot of plotlines. Frankly, I kind of think it should have been a series finale- put Moebius earlier, then kill of Jacob in a different plot, then do Reckoning, and leave us defeated Goa'uld, a free Jaffa state... and, in the last scene of the show, Daniel re-descending as Jack looks out over the gateroom.
I mean, if I were writing it.
Two other Reckoning observations: 1, Cliff Simon has a face on him. Really. That jaw + those cheekbones + that facial hair = positively architectural. Like he's carved in marble. Throw in that voice... wow. And, 2, Daniel's moment fighting RepliCarter and freezing all the Replicators in the galaxy? That, as far as Crowning Moments of Awesome go, was fucking fabulous. Daniel was quiet and resigned and steely strong and utterly fucking terrifying, which is always how he's hottest. Wow wow wow.
It's good that there's so much to like, because Season 8 makes me very sad.
For two reasons. The first is the loss of Hammond and Janet so close together. Between the two of them, it feels like the SGC lost... I'm having a hard time here. Lost its seriousness, but that's not it. Lost its center. Lost its anchor. Lost its adults. Lost its gravitas. They were each, in their own way, pillars. I wouldn't ask Jack to be the same sort of leader as Hammond, and I wouldn't ask anyone to replace Janet, but they were such stalwarts, such firm centers in the chaos, such figures of utter trust and love and loyalty, that the show feels unmoored and so much smaller and poorer without them.
And the other reason, of course, is the way O'Neill checks out. I'm having a really hard time articulating what I object to- I don't mind him not being around as much. I can see that as necessary. And I wouldn't want him to be exactly the same kind of serious leader as Hammond. Hell, I wouldn't believe it. And I'm not asking for him to be in an agony of indecision and torment the whole time SG1 is out of his sight (though that's a common slash characterization and one I will admit to eating up with a spoon). But for so much of Season 8, it feels like he doesn't even care. And for all that the flippancy is part of his character, it seems like the writers forgot it isn't the only part of his character. He just seems so much less sincere and less invested and less concerned than he did before.
I've already absorbed so much fanon characterization. I can construct five different character versions of Jack and how it felt to be in charge of SGC and why he left. I didn't expect to actually watch the canon and be left feeling like he just didn't care. I want to blame the actor- I want to say I'm seeing RDA checking out, and that my fanon construction of Jack is more true to the character. Or maybe the writers, not RDA, are to blame. I don't know. Or maybe it's just me.
My lack of a Teal'c icon is a travesty that I will finally have to go out and fix, I think.
I have thoughts. None of them earth-shattering, just my normal processing by typing.
Finally, I feel like Teal'c is a "from the inside" character for me.
Avatar, the one where he's trapped in the VR game, is enough all by itself to make me forgive the writers years of Teal'c neglect. I mean, using actual video-game footage is a cutesy thing that runs the risk of being very dated very quickly, and of course there's a lot of eye rolling, "oh, nothing can go wrong with that," sort of thing during the set up... but my kink for characters being forced to face their subconscious in unlikely and avilicious ways knows pretty much no bounds. And this episode was the entire story of Teal'c distilled and concentrated.
Because this is his life, you know? Setting himself an impossible task against an undefeatable foe. He does the impossible over and over, wins victories that would have been unimaginable a short decade ago. But every time he overthrows a God, a stronger one rises. Every time he reaches the end of the race, someone moves the finish line. Every time he thinks he's won the game, the rules change. I completely believe that the young Teal'c, training under Bra'tac, truly believed that defeating the Goa'uld was impossible... and yet dedicated his life to it anyway. And I completely believe that after eight long years of ever-moving goalposts, he would believe that just as much as ever.
Teal'c is cursed: he is strong, and he knows it. He knows that he is the most physically capable, the most able to wage this war. He knows that if the Jaffa are going to be free, he must free them. He can fight, so he must fight. He is the most physically able, and so there is one thing that he will never ever be able to do: quit. And so he is trapped in a hell of his own making.
In ordinary life, it isn't so dire as all that. He wins victories, and he has time to rest and regroup before the war begins again, and he has friends and allies and small pleasures (like beating up bullies around Colorado Springs and flirting with Sam and watching hockey and jello wrestling with Jack and meditating with Daniel and baffling everybody with his dessicatingly dry sense of humor and keen knack for subtle cultural mindfuck). But when you strip the man bare, it is this: He can fight, so he must fight, and it will never end.
The episode expects us to believe that they won the game because of Daniel's two second advantage. That's bullshit. They won the game because somewhere, deep down in that same subconscious that knows he will never win and never quit, Teal'c knows that somehow, being part of SG1 changes everything. He is far stronger and wiser than all of them, but the basic magic of SG1 is that they are so much more than the sum of their parts.
(Is it just me, or was this episode very much Teal'c's Meridian? That shot of Teal'c sliding down the wall and refusing to even lift a hand as the base... it hits exactly the same chord of despair as Daniel carefully describing the symptoms of radiation poisoning. The inner demons are not quite the same - believing you will never win is not the same as believing yourself a failure, and those differences are interesting and hard to articulate - and the end result is different because Teal'c's immediate situation can be fixed in a way Daniel's couldn't... but anyway. I just really didn't expect this to be the stand-out star of Season 8 for me)
And the other random notes
- I expected to find Heroes gimmicky and exploitive. Actually, I think the show has started doing a really good job of dealing with the moral problems of secrecy. It's something I never expected them to handle with any nuance, and I'm so surprised that they let the camera guy be a good guy (and I'm surprised at how sympathetic and genuine and persuasive the proponents of openness have been). The only gimmicky part was the fake-out of Jack's death, the only weak spot in a surprisingly not manipulative episode.
Still want to think about Heroes versus Sunday, Civilian versus Military, and the very different ways SG1 and SGA went about killing the doctor.
- The more they push Sam/Jack on us, the more I like Sam/Teal'c. I mean, I saw Space Race for the first time and almost fell over at the sudden cuteness of the Sam/Teal'c... and, in Heroes, I found her moment with him so much more touching and sincere than her moment with Jack.
- Speaking of which, there is actually an episode where Teal'c becomes the Dudley Do-right of his neighborhood. He catches purse-snatchers! He teaches martial arts! He fights crime! And he does it all with this fabulous, very self-aware élan. Teal'c always gets so much more about Earth culture than he lets on.
- Despite my hatred for the Sam/Jack, I like her storyline with Pete. I like her concerns and her desire for a personal life, and I like the problems of her clinging to the unavailable and settling for the so-so because she doesn't think she'll find another. It's painful and I'm sad for her, and I kind of wish the show had given her a personal life storyline that was a little kinder, but. I believe it, and as long as I cover the specifically Sam/Jack bits of Threads and convince myself that she broke it off with Pete because it was the right thing for her to do and not because of Jack... I'm okay. And I like her interactions with her dad (so, so much).
- The thing with Jack and whats-her-face in Threads? Didn't happen. Seriously, people, one bedroom scene does not make up for that.
- I dearly wish Moebius had stuck with the courage of its convictions and shipped Sam/Daniel. But other than that, my love for that episode is just immense.
- Reckoning was fucking fabulous. The SG1 faction grab-bag! Rebel Jaffa! Ba'al! RepliCarter! Jacob! Anubis! Oma! Mentions of Thor, and the Tok'ra! The thing that is weird to me about Reckoning is that it totally feels like a series finale. It's a hugely satisfying conclusion to a lot of villains and a lot of plotlines. Frankly, I kind of think it should have been a series finale- put Moebius earlier, then kill of Jacob in a different plot, then do Reckoning, and leave us defeated Goa'uld, a free Jaffa state... and, in the last scene of the show, Daniel re-descending as Jack looks out over the gateroom.
I mean, if I were writing it.
Two other Reckoning observations: 1, Cliff Simon has a face on him. Really. That jaw + those cheekbones + that facial hair = positively architectural. Like he's carved in marble. Throw in that voice... wow. And, 2, Daniel's moment fighting RepliCarter and freezing all the Replicators in the galaxy? That, as far as Crowning Moments of Awesome go, was fucking fabulous. Daniel was quiet and resigned and steely strong and utterly fucking terrifying, which is always how he's hottest. Wow wow wow.
It's good that there's so much to like, because Season 8 makes me very sad.
For two reasons. The first is the loss of Hammond and Janet so close together. Between the two of them, it feels like the SGC lost... I'm having a hard time here. Lost its seriousness, but that's not it. Lost its center. Lost its anchor. Lost its adults. Lost its gravitas. They were each, in their own way, pillars. I wouldn't ask Jack to be the same sort of leader as Hammond, and I wouldn't ask anyone to replace Janet, but they were such stalwarts, such firm centers in the chaos, such figures of utter trust and love and loyalty, that the show feels unmoored and so much smaller and poorer without them.
And the other reason, of course, is the way O'Neill checks out. I'm having a really hard time articulating what I object to- I don't mind him not being around as much. I can see that as necessary. And I wouldn't want him to be exactly the same kind of serious leader as Hammond. Hell, I wouldn't believe it. And I'm not asking for him to be in an agony of indecision and torment the whole time SG1 is out of his sight (though that's a common slash characterization and one I will admit to eating up with a spoon). But for so much of Season 8, it feels like he doesn't even care. And for all that the flippancy is part of his character, it seems like the writers forgot it isn't the only part of his character. He just seems so much less sincere and less invested and less concerned than he did before.
I've already absorbed so much fanon characterization. I can construct five different character versions of Jack and how it felt to be in charge of SGC and why he left. I didn't expect to actually watch the canon and be left feeling like he just didn't care. I want to blame the actor- I want to say I'm seeing RDA checking out, and that my fanon construction of Jack is more true to the character. Or maybe the writers, not RDA, are to blame. I don't know. Or maybe it's just me.
My lack of a Teal'c icon is a travesty that I will finally have to go out and fix, I think.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:17 am (UTC)Oh god yes. Sam, so crushed that she can't find the right words so Teal'c just steps in *flails forever* I <3 him so much. His speech was so simple and perfect it made me honest-to-god cry.
Cliff Simon has a face on him.
Oh hells yes. Mmmmm.
Daniel was quiet and resigned and steely strong and utterly fucking terrifying, which is always how he's hottest.
*flails* See, now you're making me want to pull out my DVDs and start a marathon...
Looking back, season 8 is what shattered my Jack/Daniel ship into a million pieces. It can be fixed, I'm sure of it, but it'd take a lot of absorbing & re-interpreting canon.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:22 pm (UTC)I am so glad I waited a year and completely immersed myself in Jack/Daniel before I watched this. Because... yes. I see how that would happen, and the only reason it hasn't for me is that I'd already constructed all these events in my head, the way they *should* have gone down.
And of course Teal'c's speech in Heroes made you cry. Yes. That moment between the two of them... that he would be the one to find the words and she would be the one to deliver them, that he would know what she needed before she could ask and she could be his voice to the US military. *loves forever*
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:47 am (UTC)On the other hand, that moment of "a little more time in Danny's world" is pretty much the crowning Moment of Daniel Awesome.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:26 pm (UTC)Yes. Exactly. I like Jack and I respect Jack and I even love Jack, the way he is in my internal construction of him. And if my choices are "believe canon and stop liking and respecting and loving Jack" or "blame RDA (rightly or wrongly), throw canon out the window, and keep loving Jack"... Well, I know which I chose.
(And YES. You know what that moment of Daniel Awesome reminded me of? E-verse. The way Daniel is always at his most compelling when he's at his most frightening, the way he is strange and inhuman and powerful and terrifying and the show so rarely seems to realize that. Speaking of which, I owe you E-verse feedback!)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 11:46 am (UTC)A big YES to Teal'c all the way around (and small squee for Sam/Teal'c because I see it and believe it). :-)
An even bigger yes to the crappy misdirection of Jack's death in Heroes, all designed to shoehorn in a Sam/Jack hug because, you know, we needed reminding that she cares for him the very mostest *eyeroll*
And the giantest yes to O'Neill checking out. It physically hurts to watch it. Thank god for fic.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 12:27 pm (UTC)yes to all the teal'c. yes to heroes. yes to season 8. fan consensus is that rda had one foot out the door and his acting suffered accordingly. i haven't watched it in a long time. but RECKONING TOTALLY ROCKS. also, i liked kerry. I like using her that way. i hope you write your scenarios for why jack left; it's one of the single most interesting things about season 8/9 that canon never tackled and i will never get tired of reading fic about that. Also I adored ENDGAME. totally!!!! there aren't enough tags to that either. Now you have to reread Under Wraps, yes? LOL.
i love pete, too. and the whole threads thing, and affinity. i love Teal'c on Earth stories and there aren't enough of them. OOO Teal'c ficathon coming right up soon. *ponders*
i'll be reading this thread soon; can't wait to see more comments.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:36 pm (UTC)Teal'c ficathon soon?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:33 pm (UTC)Though I love "Not yet... but I'm learning." Knowledge is Daniel's weapon, and he knows it and she knows it, and Daniel knows that there is nothing he can't do if the information and the time available to absorb it are available to him.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 04:24 pm (UTC)Also - Cliff Simon/Ba'al - oh yes. He is something else, isn't he? Quite devestating.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 04:38 pm (UTC)So my personal RL canon/meta is that RDA hadn't lost interest and stopped trying, but that he just didn't have it in him any more.
Hmm, and I'd forgotten this, but I remember noticing at that point that he was doing a lot of acting with just his eyes rather than with his entire face. Could've been a Botox side effect, I suppose! :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:46 pm (UTC)Anyway. I don't know if saying "I blame RDA" is unfair or not (or entirely accurate or not), but I think fans will know what I mean. It's not personal- a man deserves to move on after seven years of his life, and just because we fall in love with a character doesn't mean we own the actor. So whether he just checked out or whether it was too physically taxing... well, for his own sake, I almost hope the first, no matter how much it would be nicer to believe the second.
Wait, he had Botox? That's... practically a crime. That gorgeous, expressive, experienced face!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 01:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:29 pm (UTC)I wish they had shipped alterna-Sam/Daniel (both versions) and paid more attention to the emotional impact of meeting people you'd see die, of having your friends come back to life and be not the same people... but that seems like extra emotional punch that can be filled in, not something wrong with the episode itself. You?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 09:14 pm (UTC)Characterwise: Daniel at least had the same stubbornness and brilliance and loyalty and bravery as our Daniel, so okay. Sam, as noted above--no. And Jack ... oh, Jack. One of the things I love about Jack is that he may look like a slacker, but in the field he's all business. Movie!Jack was suicidal and withdrawn, and not too sure about that geeky academic guy. But the second Daniel came through the wormhole, Jack was looking out for him. In the field you protect the civilians, primary mission. Moebius!Jack didn't come across that way at all. And the junior high-style cockblock of "I thought he was queer"? *retch* Not any Jack I can imagine. Plus, as a geeky smart girl myself, we do not fall for the juvenile jock types. Completely unrealistic, and that entire scene was a PTB wank. I'm definitely with you on it should have been Sam/Daniel if anyone.
Emotionally: As you said, the story is horrifically angsty, while the episode was played off for laughs. Yes there have been amazing fics to fill that in, but it seems strange that the show didn't acknowledge it--a big mismatch in tone. BTW, my favorite fix, if you haven't read it, is
no subject
Date: 2009-02-23 12:59 am (UTC)i also love surreallis' moebius story "More Than We Are."
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:54 pm (UTC)Yeah.
You're welcome to poke around my icons for some good Teal'c icon-makers. They're all sharable (or noted), but it'd be worth going out of your way to thank the original icon maker somehow too.
And Teal'c and Sam are wonderful in Unending too. There are things that aren't great about that ep, but the Sam/Teal'c is *wonderful* I wrote fic about it, even, which I just suddenly remembered.
Actually, I've written a fair amount of Sam and Teal'c. For me, anyway. I can think of two or three stories off the top of my head that are quite determinedly about them.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 10:17 pm (UTC)But the later seasons eps are some of my favorites. I saw Talion again the other night, and it was amazing how my empathy for the 'It's a Jaffa Revenge Thing YOU DON'T HAVE TO UNDERSTAND' t-shirt he sometimes puts on has altered over the seasons. I used to be fairly ho-hum about it ('oh look, switching loyalties again, eh?') and now I'm all 'Oh no General, get the fuck out of a Jaffa's way.'
Aaaaaaaanyway. I'm going to pimp my stuff at you now: all my stories, I'll pull out stuff you may be more interested in if you want, but Into the Breach (which was my first Teal'c story) is set in ~S7 when you're watching. And this is my uber-list of Teal'c fic recommendations. There's incredible stuff there. I would particularly recommend Speak the Living, by
no subject
Date: 2009-02-23 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 12:33 am (UTC)I hope you'll do some additional thinking out loud as you work your way through S9-10, because even when I don't wholeheartedly agree (Moebius annoyed me), I enjoy the thoughts. (For example, your squee about the S5 SGA ep in which Rodney loses his mind is the main reason I'm looking forward to seeing S5 when it's out on disk.) Best wishes for your RL!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 01:20 am (UTC)I'm sure I'll babble my way through 9 and 10 too, have no fear!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-22 10:11 pm (UTC)I loved Season 8 for its comedic moments, and I think I'm in the minority there.
Chris Judge is awesome, therefore the T-meister is awesome by default. End of.
When you consider that he started out expressing himself with his lips and one eyebrow, the character progression has been sublime - in spite of the erratic writing.
With regard to Daniel, I personally think that was the start of Action Jackson, and I'm not sure I like him so much; but yeah: 'a little more time in Danny's world' with the determined set of his jaw? Superb.
I have to admit I felt Carter got weak: Tapping is a fantastic actress, but the 'ship' was being rammed down our throats in my opinion, and spoiled a lot of episodes, for me.
Also, as I commented to
I can watch most of Season 8 over and over - Heroes I have only seen twice and I can't think that I'd watch it again - Janet's death made me howl and sob like she was real and my friend. (silly trout).
no subject
Date: 2009-02-23 12:55 am (UTC)yes! a teal'c ficathon is a go this year. Signups in March.
I have a hard time with ficathons in general right now but I have committed to this one. I want to support more fic about T. I have lots of bunnies about him -- with Sam, with Jack and with the entire team in an OT4.