Elizabeth Weir/John Sheppard Appreciation/Ship/Discussion Thread

[Reiko]

Reiko, you're not as big a nerd as you think you are if you don't know Richard and Kahlan from Legend of the Seeker. They're a great Sparky parallel, though a bit young. At least to me.

Oh! I think I've heard of that show before, a while back. The names sound familiar -- isn't Kahlan one of the ladies in Falcon Horus' signature? I was wondering where they were from.

Will add that to the "shows to check out when I have time" list. Hulu has episodes ... Hopefully they will play at a somewhat decent rate on this picky laptop! Do you have to watch them in order though? Can I just hop on bored and get the basic gist of the episode without seeing others?

And the irony of it is, had they gone in the direction you outlined, they could've given Carter some juicy material of her own, given how she's had her own nasty, torture-filled encounters with Replicators. So they shot themselves in both feet on that one.

Good point! They didn't do favors for either character: they simply got rid of one and dumbed the other down. Carter was too experienced for their own good, so they kept passing her the idiot ball. "Oh, that's impossible!" But it happened on SG-1! And hey, I'm not Carter's biggest fan (thought she was good enough on SG1, usually meh on early SGA, hated her in late SGA), but I think pairing her up with Elizabeth for maybe a few episodes could be interesting. But she overstayed her welcome, and SGA already has character balance problems.

TPTB never seemed interested in writing female/female relationships anyways. Yeah, we had Teyla/Kate in Kate's episodes, a bit of Elizabeth/Teyla in season 3 and one-shot relationships throughout (Teyla and the girl from Sunday), but nothing really consistent. When Laura was on the show, she was with the boys. Katie Brown only interacted with Rodney and Carson, IIRC. They seemed to try to build Teyla/Keller in "Missing" but it came off more as mentor-student than friend-friend.

In one way, I don't blame them. They're guys; they're probably less comfortable writing a female/female friendship with confidence, perhaps because they lack personal experience. Thus, we only get small glimpses -- it's no coincidence that the most neglected relationship in the main casts of Stargate is between the women. Close male-male friendships and female-male friendships (of the nonromantic sort, since we're not talking ship here) I enjoy, but you're seriously ignoring another class of relationships here guys, and it's obvious!

Wow, that was off-topic.

Nerds rule!

I really like the Lúthien/Beren = Elizabeth/John parallel. Hadn't even thought of that!

Oh, wow, someone actually knows what I'm speaking about. But I had never really thought about it either until I saw the manip nephtys59 did; I like the Beren and Lúthien tale and I like Sparky, so I guess something clicked. (Hmm ... Maybe sometime in season seven we can have Elizabeth sing Oberoth into a daze while John steals a ZPM? How about that musical episode you were talking about?)

And yes, nerds rule. I don't think there should be a problem with being "nerdy" by being into sci-fi, fantasy etc. It still carries a stigma though. Sad.

Think of them as John and Elizabeth: The Early Years.

LOL. This'll certainly be interesting to watch, then!

Interesting that we can draw up connections between Sparky and other relationships in stories. Maybe they share some common element with Sparky in how they act toward each other or parallels in the stories.

Though, personally, I think out of many ships I've shipped Sparky is the one that has it all: an equal balance of angst, tension, joy, and friendship. (So, ironically, one of the things the show did get right was not something TPTB were aiming for. )

[Scary Kitty]

Oh! I think I've heard of that show before, a while back. The names sound familiar -- isn't Kahlan one of the ladies in Falcon Horus' signature? I was wondering where they were from.

Will add that to the "shows to check out when I have time" list. Hulu has episodes ... Hopefully they will play at a somewhat decent rate on this picky laptop! Do you have to watch them in order though? Can I just hop on bored and get the basic gist of the episode without seeing others?

I've been a bad LotS fangirl and haven't seen any of the most recent episodes (blame it on the TV station that's carrying it in my area; they have it on at a really inconvenient time ), but it does kind of help to watch them in order. Ongoing story arcs and all that.

Good point! They didn't do favors for either character: they simply got rid of one and dumbed the other down. Carter was too experienced for their own good, so they kept passing her the idiot ball. "Oh, that's impossible!" But it happened on SG-1! And hey, I'm not Carter's biggest fan (thought she was good enough on SG1, usually meh on early SGA, hated her in late SGA), but I think pairing her up with Elizabeth for maybe a few episodes could be interesting. But she overstayed her welcome, and SGA already has character balance problems.

No kidding! It always set my teeth on edge whenever they had Sheppard and/or McKay explaining things to Carter like that; in terms of writing mechanics, the writers had to put that exposition somewhere so the audience would know what was going on (and they didn't want to undermine Sheppard and McKay as the big cheeses on campus), but it ended up making Carter look stupid. Compare that to Weir; she was neither military or scientist, so when Sheppard and/or McKay had to explain things to her, it made her look like an intelligent leader who was learning everything she could to make informed decisions. The same applies to Woolsey as well, which is part of why his presence didn't grate on me nearly as much as Carter did.

Damn, teaming up Elizabeth and Carter for a few episodes (say, in the context of rescuing Elizabeth and preparing an offensive against the Replicators using intel that Elizabeth was able to give them, dealing with the aftermath of Elizabeth being held as a prisoner of war, etc.) would've been awesome. TPTW thought they were so clever bringing Carter in; why couldn't they be clever enough to think of this and milk it for all it was worth?! We'd have gotten to keep Weir and have Carter too! It'd be a win-win for everybody!

TPTB never seemed interested in writing female/female relationships anyways. Yeah, we had Teyla/Kate in Kate's episodes, a bit of Elizabeth/Teyla in season 3 and one-shot relationships throughout (Teyla and the girl from Sunday), but nothing really consistent. When Laura was on the show, she was with the boys. Katie Brown only interacted with Rodney and Carson, IIRC. They seemed to try to build Teyla/Keller in "Missing" but it came off more as mentor-student than friend-friend.

In one way, I don't blame them. They're guys; they're probably less comfortable writing a female/female friendship with confidence, perhaps because they lack personal experience. Thus, we only get small glimpses -- it's no coincidence that the most neglected relationship in the main casts of Stargate is between the women. Close male-male friendships and female-male friendships (of the nonromantic sort, since we're not talking ship here) I enjoy, but you're seriously ignoring another class of relationships here guys, and it's obvious!

Wow, that was off-topic.

Eh, only slightly.

Oh, wow, someone actually knows what I'm speaking about. But I had never really thought about it either until I saw the manip nephtys59 did; I like the Beren and Lúthien tale and I like Sparky, so I guess something clicked. (Hmm ... Maybe sometime in season seven we can have Elizabeth sing Oberoth into a daze while John steals a ZPM? How about that musical episode you were talking about?)

And yes, nerds rule. I don't think there should be a problem with being "nerdy" by being into sci-fi, fantasy etc. It still carries a stigma though. Sad.

*snickers* Well, there is the little problem that Oberoth will be dead as a doornail by the time we get to Season 7...

Nah, being into sci-fi is now cool after BSG ate everyone's brains.

LOL. This'll certainly be interesting to watch, then!

Interesting that we can draw up connections between Sparky and other relationships in stories. Maybe they share some common element with Sparky in how they act toward each other or parallels in the stories.

Though, personally, I think out of many ships I've shipped Sparky is the one that has it all: an equal balance of angst, tension, joy, and friendship. (So, ironically, one of the things the show did get right was not something TPTB were aiming for. )

*snickers* Yeah, that irony is sure spread on thick enough to cut with a knife! But it did give us such a lovely ship in Sparky.

[Infinite-Possibilities]

The thing with Carter is that although she is the most ridiculously talented of an already ridiculously talented group of individuals, she fit her niece in the show well so being unrealistically overqualified wasn't really a problem. With SGA though, the position she was in really highlights that aspect of her character and how she didn't fit into the place they put her.

I mean consider this:

Carter is known to be:
- At least as good at science-ing as McKay.
- At least as good as milltary-ing as Sheppard
- AND she's their leader
- AND she's a beautiful women
- AND she almost never makes mistakes

In SG-1 her talents fit into the characters role well enough but on SGA basically you become aware she could conceivably replace BOTH the techobabble guy or the shoot em up guy. Of course she wasn't allowed to, so she just sat there. And thus all three of them just didn't get done any favors. That really didn't work so great.

Going over SGU, I watched Space a few days ago. I thought it was decent, but I still am not enjoying the show as much as Stargate: Atlantis. It certainly does make use of a lot of things that SGA was sorely needing, but it loses a lot of what I already enjoyed. I suppose part of it is that I've not been a huge fan of dramas. I often like heavily character driven stuff but when that's mostly all there is to it then my interest wanes somewhat. There's really only so much you can do with "They are lost far from home, and people there don't get along well." And while I kinda like some of the characters, overall I don't connect with them anywhere near as much as I do the previous two shows. And personally I think my interest in the shades of gray they delve into isn't as great when they do it in this show, where I don't care as much for the characters as in Stargate Atlantis for example.

I actually liked John's whole "anti-hero" arc, as I've said. Mostly because I was invested in him heavily by then. And although this is down to my own personal interpretation of his scenes (which is the reason I suspect I enjoyed season 4 and 5 more than many people here), I did get the feeling there was an internal back and forth . Admittedly much of it was something I had to fill in myself, simply by logically believing it to had to be the case from what I knew about John and what he had been through. And that was something a of a weakness in the show, but then Joe Flanigan was never going to put in a performance where turns to the camera and says "I'm REEEEALLY SAD ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW!" At the end of the day I picked up enough from him and his acting onscreen that I felt a bit of an internal struggle. If other people didn't interpret that to be the case on the show, It's not difficult to see why they would enjoy it less than I did.

Basically SGU is little like taking the character development that we wanted from Stargate: Atlantis, then focusing on that to the extreme and removing most of the background plot associated with it. I don't think its a stretch to say that the basic premise of "an awakened army of unstoppable life sucking aliens is arising to harvest human life in the galaxy and eventually strike at Earth" is more interesting than "A bunch of people are trapped on a ship reeaaaaaaallly far from home."

I'm also a little worried about where they are going to take Rush. I love a good "long-term unrevealed agenda" arc, but they need to avoid the trap of going from "intriguing" to "insufferably confusing".

[Southern Red]

Oh! I think I've heard of that show before, a while back. The names sound familiar -- isn't Kahlan one of the ladies in Falcon Horus' signature? I was wondering where they were from.

Will add that to the "shows to check out when I have time" list. Hulu has episodes ... Hopefully they will play at a somewhat decent rate on this picky laptop! Do you have to watch them in order though? Can I just hop on bored and get the basic gist of the episode without seeing others?

It would help to watch in order as it's a "quest" show and they pick up new objects and new characters along the way. However, if you watch one of the later ones just to see how you like it, it won't matter that much. If you like kickass women, cute heroes and cool wizards...oh, and scene-chewing villians...you'll love it.

Good point! They didn't do favors for either character: they simply got rid of one and dumbed the other down. Carter was too experienced for their own good, so they kept passing her the idiot ball. "Oh, that's impossible!" But it happened on SG-1! And hey, I'm not Carter's biggest fan (thought she was good enough on SG1, usually meh on early SGA, hated her in late SGA), but I think pairing her up with Elizabeth for maybe a few episodes could be interesting. But she overstayed her welcome, and SGA already has character balance problems.

TPTB never seemed interested in writing female/female relationships anyways. Yeah, we had Teyla/Kate in Kate's episodes, a bit of Elizabeth/Teyla in season 3 and one-shot relationships throughout (Teyla and the girl from Sunday), but nothing really consistent. When Laura was on the show, she was with the boys. Katie Brown only interacted with Rodney and Carson, IIRC. They seemed to try to build Teyla/Keller in "Missing" but it came off more as mentor-student than friend-friend.

In one way, I don't blame them. They're guys; they're probably less comfortable writing a female/female friendship with confidence, perhaps because they lack personal experience. Thus, we only get small glimpses -- it's no coincidence that the most neglected relationship in the main casts of Stargate is between the women. Close male-male friendships and female-male friendships (of the nonromantic sort, since we're not talking ship here) I enjoy, but you're seriously ignoring another class of relationships here guys, and it's obvious!

Wow, that was off-topic.

For the whole run of the show fans complained that we didn't see enough of the Teyla/Elizabeth relationship. They told us about it a couple of times and showed us a couple of little scenes but it wasn't believable. But then how many times did we hear that they had cut "character" scenes to put in more action? Now I love action but you need more than that to make your relationships believable. I remember in a commentary that JF said he loved the scenes with Torri in her office or on the balcony because it was a chance for more conversation. I know he loves the action but even he felt the lack of character development. Maybe that's why he put so much into those scenes and they seemed even more Sparky. Hmm.

I think one of the most neglected relationships was Sheppard/Teyla. That's why I believe the ship situation was so unclear. It would have been so simple to clear it all up and I've said this many times. If they intended to go with Shep/Teyla for the long term, then why not throw in a line or two where either John or Elizabeth says something about their relationship being just friendship or even brother/sister? Why not do that? We all know the answer. They wanted to tease the shippers. If they wanted to ship John and Teyla, they needed more than just an occasional anvil that left everybody confused. But considering that Brad Wright justified the relationship at ComicCon by saying John had saved her life a lot, I'm not surprised they wouldn't realize their relationships were a little unclear. LOL

And yes, nerds rule. I don't think there should be a problem with being "nerdy" by being into sci-fi, fantasy etc. It still carries a stigma though. Sad.

That is a surprise, isn't it? But I think people stay in their own little niches. I hung out with the SciFi/Fantasy nerds in high school and thus most of my friends were nerds also. Progressing through life I kept some of them, picked up others and still others who prefer other genres. A lot of people consider SciFi to be only for the young and are surprised that someone my age or my husband's age would still watch/read it. I want to ask them did they give up reading mysteries or romance novels as they aged? Then why should I give up SciFi. And then there are the ones like someone I recently was talking to about TV shows who doesn't watch anything I watch. She's an American Idol, Dances With the Stars fan who watches Law and Order and the dramas on cable like Damages, etc. When I mentioned SciFi she literally didn't know what I was talking about. Science Fiction? Nothing, nada. Okay, how about Star Wars, Star Trek? Oh yeah, her son likes all that. Sigh. *headdesk*

Then I recently mentioned to someone who I know to be a huge SciFi nerd that I belonged to the Stargate forum and got "hasn't that show been off the air for like a year?" Sigh again and a big *headdesk*. So there are nerds and there are nerds. We, my friends, are NERDS. And proud of it.

LOL. This'll certainly be interesting to watch, then!

Interesting that we can draw up connections between Sparky and other relationships in stories. Maybe they share some common element with Sparky in how they act toward each other or parallels in the stories.

Though, personally, I think out of many ships I've shipped Sparky is the one that has it all: an equal balance of angst, tension, joy, and friendship. (So, ironically, one of the things the show did get right was not something TPTB were aiming for. )

Sparky has all those things and so does LotS. With LotS though, it's scripted.

[Falcon Horus]

Oh! I think I've heard of that show before, a while back. The names sound familiar -- isn't Kahlan one of the ladies in Falcon Horus' signature? I was wondering where they were from.

That would be correct - Kahlan on the left, Cara on the right. However, Cara doesn't appear until the season 1 finale to become a regular in season 2. And I absolutely adore Cara.

Will add that to the "shows to check out when I have time" list. Hulu has episodes ... Hopefully they will play at a somewhat decent rate on this picky laptop! Do you have to watch them in order though? Can I just hop on bored and get the basic gist of the episode without seeing others?

You must at least give it a try. I've only been a LOTS-lover for a little over a two months. I watched the whole of season 1 in a little under a week (only evenings and nights) and caught up with season 2 (new episode today - 216 - Desecrated).

And no, in my opinion you can't just jump in somewhere in the middle. There's a bit of an arc going different in both seasons, but the season 2 one is a direct consequence from the season 1 arc.

[nephtys59]

That would be correct - Kahlan on the left, Cara on the right. However, Cara doesn't appear until the season 1 finale to become a regular in season 2. And I absolutely adore Cara.

She is intriguing, isn't she?
And I have to admit that I was intrigued by Denna as well

You must at least give it a try. I've only been a LOTS-lover for a little over a two months. I watched the whole of season 1 in a little under a week (only evenings and nights) and caught up with season 2 (new episode today - 216 - Desecrated).
And no, in my opinion you can't just jump in somewhere in the middle. There's a bit of an arc going different in both seasons, but the season 2 one is a direct consequence from the season 1 arc.

I agree, better start with Season 1 to know the whole story, even if Season 2 is the best, up to now.
I hope they do not cancel it after only 2 seasons, seems there was a drop in ratings ... but Disney is searching for alternatives and I do hope we get Season 3. Terry Goodkind's books are eleven, so may we hope in 11 seasons?

[Probie]

A qucik hello before to do the "Tim Burton's night" with friends in a movie theater. I'm excited.lol
I hope you're all fine.

About Legend of the seeker. I love Cara. It's strange but I have a fascination for Mord Sith. I never watched the show. I'm just reading the books. Books of my friend that I stole.lol We don't have the last books here in France for the moment. The book's release (Phantom) is scheduled for April 16.
I'm not sure if I will like the show because it seems to be very differente but I will try. I'm like Reiko. I will put it on my list.
Nephty: I thought the show was based only on the first books.

[Southern Red]

A qucik hello before to do the "Tim Burton's night" with friends in a movie theater. I'm excited.lol
I hope you're all fine.

About Legend of the seeker. I love Cara. It's strange but I have a fascination for Mord Sith. I never watched the show. I'm just reading the books. Books of my friend that I stole.lol We don't have the last books here in France for the moment. The book's release (Phantom) is scheduled for April 16.
I'm not sure if I will like the show because it seems to be very differente but I will try. I'm like Reiko. I will put it on my list.
Nephty: I thought the show was based only on the first books.

According to Mr. SR who has read a bunch of the books, the show is all over the place. They leave out and change whole arcs in the story and basically reinvent canon. For example, Kahlan very rarely confesses anyone but she does it several times in the show. And the Mord Sith are very much toned down. I guess they'd have to be though or it would be R rated. LOL Plus the timeline is very compressed. Richard spent years with the Mord Sith in the books and several other events went on for a much longer time. So, if you want accurate canon, you'll be unhappy. Mr. SR just handwaves all of that. Me, I only read the first book so I'm good.

[Probie]

According to Mr. SR who has read a bunch of the books, the show is all over the place. They leave out and change whole arcs in the story and basically reinvent canon. For example, Kahlan very rarely confesses anyone but she does it several times in the show. And the Mord Sith are very much toned down. I guess they'd have to be though or it would be R rated. LOL Plus the timeline is very compressed. Richard spent years with the Mord Sith in the books and several other events went on for a much longer time. So, if you want accurate canon, you'll be unhappy. Mr. SR just handwaves all of that. Me, I only read the first book so I'm good.

Well I need to watch it and make my opinion.

Anuna, you live in Poland no? I saw the news about your country. It's a sad and strange news and I hope the situation will be fine

[Reiko]

I've been a bad LotS fangirl and haven't seen any of the most recent episodes (blame it on the TV station that's carrying it in my area; they have it on at a really inconvenient time ), but it does kind of help to watch them in order. Ongoing story arcs and all that.

Ah, alright, it might have to wait awhile then. Better not be spoiled with that kind of thing.

Basically SGU is little like taking the character development that we wanted from Stargate: Atlantis, then focusing on that to the extreme and removing most of the background plot associated with it.

I think you hit the nail on the head in regard to why SGU is not impressing a lot of Stargate fans that watched SG1 and Atlantis. (And that was some good analysis of Sam's role on the show that you had there.)

I remember in a commentary that JF said he loved the scenes with Torri in her office or on the balcony because it was a chance for more conversation. I know he loves the action but even he felt the lack of character development. Maybe that's why he put so much into those scenes and they seemed even more Sparky.

I do recall reading in some interviews/con reports that sometimes the actors thought there was not enough emphasis on developing the characters as people. Do you know what I would have really liked? Deleted scenes restored on the DVDs. Shows usually have scenes deleted because an episode runs too long and when that happens character moments and development are always the first things that get cut because they aren't essential. I'm sure there are some from Stargate, and it's a shame that such scenes were never added as a DVD bonus.

That would be correct - Kahlan on the left, Cara on the right. However, Cara doesn't appear until the season 1 finale to become a regular in season 2. And I absolutely adore Cara.

Ah, so the mystery is solved and I finally know who they are. Southern Red mentioned strong women, cool heroes and wizards -- sounds like my kind of thing. (And I read it's filmed in New Zealand, so it comes with an automatic 'pretty scenery bonus', too.)

Aaand I'll post a Sparky pic to make things OT.

[drewandian]

*sneaks in*
*drops off sparky fic*
*sneaks out*

[Probie]

*sneaks in*
*drops off sparky fic*
*sneaks out*

Ah you posted it.hihihihihi
Love it.

Wow I have to go. I'm late. See you soon

[drewandian]

Ah you posted it.hihihihihi
Love it.

Wow I have to go. I'm late. See you soon

hee! yep! and your table fic is in there!
thanks!
see you later!

[Probie]

hee! yep! and your table fic is in there!
thanks!
see you later!

Yes I saw it.
It's not my fault if Joe always has a scene with a woman on a table (Dawson, Profiler and another movie but I don't remeber the name). I like the fact you used my "obsession" for a sparky fic.

Ahhh Stop talking Probie and go.lol

[drewandian]

Yes I saw it.
It's not my fault if Joe always has a scene with a woman on a table (Dawson, Profiler and another movie but I don't remeber the name). I like the fact you used my "obsession" for a sparky fic.

Ahhh Stop talking Probie and go.lol

LOL go before you're late...
and thanks for the inspiration! LOL