Topic: Stargate SG1 Season 8

[6pairsofshoes]

Nice to know that the casting director is committed to diversity in their choice of evil characters.  I'd just noticed that there seemed to be a disproportionate number of characters of Asian descent among the bad guys, whereas I don't remember many of them among the SG people.  Yeah, that luminous blue liquid was a nice prop, although I expect that most poison isn't that pretty.

[6pairsofshoes]

Evil replicator Carter just caused havoc.  Can the Galaxy be saved?  Stay tuned.

[8ullfrog]

I mean, logically, it shouldn't have. But Replicarter is Replitarded.

[6pairsofshoes]

Yeah  why would she, meaning the replica of Carter, want to do anything contrary to original Carter's best interests? 

[8ullfrog]

Nah, I figured it out, she realizes Carter will kill her, and creates a self fulfilling prophecy.

Once again, all the replicators need to do is golly off out of inhabited space. They don't need to breathe, they don't need to eat, and if the urge to replicate is so great, they could use asteroids.

But nope, KILL ALL ORGANICS as bog standard sci-fi.

I know you don't really get the BTS stuff on Amazon, but on the DVD, they flat out admit they stole the stabby arm thing from Terminator 2.

Like, REPLICARTER HAS T2 IN HER BRAIN.

I dunno, maybe Carter really is a murderous madam and wearing the uniform keeps her in line? Like she really gets off on calling Jack "Sir"?

[6pairsofshoes]

Prometheus Unbound

Daniel Jackson, through the ineptitude of the SG under Gen'l Hammond, manages to be the only person left on the ship, Prometheus, which has been commandeered by a supermodel in a scary black Goua'ld suit.  The others ended up on a Goual'd ship in the process of answering a distress call.  Like nobody on this show has ever seen the movie, "Alien."  And we all know how well that panned out. 

At any rate, she's a hottie with an attitude who can kick Daniel's flabby ass with one hand tied behind her back.  But for some reason, even though she's some kind of space pirate attempting to trade whatever ship she can hijack for some weapons grade naquaah (or whatever... they should really go with one of those more unstable higher number elements on the Periodic table, like Einsteinium or Californium, which would be easier to spell); she repeatedly suggests having sex with Jackson. 

Like we all need some soft space porn because the writers can't be bothered to come up with something more compelling.  Jackson resists and they eventually get the ship back only to have her break out again and steal the Goua'ld ship they've managed to salvage. 

If these guys had any brains, they'd be dangerous.

[8ullfrog]

Clearly you are not a Farscape fan.

Claudia Black played an ass kicker in that series, and they played with it in that episode.

Vala Mal Doran - This character is far more playful than her character in Farscape. There she was a facist soldier, here she's a former goauld host out just trying to make a living. She also tends to complicate EVERYONE SHE MEETS life up.  Naquadah is... insanely valuable. Room temperature superconductor, unparalleled Energy amplifier, it's the Double A battery of Goauld technology.

Hell, the entire game was kicked off when Earth essentially cold called a Goauld (Ra)'s Mining world (Abydos)

Weapons grade Naquadah, is in fact, the universal currency "out there".

Most of the stargate series earth weapons are enhanced with naquadah and potassium.

Many offworld earth bases are powered by naquadah reactors the size of a small boombox.

I bless'ed love that episode. It's unapologetically stupid, and an excuse to make both General Hammond and Daniel complete badasses.

Yes, Vala is sexually aggressive, but honestly, it's nice to have a woman doing that for once. Everyone jokes about Kirk...

Ironically enough, the people Hans Olo rips off in this episode take it personally. THEY'LL BE BACK.

I do wonder, from a purely economic base, if it was a good deal. First off, there is no bless'ed way Daniel is lifting those crates, prior episodes have established that four bricks of weapons grade Naquadah outweigh a honda civic.

Honestly, Prometheus Unbound might be one of my favorite episodes. It's dumb, it's fun, and it avoids tragedy. Huh, maybe that's why I hate the Ori War, it's just a series of losses.

While Prometheus Unbound may be a come from behind underdog victory, Earth retains their starship.

I also like that Hammond descends to pettiness in this episode, he steals the chair from his former office - And Walter!


The Hiccup woman was HORRIBLY out of place, I expected something terrifying to happen because of her, like an ALIEN or PREDATOR type situation, but nope, just for laffs… How the golly did that get past the editing review? On the BTS features many writers opine leaving their favorite writing parts on the cutting room floor... but she made the cut.

Only episode without Teal'c!

This just showed up in my youtubes:

When this show hit, it hit.

[6pairsofshoes]

It was kind of flat.  Like pretty lady + pretty man should hook up.  Lame-o formula.  At least DJ resists.  I didn't know the actress.  Maybe she had a poo director, but she certainly wasn't deployed in any way that conveyed her skill as a thespian. 

Had a little caution been exercised, the problems that pervaded the entire episode could have been avoided.  But that's a trope that runs through the series.  If it were not fun, I wouldn't continue watching it.  Good lord.  Compared to "Girls," this is Emmy winning writing and acting.  After just one too many Lena Dunham episodes and I ran back to this like a traveler dying of thirst in the desert after a bottle of water.

[8ullfrog]

That's just it, Danny refuses to be damseled, and in fact, hates her. It caries over.

Most shows do eventually slum it by handing characters the idiot ball because they have to fail in some way.

[6pairsofshoes]

It's Good to be King
That was entertaining.  More faux archaeology with the "ancients" leaving stelae with inscriptions that apparently foretold the future.  They'd buried some kind of ship with a time travel device.  For a reason that escapes me, Jack was the only guy who could fly it.  So they used it, not to reset time, but to go kick the ass of the Goua'ld mothership with what, Ares?  I can't remember which system lord.  That worked.  Nice.
The more entertaining part of the episode was King Harry Maybourne, who had been deposited on the planet by the Tok'ra and who mysteriously could make out the ancient inscriptions, so the people on the planet found him a seer and crowned him.  He confesses at the end to being a charlatan, but they like him.  Appreciated his engineering skills, etc.  So he gets to stay on the throne. A rare instance of honesty coming from this guy, who is usually there for some kind of comic relief.

Carter is her usual brilliant self, able to diagnose alien tech and to do a quick repair.  Sometimes the extent of her capabilities beggars belief.  But it was amusing to see the group back together again. 

One last thing.  And I don't think it's restricted to SG1, but a tendency in all SciFi shows.  You go to a distant planet and it's like stopping into a Renaissance Faire.  They're all wearing medieval clothing and living the life of happy villagers.  What's up with that?  I know the original Star Trek had more variety, but this show likes people from the 13th century hanging out in the Pacific Northwest.  A lot. 

[6pairsofshoes]

Full Alert, the NID has been taken over by Goual'd and they get Sen. Kinsey implanted with a symbiote so that Ronny Cox can taste the joys of talking through one of those wacky voice synthesizer things.  The idea is to get the major powers to launch a world war and take each other out so the Goual'd can get their hands on the ancient weapons.  Finally, they end up in space with Prometheus vs bad guys, the latter of whom get blown up.  I suspect that this is the last appearance of Cox on the show, since he went out in a blaze of glory.  He should have stayed on the Prometheus.

Highlights:  Daniel Jackson gets to work on his rusty Russian with a high ranking woman officer.  Jack O'Neill gets to engage in some nice product placement with a couple cases of Heineken, and Carter gets to keep on being Carter, her delightful nerdy self.  The world is saved.  Hoorah.

[8ullfrog]

Jack is the closest thing to an Ancient Earth has, aside from that lady... who died. He's got genetic markers that act sort of like a biometric key? He's got the login to all the ancient's sh- stuff.

Maybourne and Jack may be two of the most resourceful humans on Earth... and Harry can't really go back, what with the "execution for treason" thing still over his head.

Honestly, desert island, You'd want Jack, Harry or Teal'c. Ancient civilization? Daniel or Teal'c. Alien Spaceship? Carter. Maybe Jonas, because of how fast he learns, but initially he'd be the bumpkin on the spaceship. Grateful Dead Cemetery was a bit of a shock, what with Harry being a Military man, but since infiltration is one of his primary skills, he may have spent some time as a hippie. More than SG-1 anyway.

It's actually not particularly shocking that Carter recognizes and can operate ancient technology, considering she developed the SGC dialing computer from scratch. The original 1994 Stargate Project? Kind of dipshits. They were using a TEXTBOOK to translate the cover stone, and Daniel IMMEDIATELY called it poo and threw it over his shoulder.

Essentially, The stumbling stones for Carter are regional issues rather than technological.

The medieval thing is intentional. People start building tech, the Goauld kill the poo out of the entire population.

I believe a time or two they've had complete tech bases under the surface, and keep the Ren-faire poo up top to avoid glassing.

Hell, even LOYAL goauld worlds get shot up for the hell of it. In the original movie, RA was coming to pick up some overdue video tapes Naquadah from the mines, and his idea of a "hello" was sending his udajeet fighters on strafing runs. (udajeet are death gliders without a canopy, like a convertible mixed with a fighter jet. Very Dumb, Very ostentatious, Very Goauld.

FULL ALERT:

The Kinsey problem comes to a head.
Speaking Russian has previously gotten Daniel into a considerable amount of trouble. On their unscheduled trip to 1969, an Airman asks him in Ruskie if he is a soviet spy.

His response? "Nyet."

My favorite part there is that Captain Kirk was captured by the US Military - in 1969!

[6pairsofshoes]

That was funny.  I'd forgotten it.  Richard Dean Anderson has such a dry wit.

I just watched Citizen Joe.  It was the most imaginative "greatest hits" compilation that I've ever seen.  Sweet barber in small town picks up odd stone at garage sale and has series of visions of the many exploits of SG1 to the extent that he becomes obsessed.  His wife and friends finally can't take it any more and he's about to lose everything when he pops in on Jack with a fake gun.  Once SG1 figures out what's been happening, the wife is brought in and the situation explained.  Problem solved?  How do they keep the SG1 program under wraps while letting all these people know that he's not been making it up?  Loose threads, but it was pretty fun.

p.s.  I was just thinking, "they haven't done anything with evil Replicator Carter for a while," then I see she's in the next episode.  Reckoning, parts 1&2  I'll finish it tomorrow.

[8ullfrog]

Jack O'Neill has a deep and abiding love of both "The Simpsons" and "Homer Simpson".

When the team got brain wiped, he opined to carter that he remembered a bald man in short sleeves, and that he was very important to him. While in reality, that was General Hammond, brain wiped O'neill thought his name was Homer.

Joe is Homer Simpson. Dan Castellaneta.

I liked the mindfuck that Jack knew this was going down, but used it as a stress purge. He found being a small town barber "relaxing".

[6pairsofshoes]

Reckoning.  Replicators threaten to destroy the universe.  There's some kind of Ancient tech in a mountain somewhere that the Jaffa know about.  Carter & her Dad find it and work to revive the equip to fix on the disruption of replicators.  They need to get the dry look model Goua'ld, Baal or one of them, to help dial up all the stargates simultaneously so they can do away with replicators once & for all.  They achieve this, but evil Carter kills Daniel again after engaging in goofy mind probes.

Next episode:  threads.  DJ hangs out in some bad hollywood set American cafe with Hope from 30something.  and this folksy character actor who needs to shed a few pounds.  he turns out to be partially ascended anubis.  Hope kicks his ass so the rest of the Jaffa can triumph.  In the meantime, Carter's boyfriend -- an actor with whom she has zero chemistry--buys her a cute little house.  Buying real estate before a wedding when you are not 100% sure the wedding will take place is only a good idea if you plan to a) live there yourself, regardless, or b) are a real estate trader who intends to flip the place in a hot housing market.  So Carter is having second thoughts and tries to talk to O'Neill about it but his new CIA girlfriend shows up.  That's awkward.  By the end of the show, Carter has broken up with boyfriend and is fishing with O'Neill.  CIA girlfriend is a real peach and immediately gets the lay of the land and suggests that O'Neill retire so he and Carter can be together.  And Carter's father's symbiote dies so he does too.  Sad but satisfying.  p.s.  Daniel shows up, undead again and naked as a jaybird.  But alive.  He and Teal'c go to O'Neill's with a large cooler, presumably of beer, so they can all enjoy fishing in a lake without fish.

This looked like the end of the series, but no.  There's still more episodes.