First, let me state that I do understand issues of paying for actors, speaking roles, and RDA's time. However...
... is anyone else particularly bugged by the way that Stargate Command seems to be staffed? Or the way that the writers seem to think that it's okay to take one character with one general skill set and give them a completely different one for the sake of an episode to avoid casting another actor?
This comes in a few catagories for me:
A) People Who Don't Exist, But Should. In any military command (small c or big C), there is an operations staff. A deputy commander, a security specialist, an administrative adjutant, ect. In every military command that is, except the SGC. Who is the second in command of the SGC? Who is in charge if Jack is killed? Who is in charge of security? Where the heck is Jack's aide de camp--so that a general's valuable time isn't wasted handling things and time managing items that a captain should be doing for him? Why isn't there a duty officer so the general doesn't have to work two days straight with almost no sleep?
Before you say Walter... from what I can tell Walter is the senior enlisted soldier (haven't seen his chevron's lately, but I believe he's somewhere in the range to be). That position has completely different responsibilities than being a general's aide.
The lack of a planning staff or a deputy almost bothers me more, because that demonstrates a very bad weekness should the SGC have a catastrophic disaster in which the general is killed. Now perhaps Jack is using SG1 in this capacity, but that still doesn't explain who Hammond used to do these jobs.
B) People Doing Jobs that Others Should Be Doing. The military is full of specialists. People who spend their careers getting very good at their jobs. People who handle base security. People who interrogate prisoners. People who are weapons specialists. Now as much as we all dearly love SG1, they are not intelligence specialists. They are not trained interrogators, any one of them.
While it may be convient or nessecarily for TPTB to use an actor they have on hand to perform a certain task, it's not particularly logical within the context of the story. The most blatent example recently has been the use of Daniel as a security and intelligence specialist in End Game. I am not arguing that Daniel is not now a competant field operator, but he is not a security or intelligence expert. He is also not an air force officer, and questioning air force enlisted men should be done by officers for no other reason than because of clear chains of command.
The situation with the Area 51 scientist was much more out of character and unreasonable because the SGC, as far as my understand, has no authority over people arrested on earth. It doesn't matter if the Stargate is missing. That's a jouristictional issue. While it isn't unreasonable to say that Daniel might have been present for the conversation, but the idea that he would be the lead interrogator, or even that he would have the authority to send the guards out of the room is utterly rediculous.
That's what the justice department is for. That's what military intelligence is for. That's what the NID is for. That is not what a civilian archeologist at the SGC is for.
C) People With Unrealistic Skill Sets. "Action Jackson." "Super Sam." "What the heck is Dr. Lee a doctor of?" No one is saying tht they don't like Doctors Jackson, Carter, and Lee, but let's think about this for a little bit.
Daniel is an egyptologist. Daniel is a linguist. Daniel is an anothropoligst. Daniel is a historian. Daniel is a special operative. All fine. I do wonder about his incredibly broad skill set within the humanities, but you know what, I can accept that.
Daniel on earth based SWAT raids? Can't he stay behind and work on another avenue of attacking the problem? Is the best use of that resource to be toting a gun when there are twenty other guns there already?
Sam is an air force officer, an academy graduate, and an astrophysicist. I can, like Daniel, accept the broad range of knowledge she seems to have of physics, chemistry, astronomy. Biology? Why is she working with the docs in labs? I can accept her knowledge of Goa'uld space ships from her experiance with Jolinar (in Double Jeopardy she has to tell RoboSam how to do something, which implies that it's not a skill that Sam herself had before Jolinar). But ancient weapons systems? Reverse engineering?
And while i'm on the subject of Sam, let's add the question of how Sam and Jack are pilots when neither wears wings on their uniform that say so. They've both flew F-302s at the very least. I doubt you just climb into experimental fighters without having some piloting experiance.
And good old Dr. Lee... Let's see, off the top of my head I'm wondering if he is a geologist (Crystal Skull), botantist/ecologist (Prodigy/Zero Hour), or a physicist (Zero Hour). And something tells me I've even missed a skill set somewhere in there of Dr. Lee's.
Whatever happened to "Jack of all trades, Master of none?"
... is anyone else particularly bugged by the way that Stargate Command seems to be staffed? Or the way that the writers seem to think that it's okay to take one character with one general skill set and give them a completely different one for the sake of an episode to avoid casting another actor?
This comes in a few catagories for me:
A) People Who Don't Exist, But Should. In any military command (small c or big C), there is an operations staff. A deputy commander, a security specialist, an administrative adjutant, ect. In every military command that is, except the SGC. Who is the second in command of the SGC? Who is in charge if Jack is killed? Who is in charge of security? Where the heck is Jack's aide de camp--so that a general's valuable time isn't wasted handling things and time managing items that a captain should be doing for him? Why isn't there a duty officer so the general doesn't have to work two days straight with almost no sleep?
Before you say Walter... from what I can tell Walter is the senior enlisted soldier (haven't seen his chevron's lately, but I believe he's somewhere in the range to be). That position has completely different responsibilities than being a general's aide.
The lack of a planning staff or a deputy almost bothers me more, because that demonstrates a very bad weekness should the SGC have a catastrophic disaster in which the general is killed. Now perhaps Jack is using SG1 in this capacity, but that still doesn't explain who Hammond used to do these jobs.
B) People Doing Jobs that Others Should Be Doing. The military is full of specialists. People who spend their careers getting very good at their jobs. People who handle base security. People who interrogate prisoners. People who are weapons specialists. Now as much as we all dearly love SG1, they are not intelligence specialists. They are not trained interrogators, any one of them.
While it may be convient or nessecarily for TPTB to use an actor they have on hand to perform a certain task, it's not particularly logical within the context of the story. The most blatent example recently has been the use of Daniel as a security and intelligence specialist in End Game. I am not arguing that Daniel is not now a competant field operator, but he is not a security or intelligence expert. He is also not an air force officer, and questioning air force enlisted men should be done by officers for no other reason than because of clear chains of command.
The situation with the Area 51 scientist was much more out of character and unreasonable because the SGC, as far as my understand, has no authority over people arrested on earth. It doesn't matter if the Stargate is missing. That's a jouristictional issue. While it isn't unreasonable to say that Daniel might have been present for the conversation, but the idea that he would be the lead interrogator, or even that he would have the authority to send the guards out of the room is utterly rediculous.
That's what the justice department is for. That's what military intelligence is for. That's what the NID is for. That is not what a civilian archeologist at the SGC is for.
C) People With Unrealistic Skill Sets. "Action Jackson." "Super Sam." "What the heck is Dr. Lee a doctor of?" No one is saying tht they don't like Doctors Jackson, Carter, and Lee, but let's think about this for a little bit.
Daniel is an egyptologist. Daniel is a linguist. Daniel is an anothropoligst. Daniel is a historian. Daniel is a special operative. All fine. I do wonder about his incredibly broad skill set within the humanities, but you know what, I can accept that.
Daniel on earth based SWAT raids? Can't he stay behind and work on another avenue of attacking the problem? Is the best use of that resource to be toting a gun when there are twenty other guns there already?
Sam is an air force officer, an academy graduate, and an astrophysicist. I can, like Daniel, accept the broad range of knowledge she seems to have of physics, chemistry, astronomy. Biology? Why is she working with the docs in labs? I can accept her knowledge of Goa'uld space ships from her experiance with Jolinar (in Double Jeopardy she has to tell RoboSam how to do something, which implies that it's not a skill that Sam herself had before Jolinar). But ancient weapons systems? Reverse engineering?
And while i'm on the subject of Sam, let's add the question of how Sam and Jack are pilots when neither wears wings on their uniform that say so. They've both flew F-302s at the very least. I doubt you just climb into experimental fighters without having some piloting experiance.
And good old Dr. Lee... Let's see, off the top of my head I'm wondering if he is a geologist (Crystal Skull), botantist/ecologist (Prodigy/Zero Hour), or a physicist (Zero Hour). And something tells me I've even missed a skill set somewhere in there of Dr. Lee's.
Whatever happened to "Jack of all trades, Master of none?"
) Working with a main character, yeah, but always in a small capacity. And, I don't mind, because the worst episodes for me are the ones where some guest star seems to take over and a member of SG1 is relagated to a minor part in the show. 
For me, it doesn't change much, because I knew going in that Sam and Daniel would play Exposition/Plotline Poster Kids for the show, but still... Y'all are very right to be annoyed. 
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