Sam Carter/Jack O'Neill Ship Discussion Thread

[AmberLM]

He did heal him from a deadly incurable disease.

Also -remember that it is implied that it is because of JACK's influence that Kaanan returned to Ba'al's fortress for Shallan. Previously he had abandoned her there when he was done with his mission.

I've always thought that in the not-quite-blending that happened, Kaanan was shamed by Jack's 'leave no one behind' convictions and that it was Jack, consciously or unconsciously that drove him to go back and get her...the woman he loves.

I mean...Jack would never leave Sam under the control of a supercilious bast...er...user like that.

ON TOPIC: I think 'Abyss' fleshes out what we learned in 'The Tok'ra' -and that Jack, of all people, helped humanize at least one tok'ra.

I always had a soft spot for Martouf: his soul-mate is dead...he will never see or touch her again; it's very tragic, but here before him is one who knew her intimately -because of the blending. Sam has become a living memorial of Jolinar for him, as well as a fellow mourner, because she has lost Jolinar and grieved her as well. I forgive him for becoming emotionally attached.

Now...I don't blame Jack for being protective -the blending leaves behind messy emotions that are not completely her own and it is easy to become confused over the blurry line of where does Jolinar end and Sam begin.

On a whole other point: Martouf's symbiote, Lantash, can be a real jerk sometimes. I felt sorry for Marty when he would have to apologize for stuff he would blurt out.

Yeah, Lantash had no tact at all lol! Martouf was sweet, almost to the point of being a little creepy to me, but he was harmless. He just missed his girlfriend of 100 years. I also think he was speaking rubbish about symbiote and hosts having the same feelings. After all, Anise liked Daniel, Freya liked Jack.

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

i once read a fic about Jack dating freya, it was really really creepy.

[AmberLM]

i once read a fic about Jack dating freya, it was really really creepy.

Clearly Jack would agree given his reaction in D&C lol! Urgh, just, no. Shack up with Kerry or someone of similar personality if you must but not Laira (too manipulative) and certainly not a Tok'Ra!

[fems]

Yeah, Lantash had no tact at all lol! Martouf was sweet, almost to the point of being a little creepy to me, but he was harmless. He just missed his girlfriend of 100 years. I also think he was speaking rubbish about symbiote and hosts having the same feelings. After all, Anise liked Daniel, Freya liked Jack.

Or maybe Anise/Freya were the exception to the rule. They were very different from the other Tok'ra we've met, after all. At times it was almost like they couldn't agree with each other and even showed/voiced it, unlike the others who always seemed to be in agreement about things with their host/symbiote.

It's also possible that was simply Martouf/Lantash's experience. I don't think we were ever told how long Martouf had been a Tok'ra but we know Jolinar had different hosts throughout their century-long relationship and they apparently always found each other. That's probably also the reason he was rather creepy with Sam, assuming she would also feel the same about him/Lantash because of what Jolinar left behind; it never seemed to cross his mind that Sam was her own person and was able to differentiate between her own feelings and Jolinar's memories.

[hedwig]

Spirits

Favorite Scene: Infirmary when Jack is congratulating Sam on her first command.
Favorite Lines: None, really.

Summary:
SG1 is in a briefing about a new substance called trinium. Hammond is a tad annoyed with SG-11, who was sent to investigate and procure more of it, because they are overdue. As they are waiting, the gate activates and something comes flying through the event horizon, and with remarkably good aim goes right through the supposedly unbreakable glass in the briefing room and hits Jack in the arm. Ouch. Turns out to be a nasty looking spear, the point of which went straight through his upper arm. Double ouch.

(As a little aside, for anyone who doesn’t know it, RDA was absent for a lot of this episode because he was attending the birth of his daughter.)

Jack winds up in the infirmary while the rest of SG1 (with Sam in charge) is scheduled to go to the planet and find out what happened to SG-11 and see what else they can find. Jack is rather doped up (unsurprisingly), but manages to let Sam know she can do a good job and that he’s proud of her (though he doesn’t quite say he’s proud of her).

On the planet, they investigate the mining site to find it abandoned, only to wind up being knocked out by darts and waking up later without their weapons and apparently prisoners of the Salish, an offshoot (we later find out) of a Native American tribe.

Their apparent host is a man named Tonane who takes them to look for SG-11 and gives them a bit of history on the tribe and the spirits that look over them and protect them.

After a little lesson from Tonane in communicating with the spirits, they reconnect with SG-11, led by Captain (formerly Lieutenant in The First Commandment) Connors who wanders out of a mist looking confused. Unless two teams actually went on this mission, SG-11 is made up of three women and four men. After finding out what happened to them and discussing things with the village elders, it is decided that Tonane will accompany the group back to earth to find out more about these potential friends.

The following scenes show General Hammond acting in a way I didn’t like, even though he was just following orders. After Tonane tells them that he doesn’t think they will be allowed to mine any trinium their way, Daniel is sent off to show Tonane the base and keep him busy. In the meantime, Hammond says he’s been ordered to get that trinium by any means necessary. Jack (of course) and Sam take exception to that and voice their disapproval, to which Hammond basically says “too bad”.

At this point the meeting breaks up and Connors makes a beeline for General Hammond’s office, interrupting him as he’s about to make a phone call, then claps his wrists together and Hammond disappears!

As it turns out, SG-11 is actually a group of “spirits” from Tonane’s world that have taken the human form of SG-11 in order to investigate these intruders. They also threaten to destroy the base if Tonane and one of their own are not returned to them unharmed.

After much discussion, negotiating and arguing, X’els and the other spirits reach a deal with the SGC and their true nature is revealed to Tonane, who seems to accept it very easily. Personally, I don’t think these aliens are as beneficent as the Asgard, because not only were they fooling the people, they were not allowing them to develop on their own, despite what they said. The Asgard only protected the Cimmerians and expected them to advance to the point where they’d start asking questions about the gods themselves, but these aliens seemed to be getting quite a lot out of the arrangement, including a place to live.

Finally, after declarations of friendship all around, the spirits and Tonane take their leave, but before doing so they return all the people of the SGC who had disappeared to their rightful place.

Implications for Jack and Sam: I liked seeing how supportive Jack was of Sam and her first command. I think he was too drugged up to be too worried. Compare this to how he wouldn’t even left her off the base without back-up in Season 8’s Zero Hour.

[Lucycat]

Great review, hedwig!

[SaraBahama]

Spirits

The following scenes show General Hammond acting in a way I didn’t like, even though he was just following orders. After Tonane tells them that he doesn’t think they will be allowed to mine any trinium their way, Daniel is sent off to show Tonane the base and keep him busy. In the meantime, Hammond says he’s been ordered to get that trinium by any means necessary. Jack (of course) and Sam take exception to that and voice their disapproval, to which Hammond basically says “too bad”.

Yeah...this has always bothered me. We've seen Hammond in similar situations before and he is inclined to fight to protect rights of the people they meet, and when he is unable to change things, he usually expresses to the team his distaste for the orders he's getting. He was just so...out of character here?

[hlndncr]

Touchstone
by hlndncr

Summary
A weather control device called the Touchstone is stolen by rogue NID agents from planet Bad Actors using the second Stargate. After a fun filled trip to area 51, some fancy wormhole physics, and a tantalizing look at the secret life of General Hammond SG-1 retrieves the Touchstone in a shootout at a remote airstrip in southern Utah. SG-1 returns the Touchstone and the annoying princess strips while her “blind” uncle looks on in satisfaction.

Favorite Line
Uncle Roham: “Do you have the Touchstone?” . . . just kidding.

Reynolds: “This is the bioresearch lab.”
Jack: “This where you’re keeping the little green men?”
Reynolds: “There are no alien life forms at Area 51.”
Jack (looking at Teal’c): “Present company excluded, of course.”

Favorite Scene
Jack makes Sam smile when he explains to Hammond that the technical term for her equipment is “doohickies.”

General
I’m going to be honest; I don’t really like this episode. I find the story pretty boring. The acting and production design on the alien planet is really subpar. This episode does, however, introduce us to some important people and future story lines.

First, we meet Major Reynolds who is reintroduced to us as Colonel Reynolds in Season 5 Ascension as the leader of SG-16 and goes on to lead SG-3. We don’t see much of Reynolds throughout the series, but I still love him. He clearly idolizes SG-1 and that never entirely goes away. You can see that in Zero Hour with how he stands up for and supports Jack when SG-1 are believed to be in the hands of Baal.

Next, we meet Witlow, General Hammond’s secret Washington source. I know he’s not a significant character, but I have a pet theory surrounding him. We never actually learn who he is or what his exact connection is to Hammond. He is clearly well placed politically. Later we see the same actor shows up in Inauguration as “Stan,” an aide to President Hayes (in my mind his Chief of Staff). His last name is never mentioned, but I think it is Whitlow. So Hammond’s political and personal ties to the White House and Washington elite run deep.

We also get to see a new, but not altogether surprising side of Maybourne. His reaction when SG-1 discovers that the gate at Area 51 is plastic (very meta) almost makes you believe he’s not in on it. But it’s clearly an act. He knows what’s up and we find out later that he’s running the whole show. And that show is the rogue NID storyline that comes back again and again in Shades of Grey, The Sentinel, and many more episodes.

So while this episode is rather mundane and unimportant and uninteresting in and of itself, it does have a far reaching impact on the series that is largely compelling and beneficial.

Sam and Jack
Not much. There’s the scene in the briefing room at the beginning where Sam is asking for permission to study the Touchstone and Jack in backing up her request makes her laugh with his use of the highly technical language (ie “doohickeys”), which is cute.

And I’ve recently noticed that a lot of these cute, flirtly moments happen in the briefing room in front of a very indulgent General Hammond. Hammond is clearly a shipper.

Trivia
RDA was out during the previous episode for the birth of his daughter. MS and Sha’re actress Vaitiare Bandera had their child during the filming of this episode. It was this child we see Bandera carrying in the earlier Season 2 episode Secrets.

O’Neill’s line about little green men was a source of contention with the Air Force advisors. The producers tried to convince them it was just a joke and they kept repeating “There are no aliens at Area 51.” Finally, Glassner added that line to the script and turned it into a joke about Teal’c.

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

i'm not sure if i like rogue NID Stories more or less but there were some goodones. (Touchstone, Shades of Grey, Chain Reaction)

[AmberLM]

i'm not sure if i like rogue NID Stories more or less but there were some goodones. (Touchstone, Shades of Grey, Chain Reaction)

I like them only for Agent Barrett. He's a good guy and he doesn't like Sam being with Pete so he's even better in my eyes lol!

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

I like them only for Agent Barrett. He's a good guy and he doesn't like Sam being with Pete so he's even better in my eyes lol!

yet he was trying to get into sam's pants when we all know that she was with jack in Ex Dues Machina.

[Ikorni]

yet he was trying to get into sam's pants when we all know that she was with jack in Ex Dues Machina.

It wasn't that overt a moment I thought. He just wanted to know if she was single, which was valid enough. And frankly, he's miles ahead of Shanahan.

[AmberLM]

yet he was trying to get into sam's pants when we all know that she was with jack in Ex Dues Machina.

Indeed but we wouldn't have known that she "wasn't exactly single" if he hadn't lol!

It wasn't that overt a moment I thought. He just wanted to know if she was single, which was valid enough. And frankly, he's miles ahead of Shanahan.

Again, I agree! To be fair I think Felger was better than Shanahan but that's because I really don't like the guy one bit. To me his behaviour was like a more pathetic version of Jonas Hansen.

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

It wasn't that overt a moment I thought. He just wanted to know if she was single, which was valid enough. And frankly, he's miles ahead of Shanahan.

i come up with some whacky stuff when running on 4 hours sleep.

EDIT: Damn i just looked, i'm at 7,000 posts.

[Ikorni]

Again, I agree! To be fair I think Felger was better than Shanahan but that's because I really don't like the guy one bit. To me his behaviour was like a more pathetic version of Jonas Hansen.

I'd rank them this way:
Jack
|
|
|
and a long way down later...
|
|
|
Barrett
McKay
Orlin
Martouf
Narim
Felger...

And that's pretty much it. Shanahan doesn't make my list.

And to stay on topic....