Sam Carter/Jack O'Neill Ship Discussion Thread

[madaline_7]

VSS

Well put! I honestly think the non-shippers wouldn't really notice or would be able to easily ignore onscreen confirmation as long as the correct guns were worn and the explosion quota high enough! I wonder if they think the fav ep polls just reflect a minority view?

Are you talking about WoO?

[VSS]

Are you talking about WoO?

I believe we're referring to the ratings peaking with Grace and Moebius, although WoO ranks highest among fan polls. Anyway, they all have a lot of ship in them. They just didn't have the viewership in Season 4 that they had in Season 8, otherwise WoO probably would have had high ratings, I would guess.

That's the other thing I can't figure out. Don't these guys want to make money?

[VSS]

VSS

Well put! I honestly think the non-shippers wouldn't really notice or would be able to easily ignore onscreen confirmation as long as the correct guns were worn and the explosion quota high enough! I wonder if they think the fav ep polls just reflect a minority view?

Oh, the die-hards would whine, but I think everybody else has gotten used to the idea. I do think not breaking the regs was important for a lot of fans, and I agree. Not an issue anymore, though.

[scapephile]

A couple of years ago at Comic Con I was at the both for the SG1 and SGA comics( I have Ben Browder's action figure pose with celebs and Cliff Simon was going to be there) and there were these 2 fans who said they knew all serious fans would contribute money to get the licensing for some gun or another. I turned and looked at them and they said right? I started laughing and said no way --not why I watched and if the Air Force was ok with the weapons that was good enough for me. I don't think most fans had issue with the ship as long as it was subtle which given the two characters it was. I also don't have alot of faith in what producers think is sexy after watching Enterprise Farscape's O'Bannon considered the ship an organic part of the story but most are afraid of relationships.

[VSS]

Well, I'm not in this for the spaceships. I liked Stargate because of how they wrote the characters, and the philosophical questions they tackled in the early years. To be honest, most great scifi is great not because of the action sequences but because of what happens to the people, and the implications for society as a whole.

BSG is practically nothing but relationships- of all kinds. And it's such a failure. Not. I just don't like the characters as much because they're all postmodern semi-heroes, every single one of them, with the possible exception of Helo.

At least in Stargate, the good guys are the good guys.

[scapephile]

I think balance is the key to any drama and misery and intrigue while interesting need to be mixed with humor and other positive emotions as well. To me space should be the backdrop not the focus which the early SG1 did pretty well but alot of the writers had impressive bodies of non-genre work as well and it showed. I liked the way they handled the regs and the feelings and didn't like the way it slipped away. Pretty common on series though.

angie
benbrowder.net

[hedwig]

I think balance is the key to any drama and misery and intrigue while interesting need to be mixed with humor and other positive emotions as well. To me space should be the backdrop not the focus which the early SG1 did pretty well but alot of the writers had impressive bodies of non-genre work as well and it showed. I liked the way they handled the regs and the feelings and didn't like the way it slipped away. Pretty common on series though.

angie
benbrowder.net

I can't take constant drama/angst/danger. I MUST have at least some humor along with the rest. I need to laugh or chuckle now and then, no matter how good the rest of the story is. I'm just weird that way.

[scapephile]

I don't think it is weird! People who work in grim jobs surrounded by the worst things always have humor or discuss the mundane things of life---it is healthy! The early writers on SG1 got that down well I think.The later group I think prefer we all just should assume all that goes on off camera.

[madaline_7]

I don't think it is weird! People who work in grim jobs surrounded by the worst things always have humor or discuss the mundane things of life---it is healthy! The early writers on SG1 got that down well I think.The later group I think prefer we all just should assume all that goes on off camera.

Not even people who are surrounded by grim jobs... sometimes a joke, or a humorous moment just makes it.

[VSS]

Not even people who are surrounded by grim jobs... sometimes a joke, or a humorous moment just makes it.

That's another reason why I like Stargate better than BSG.

[scapephile]

I also think when shows get too grim it has to do with taking themselves too seriously which SG1 never dideven when they lost some of the easy humor of the early seasons.

[jasminaGo]

I also think when shows get too grim it has to do with taking themselves too seriously which SG1 never dideven when they lost some of the easy humor of the early seasons.

Actually I think SG1's problem was too much humor in the later seasons. It used to be a sci fi drama, a character driven show, now it's all about the special effects and the juvenile jokes. While Sam and Jack handled the relationship and their feelings like the adults that they are, Daniel and Vala are acting like hormonal teenagers filled with sexual frustration. And that's only one example. I'll keep the rest for the appropriate thread.

[VSS]

I don't think the later seasons were funny, so I guess you could say I liked Stargate when they had better written humor.

But you are right, even Jack's joking around got to be too much. SGA's The Return made my toes curl, it was so bad.

Continuum:

Spoiler:

And it continued in this movie with "General" O'Neill. I hope BW writes more "Colonel" O'Neill in the future, or I may not care what happens with S/J.

[scapephile]

To me it goes back to the writers --- they have a story and you can tell from the commentaries they think--ok we need some humor--fans want wisecracks----insert "funny" line.But they no longer have an actor in the position of giving input (and season 8 that actor had lost interest in the series core).Same with the Sam/Jack relationship. It isn't important to them so they think any bone is ok.Not something unique to SG1 by any means. Over the years I have had the opportunity to know a couple of writers and I think there is some jealousy of the actors getting attention over story. This is then reflected by not writing to show an actors talents in the role.

[VSS]

To me it goes back to the writers --- they have a story and you can tell from the commentaries they think--ok we need some humor--fans want wisecracks----insert "funny" line.But they no longer have an actor in the position of giving input (and season 8 that actor had lost interest in the series core).Same with the Sam/Jack relationship. It isn't important to them so they think any bone is ok.Not something unique to SG1 by any means. Over the years I have had the opportunity to know a couple of writers and I think there is some jealousy of the actors getting attention over story. This is then reflected by not writing to show an actors talents in the role.

Well, that's very interesting. Is that why they would prefer to write action?

Over on the Sam/Jack Family thread I commented today that perhaps writers can't write romance very well unless there's conflict. Now that they think they've resolved the S/J relationship, there's no conflict. To paraphrase Tolstoy, "Happy couples are all alike; every unhappy couple is unhappy in its own way."

So to keep things interesting they've decided to just drop little hints, like it's a game. Which it is and it's fun, except for the nagging feeling that they're never going to wrap it up and that takes the fun out of it for me.