Topic: Stargate SG1 Season 9

[8ullfrog]

I loved and do love firefly. One of the discs in my copy won't read anymore

[6pairsofshoes]

Best quote of the season:
"You built a stargate in my basement using spare parts from my toaster."
The Fourth Horseman in 2 parts.  Finally, the Priors get some mojo against them and the plague, much like COVID19 gets eradicated.  Would that we could find such a quick and easy solution.

Collateral Damage.  Memory device can implant memories.  The potential for utility is clear but the team gets a crash course in ways it can be abused.  We get to see Mitchell's memories in the case of a memory of a murder he was accused of committing but that were implanted.  He's cleared of the crime but the morally bankrupt society that we were contemplating trading with is exposed for what it is.  Ta da.  Gak.  There's 8 more of these until Season 10.  God only knows if it will get better then.  This is like eating something you don't much like in order to achieve dessert access.

[8ullfrog]

poo, I blanked, Collateral damage is a hell of an episode. I mean over at Star TREK,  TNG, DS9, and VOY all played with similar concepts.

On TNG, Riker was accused as both a cad and a murderer, and the holodeck was the device of choice for the hearing.

On DS9, O'Brien was falsely convicted of a crime. Been a few years, can't remember what, but then had TWENTY bless'ed YEARS of prison implanted in his noggin. In addition to that, the false memories had him befriend and then KILL a fellow inmate. Memories O'Brien will have to live with for the rest of his life.

On Voyager it was again, about the same setup as on TNG, to the point I'm not sure why they bothered. This time, Tom Paris is the victim of the "YOU ARE THE CAD AND MURDERER, ALIEN" treatment. His was a bit worse than Riker, he had to relive the murder over and over, on loop.

One interesting twist in the Voyager episode was that the alien who implanted the murder loop also included war plans, essentially using Paris as a fleshy USB stick.

I did dig the flashback, where Mitchell has to relive the bombing mission gone wrong, because I remember writing a paper on a similar incident in High School (In that case, the pilot was hopped up on amphetamines, was told not to deploy, and killed a camp of Canadian soldiers)

As to the amoral aliens, apparently Stargate Command made a devil's deal with them. That Tech is INSANELY VALUABLE, but yeah, those guys are fuckheads.

Honestly, I'm not sure why they can't use the VR chair they already have. As long as they don't turn it into an S&M doom session like Teal'c did, it seems more valuable.

Have a trained pilot take a fighter up. Next, use the VR chair to have them do the stuff you can't do in regular training. Dog fights, shoot up the aliens, that kind of poo. In that manner, the pilot would gain real experience, rather than just recalling someone else's memories.

Meh, that's fanwank. It's like how the SGC can't have a sarcophagus because that would undercut every friendly death written into the series. I know they tried to say the sarcophagus causes temporary megalomania, but those people are going to need heavy counselling anyway. THEY DIED. AND CAME BACK.

And we're spending time with the bless'ed ORI, when the implications of the Collateral Damage tech is FAR more interesting.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm on the episode with multiple SG1 teams.  It's great to see Carter discussing potential explanations for how this happened with herself.

[8ullfrog]

the worst part is what they cut.

Bad Carter and Bad Mitchell were supposed to make out. Like, they did it, and they got yelled at.  Maybe Tapping was scratching an itch...

[6pairsofshoes]

I went to sleep half way through the episode so haven't gotten to the bad actors yet.  Funny.  I watched Homeland, then half of SG1 and was tired.  I had vivid interesting dreams, including town hall meetings, a bookstore and a candy shop.  I invented a nice main street with shops on it.  Good job, subconscious mind.

[6pairsofshoes]

Bad SG1 meets Good SG1.  Good SG1 knows bad SG1 because they are basically the same.  Good wins.  Yay.  It was entertaining.  Kind of reminded me a bit of Orphan Black with the feminism removed.

Stronghold.  Greasy Baal, Mr. Dry Look, trying to brainwash Jaffa to help him in his fight against the Ori.  How brainwashing a potential ally to join you in a fight against a mutual enemy makes little sense, but I guess it made for an  hour's worth of intrigue.  They capture Teal'c.  They think they are messing with his mind and brainwashing him, but not our Teal'c.  Mitchell gets all personal and close with dying friend, a guy who was a detective on Homicide.  He plays the memory device for him so he can relive Mitchell's experiences over Antartica.  The friend has an inoperable aneurism.  Now, here's a question.  If they can bring the special memory device to the hospital, can't they get their favorite little grey men, the Asgaard, to fix the friend's aneurism.  The selective access to alien tech on this show is mystifying.

[8ullfrog]

The Asgard are rarely available, I could elaborate if I were more sober.

Essentially, they live way the golly off in the Ida Galaxy, and they don't take phone calls. Which means they show up when THEY need help, but the SGC does not have them on speed dial.

It's mostly "While you're in the neighborhood" type stuff. And the episode elaborated that they DID try all the space magic medical stuff the SGC is not disclosing to the public, and it... just didn't do it.

Which I feel, is a more honest take than curing him at the end. Once again, the brick wall of production keeps them from dropping him in the sarcophagus, so...

They were far more mean to Janet Frasier. They literally exploded her head to prevent a sarcophagus revival. Because honestly, considering the amount of times she saved SG-1's asses, they literally WOULD have died trying to recover one to save her.

[6pairsofshoes]

Yeah.  I figured Dr. Frasier had left the show because she had better things to do in real life.  I always liked her character and the new doctor just seems kind of lame.  Not incompetent, just lame and 2d as a character.

The Asgaard did show up to help prevent the spread of the plague on Earth.  It was not clear how available they were.  I think they liked O'Neill, but, there you have it.

[8ullfrog]

Lexa Doig, Married to Michael Shanks. They don't give her much to do.

She actually has the magic ancient gene, same as O'Neill. Kind of makes her a key to ancient tech.

I think she saves Bratac once?

[6pairsofshoes]

It seems there's a good deal of nepotism in the casting of that show.  I vaguely remember her saving Bretac.  Stuff like that doesn't stick with me.  She works hard or at least her character does, and her level of performance as an actor is about on a par with that of Michael Shanks, whom I've never taken very seriously.  Sorry about that.

The show is sort of camp at this point and I expect there's plenty of in jokes that the cast finds entertaining.  I am a bit weary of it, as I'd expect the writers to be after so many seasons.  How to keep it fresh?  I can't answer that, and apparently they struggle with it, too.

[8ullfrog]

She's inoffensive at least. I think a lot of my initial dislike of the character was how Beau Bridges constantly tries to force a relationship with her.

Like where Fraiser was sharp and witty, Lam just comes off as bland and slightly miffed.

Did you get through the episode of many SG-1's?  I liked the team where they all rolled their sleeves and had sunglasses. The EXTREME SG-1.

Also how every guest Mitchell just dug the whole thing.

[6pairsofshoes]

I just watched Ethon? ep. 15.  Rand vs Caledonia (Scotland?).

Boneheads who have dedicated themselves to eradicating one another on a split planet now have half stupid enough to enslave selves to Ori, and Ori have given them a big satellite weapon to kick the ass of the other half of the planet.  Old DJ substitute who has returned to the planet goes to earth for help.   The SG1 steps on the red carpet with Agamemnon and decides to commit the deadly sin of hubris and the gods kick their asses by blowing up Prometheus the ship, (not the bad Alien prequel/sequel). Carter makes it down to the planet and figures out a way to disarm communications between Rand control and the satellite so that Mitchell can hot dog his way up there and blow up satellite.  DJ manages some diplomacy but effects are short lived and things get even more bent when they go home.  Ta da.  Nice ending where we all want to go to a different universe where we can just cook some spaghetti w/o worrying about Gou'ald or some other rapacious predatory race eating it and turning us into slaves.

[8ullfrog]

Yeah, they just got their asses handed to them, and the people they were supposedly helping all got dead.
It's an interestingly bleak turn. There's no miracles pulled out of asses at the last minute. The SGC flat out failed in this episode. I think that's somewhat interesting, and I liked the sets.

It's funny you call the guy a DJ substitute, since Daniel almost replaced HIM. Dude was off at war, and his wife Florence nightingale syndromed Danny boy. Dude came back to his house in the middle of the war to find some bless'ed pretty guy wearing his clothes and establishing a relationship with his wife.

The fact Daniel came back from that mission alive, let alone that this guy ended up with a positive view of Earth... is pretty astounding.

The actor himself is a double dipper. Both characters lost their home planets to invasion. We don't see him again, so it's a fairly good bet that Jared Kane is a gonner.

One of the appeals of SG-1, to me at least, is the implication that these things are going on in the "real" world. They're not some far off future, the events happen in real time.

They're even hindered by their shitty dell laptops.

So we could very well be making spaghetti while a USAF and Goauld fleet bash it out over Antarctica.

I do find it weird how important they made the President in the prior season, and now, bupkiss. For all we know, Landry doesn't even have him on speed dial like Hammond did. ...Alright, it was a red line, but same metaphor.

[6pairsofshoes]

The scourge:  flesh eating waterbugs eat the entire episode.  Gak.

Annoying cast of characters there for a tour get caught in the middle of an experiment gone wrong when a chunk of meatloaf transforms herbivorous bugs into carnivores.  They consume several bit players and then move in for the kill.  SG1 manages to get home but the bugs remain a problem.  Thanks, Ori!  This is the kind of thing that might give one nightmares.  The parallels with COVID19 are not lost on me.  The virus consumes people, damaging their organs and on occasion, killing them.  Rapacious nasty virus.  Oh well.  Back to more TV viewing.  At least this show is better than The Good Fight, which is getting really annoyingly girly.  They had their production interrupted by the pandemic so it will be a couple of weeks before we get more of that tv.