John and Elizabeth's Relationship

[Jeff O'Connor]

Amen...

[Anuna]

@Eri - things you're wondering about are just an evidence of inconsistent writing. Either John has a multiple personality or the writers don't know exactly what to do with him and have him say. It's like some writers are comfortable with his connection to Elizabeth and others act like it never existed, which is pretty hard to prove, especially after GitM. On the business side of things, their inconsistent writing makes some things just glaringly obvious. They ruined the character and treated an actress wrongly.

It's sad because John and Elizabeth and their bond is something that always offers fresh possibilities in exploring these two characters. With her gone John had truly lost his spark.

[Southern Red]

@Eri - things you're wondering about are just an evidence of inconsistent writing. Either John has a multiple personality or the writers don't know exactly what to do with him and have him say. It's like some writers are comfortable with his connection to Elizabeth and others act like it never existed, which is pretty hard to prove, especially after GitM. On the business side of things, their inconsistent writing makes some things just glaringly obvious. They ruined the character and treated an actress wrongly.

It's sad because John and Elizabeth and their bond is something that always offers fresh possibilities in exploring these two characters. With her gone John had truly lost his spark.

Amen to that. Even without shippy glasses, John is a lost soul. At times in S4 and more so I think in S5, he seems to want to reach out to people but isn't sure how. He seems very off balance and has not only lost his spark but has lost that inner light that always seemed to help him cope with all the horror around him. Sad.

[Anuna]

Amen to that. Even without shippy glasses, John is a lost soul. At times in S4 and more so I think in S5, he seems to want to reach out to people but isn't sure how. He seems very off balance and has not only lost his spark but has lost that inner light that always seemed to help him cope with all the horror around him. Sad.

Definitely. I wish they would return Elizabeth to him.

[Ruined_puzzle]

I'm sad for John now. Before I was sad for me. lol.

[Southern Red]

Is it just me or is Sunday missing? Surely you're not going to tell me that the Sparky viewathon is against the rules and got removed along with the whole day? And most of yesterday is gone too?

[travis]

Not sure if this is the right place cause I can't find any other place, But man after watching this ep I feel so sad as to how much I'ved missed Weir.
I'm sorry but fran did'nt pull it off for me. I feel kinda cheated, really wished Torri did come back for this ep.

[Ruined_puzzle]

Not sure if this is the right place cause I can't find any other place, But man after watching this ep I feel so sad as to how much I'ved missed Weir.
I'm sorry but fran did'nt pull it off for me. I feel kinda cheated, really wished Torri did come back for this ep.

If Torri would have come back I would have cried. I think I liked it better that she didn't though I don't know it made the episode more heartbreaking. I understand why she chose not to comeback, while I liked this episode I think it could have been WAY better.

[Southern Red]

If Torri would have come back I would have cried. I think I liked it better that she didn't though I don't know it made the episode more heartbreaking. I understand why she chose not to comeback, while I liked this episode I think it could have been WAY better.

Me too, and I cried anyway. Then made this vid.

Sparky 2.0

[Reiko]

I think for me it might have been better that it wasn't Torri, for me on an emotional level. Seeing Torri as Liz would probably just kill me.

[Anuna]

I think for me it might have been better that it wasn't Torri, for me on an emotional level. Seeing Torri as Liz would probably just kill me.

Not only you, it would be too heart breaking. This way the episode was bearable, in emotional sense.

Now can we please have John/Elizabeth back? Thank you.

[Infinite-Possibilities]

The fascination with ship that is such a pervasive force on the internet and places like generally makes me figuratively roll my eyes. However this particular paring is one I actually do support. I'm not sure, why. Maybe because I initially noticed it all by myself. It has been fairly apparent to me that Elizabeth and John had some sort of mutual feeling since the early part of the show. In the first season especially I seem to remember noticing a lot of sorta awkward romantic tension. And yes you'd keep seeing little moments of sort of flirting throughout the show. But ultimately the relationship that developed between them matured into something much deeper than such simple moments. I re-watched "Critical Mass" a while back and it was the perfect example. Seeing as they were both the leaders of the base, and very close friends, it seemed to me that Sheppard and Weir became the one person that they felt they could confess the burden's of leadership too. At the end of a crisis, they'd always be the ones that were there together at the end making sense of what just happened. They were what the other could lean on. That could be romantic or even not be. I think in as far this show's "canon shipping" both Elizabeth and Teyla were slowly hinted at being his love interest. You could make the case about which one he had more chemistry with either way I guess. Personally, I'd say Weir but that is neither here nor there.

After Dr. Weir left, the hole in the show wasn't ever filled. And Sheppard was not quite the same ever again. And he should not have been. It did take away a whole level interaction that Sheppard had. You'd get the impression that despite everyone, deep down, John was alone now. In fact I felt that in Season 4 Joe Flanigan carried the show in a sense, by himself when in the past Torri Higginson helped considerably. I don't mean carried the show as in all the other actors were terrible and drags on the show, but as in he is the lead and Torri Higginson was the other leader. She actually was the one base commander out of everyone from Hammond to Woolsey that felt most like a "member of the team" sort of.

I know he likes Carter and probably respects Woolsey, but neither of them were Elizabeth Weir. He never connected with either anywhere near as closely as her.

After he witnessed what happened to Elizabeth at the end of her last season, pretty much from that point onward, he very subtly took on a far more grim attitude.

The problem was that it wasn't always apparent. John and the others didn't show their sadness enough, and I personally believe that the darker John Sheppard probably was a little too subtle. I guess because the show is so episodic? Presumably the in universe explanation is that he tries to hide it and continue like everything's OK. Still, I do like to think that there has been a fairly effective ark of John's descent into darkness over the last 1.5+ seasons and it's actually, in my mind, an issue that is bigger than just Elizabeth. She was the major cause of his big downward spiral but it seems to me that after he lost her, the fact that he was essentially losing all those closest to him to the seemingly many unending dangers of the Pegasus Galaxy resonated much more with him. And after that you could tell he was decidedly more pained, defiant and angry whenever the familiar and also persistent prospect of losing more friends arose. The best example I can think of is in the "The Shrine", when the still mostly lucid Rodney tried to say goodbye to him then. Initially he just tried to brush Rodney off in the usual way he does, but when McKay seriously pressed the issue you could see that John ever so briefly slips out of his normal easygoing tone and emphatically tells him "NO!" It strikes me as the exact same vein of emotion that he displayed to Keller after Ford appeared to him in a vision in "Search and Rescue", which is something that has been quietly tormenting him since "Adrift".

I don't know if this is because of some string of intentional continuity between the writers, or Joe Flanigan's acting interpretation or my own incorrect vision of some unrelated moments, or some combination of all 3, but I think they did do some important relatively consistent if muted development for Sheppard.

However I personally do not have any issue with how Elizabeth was lost to them. Consider:
-Ronon and Sheppard were pinned down under fire with ineffective weapons.
-Elizabeth was screaming for them to leave.
-Their chance to escape was almost closed.
-Ronon basically dragged him away, while he called out her name.

She was right that would not have escaped he they came for her. The fact is both Sheppard and Weir have demonstrated they will put their personal feelings second to the greater good when there is no other option available.

And as far as Ghost in the Machine goes. I think the curious fact that Torri Higginson was not there for it, strangely made the episode less and more effective at the same time. Despite the fact that it was phenomenal performance by Michelle Morgan, and was apparently their Elizabeth, it physically did not feel quite like Weir was really back because her actress wasn't there. And there were times where it felt kind of contrived that we never saw replicator Weir in the flashbacks even though it was obviously clear why that was.

On the flip side, it actually gave the episode a interesting slant because even the characters weren't sure if it felt like Elizabeth was back. They didn't know what it was they were dealing with, until the end. They saw someone who might be their dearest friend or their greatest enemy or a combination of the two. And I thought it was very good at showing, that no-one really was sure how to react, intellectually or emotionally to Fran/Wier being there with them. Not even her in the end it seemed. Ultimately, while it wasn't perfect I think that Ghost in the Machine is a very special episode. The ending was very poignant and well acted. The only problem is, its not a real ending to the ark. Even if it attempted to be one.

Me too, and I cried anyway. Then made this vid.

Sparky 2.0

That's actually very good. I didn't even notice her final wink at the end till I saw that.

Also, I totally thought this would take less time and space to type for this post.

[Kate Carter]

So, I just watched this episode for the first time (yay for being a college student....okay, not really) and the only thing that kept me from bursting into tears was the fact that my roommate is currently sleeping and I didn't want to wake her up.

I'm a HUGE shipper, I'll admit it. And this episode was heartbreaking. I agree, there are some writers who seem to ignore that anything ever happened. Come on, give us some continuity! Someone mentioned "Doctor Who" earlier on this thread. Same sort of thing happened, most noticeably in series two, when the Doctor went to rescue Madame du Pompadour and didn't bother to think about the fact that he was leaving Mickey and Rose trapped on a deserted ship in the 26th century, and he had no way (that he knew of) to get back, and Rose was royally P.O.ed at him (as she very well should be!), and then the next episode, everything's fine and dandy again.

However, there's something to be said about making things into serials. The last couple seasons of SG-1 were a bit more serial like, and it was really frustrating for me, since my schedule meant I didn't always get to watch it, so when I did it was something like "What the heck's going on?!" And then you get shows like "Lost"...seriously, you miss one episode, and it's like you have no clue what happened!

But I digress. I thought that last line John said to Elizabeth was horribly cruel. I think he then promptly realized, yes, this is Elizabeth. And when I saw that she was in space...I was horrified and furious. THAT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN THAT WAY!!!! Elizabeth needs to be off somewhere making a human body so she can come back and have lovely scenes with John that make the shippers swoon!

Seriously...we get THE hug in "The Siege Pt. III" (and come on, shippers, how many of you watched that scene more than three times in a row?) and the kiss in "The Long Goodbye" (which doesn't really count, since they were possessed by aliens), and we get plenty of what fanfic writers fondly refer to as eye!sex, but this is how it ends?! I feel like I've been screwed over.

[Anuna]

So, I just watched this episode for the first time (yay for being a college student....okay, not really) and the only thing that kept me from bursting into tears was the fact that my roommate is currently sleeping and I didn't want to wake her up.

I'm a HUGE shipper, I'll admit it. And this episode was heartbreaking. I agree, there are some writers who seem to ignore that anything ever happened. Come on, give us some continuity! Someone mentioned "Doctor Who" earlier on this thread. Same sort of thing happened, most noticeably in series two, when the Doctor went to rescue Madame du Pompadour and didn't bother to think about the fact that he was leaving Mickey and Rose trapped on a deserted ship in the 26th century, and he had no way (that he knew of) to get back, and Rose was royally P.O.ed at him (as she very well should be!), and then the next episode, everything's fine and dandy again.

However, there's something to be said about making things into serials. The last couple seasons of SG-1 were a bit more serial like, and it was really frustrating for me, since my schedule meant I didn't always get to watch it, so when I did it was something like "What the heck's going on?!" And then you get shows like "Lost"...seriously, you miss one episode, and it's like you have no clue what happened!

But I digress. I thought that last line John said to Elizabeth was horribly cruel. I think he then promptly realized, yes, this is Elizabeth. And when I saw that she was in space...I was horrified and furious. THAT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN THAT WAY!!!! Elizabeth needs to be off somewhere making a human body so she can come back and have lovely scenes with John that make the shippers swoon!

Seriously...we get THE hug in "The Siege Pt. III" (and come on, shippers, how many of you watched that scene more than three times in a row?) and the kiss in "The Long Goodbye" (which doesn't really count, since they were possessed by aliens), and we get plenty of what fanfic writers fondly refer to as eye!sex, but this is how it ends?! I feel like I've been screwed over.

Well most of us do feel that way, like we've been screwed over. They had this wonderful and realistic, not over the top relationship between these two and this is how it ends (except it doesn't end if you do like fanfiction, hehe). I wonder why it was done, why Elizabeth had to be sacrificed, when later we got two characters becoming her in a way (Carter in S4 and Woolsey in S5 are merely reading Elizabeth's lines. The same thing could have been done by real Elizabeth and it could have been a lot better (at least other characters wouldn't suffer selective amnesia, among other things. I wonder where did the writers see people forgetting about their leader and friend so quickly? Oh I forgot, it was SG - 1. One episode, someone is dead, next episode, everyone's happy again.)

Siege III hug - that's my very favorite moment in whole SGA.

[Orion25]

It took a while for that floating-in-space scene to sink in before I started to look for Kleenex. Thanks for sharing the vid. The song was a good match.

Me too, and I cried anyway. Then made this vid.

Sparky 2.0