Sam Carter/Amanda Tapping Discussion/Appreciation

[Skydiver]

Not to be incredibly nit-picky...I thought it was clear what Sam did. She blackmailed Weir very calmly and cooly and does it with a smile and a nod...parroting what Weir said and gestured earlier.

Sam: I want you to reconsider my request.
Liz: I’m sorry.
Sam: That cargo ship was modified using the knowledge of the Ancients. Now, there is no guarantee that *anyone* will *ever* be able to figure out how it was done.
Liz: And as the most likely person on the planet *to* figure it out, are you saying that if I don’t let you attempt to contact the Asgard, you won’t even try?
Sam (smiles wickedly and nods): I would never say that.

yeah, but i'm wondering if there was something more.

something a bit more...substantial

[Osiris-RA]

yeah, but that doesn't quite roll off the tongue like P90

here's a plot bunny for ya

remember lost city, how weir didn't wnat to let sam and teal'c go off and try to contact the asgard. well it's fairly obvious that sam 'convinced' weir to let her go

what do you think she did? cause i doubt sam just sat down and had a heart to heart with weir

I'm thinking she bargained hard and said she'd figure out a way to get the Asgard to create a clone of Mckay nix the ticks and annoyingness. It can't be beyond their power! How could Weir refuse? It's the deal of a lifetime!

[Uber]

Hehe, speaking of icons,I've been spamming my LJ with batches of SG1. A sample.

[shamless self pimping]

[/shamless self pimping]

EXCUSE ME.

There is NOTHING wrong with shameless self pimpage. In fact the more shameless the better...ESPECIALLY when it highlights the beauty that is Amanda. *cough*go see my video*cough*

[Uber]

yeah, but i'm wondering if there was something more.

something a bit more...substantial

And to get even more nit-picky...that was New Order, NOT Lost City.

/me ducks

[Skydiver]

hey, if ya ain't gonna pimp yourself who will??????

and think of it this way, if you pimp yourself, you get to keep all the money

[Tracy Jane]

yeah, but i'm wondering if there was something more.

something a bit more...substantial

Is Sam really that much of a cow??? Sorry, I'm living in dreamland where Sam is all nice and smiles.... hang on a minute... I think I may have turned into Cameron Mitchell.

[Skydiver]

And to get even more nit-picky...that was New Order, NOT Lost City.

/me ducks

d'oh

ok, even still, i have this image of sam, who's rather vicious when she needs to be (flashes back to fifth man and her taking on simmons) doing something a bit...passionate when it comes to getting permission.
nothing violent or mean, but something undeniable and something weir couldn't refuse

[Skydiver]

Is Sam really that much of a cow??? Sorry, I'm living in dreamland where Sam is all nice and smiles.... hang on a minute... I think I may have turned into Cameron Mitchell.

lol.

i think sam was rather determined to go and help jack and she wasn't going to let some silly little thing like permission get in her way

not that she'd defy orders...but i think she'd find a way to get the orders she wanted to get

[Osiris-RA]

hey, if ya ain't gonna pimp yourself who will??????

and think of it this way, if you pimp yourself, you get to keep all the money

It's good you telling me this. I could be rich soon! Bwaha!

Is Sam really that much of a cow??? Sorry, I'm living in dreamland where Sam is all nice and smiles.... hang on a minute... I think I may have turned into Cameron Mitchell.

*loiters in same dreamland where Uber's vid is playing on loop*

[Uber]

d'oh

ok, even still, i have this image of sam, who's rather vicious when she needs to be (flashes back to fifth man and her taking on simmons) doing something a bit...passionate when it comes to getting permission.
nothing violent or mean, but something undeniable and something weir couldn't refuse

Fifth Man has some great Sam content not including those with Simmons.

The intro scenes where she directly disobeys Hammond. The way she goes from passive to grasping her P90 in a defensive posture. That beat when it looks like she's considering doing something incredibly rash to get Daniel, Teal'c and herself back to that planet to rescue Jack.

Really good stuff...and I agree. Sam has a 'tude. We didn't get to see much of it throughout the series as the one she was usually ticked off with was Jack but the times when she was really perturbed with those who weren't her commanding officer and let loose on them or even the times when she almost didn't care what that person's authority was, she was brilliantly angry...

Bane
Chain Reaction
The Light
Fifth Man
48 Hours
Ascension
Redemption
Scourge

What other "Sam's got a 'tude" episodes can you think of?

[Carterslave]

all other opinions are welcome, just don't take it personally if some others don't quite agree with you
we disagree with each other all the time, we just agree to disagree

Nah, I got over taking that kind of stuff personally years ago. I'm more concerned about seeing another rift in the fandom like the one that developed in S6, due to the absence of Shanks. To this day, I read missives from Daniel fans who are downright evil to Amanda Tapping.
Because Carter was superseded for a variety of reasons, some unavoidable (AT's pregnancy), I could see a nasty ruction develop between the Tapping and Browder fandoms, much as the Daniel & Jonas fans and the Sam & Daniel fans were at each other's throats in seasons past. Now, I'm mighty unhappy that the beloved Janet Fraiser was shoved under the bus in S7 and then supplanted by a new character in S9, but I really try to vent about it as little as possible b/c it doesn't seem to serve any purpose, IMO.
Theoretically, had Adam Baldwin been A) available, B) affordable & C) acceptable to the Skiffy, the S9 command problem could have been easily solved by bringing in Col. Dixon as team leader. I suspect, however, that SciFi had its heart set on Mr. Browder, especially as Bonnie Hammer seems tacitly aware that cancelling Farscape was the deed for which she will be forever remembered. Plus, the Cooper/Wright duo may have felt that they needed to replace the fans who would depart when RDA did by harvesting as much of the FS audience as possible.
Aside from the fact that RCC undermined Sam's character rather severely in S8, there were some cold—and very unpleasant—business realities that ensured that, as far as Sam's future as team leader was concerned, The Fix Was In. Although I suspect they are mistaken, SciFi believes that its bread & butter audience is composed of 18-25 year old males. (At that age, I hesitate to call them "men.") Hence Vala. And Dr. Lam.
The notion of a woman toplining one of their series is probably anathema to them. They also probably don't think of Amanda Tapping as a "draw" (I know: we all disagree; no flames, please) and wanted to replace RDA w/a leading man who, like RDA, brought a ready-made fanbase with him. Hence Mitchell. As we've seen, Cooper/Wright (primarily RCC, I suspect) were only too happy to comply.
I'm not saying this is how it should be, just that I have a strong certainty this is how it is, for better or worse. (Worse, IMO) Nor do I think it's at all coincidental that both Teryl Rothery & AT felt the tug of the old vaudeville hook at a time when they were drawing close to the big 4-0. Amanda slipped it—and quite deftly, too.

One thing I think the Skiffy is getting a bum rap on is the selection of the writers. I've seen nothing to indicate that anyone is being imposed on RCC & BW, although the duo probably bears responsibility for the dearth of new voices. (SGA fares better b/c Martin Gero & Carl Binder do most of the scripting—and they know how to write good female characters.) A number of good writers have fallen away from the series over the years & I'd love to know why. Some of the best Carter-centric episodes were the work of Heather E. Ash, who is greatly missed, at least by me. The show needs to re-engage some of the 'old' voices or integrate more new ones—but that's hardly a radical, minority view amongst the fandom, is it?

[Simhavaktra]

Yes, those are elements I enjoyed as well. And you're right Sky - it was a team episode for perhaps the first time in a long while. I liked that. I thought

Spoiler:

Teal'c and Cameron were crazy to be sauntering jovially through the forest like they were on vacation during their long dialogue, though, that was bad writing imho, there were killer bugs that could come up at any moment and they knew that, they also knew that noise was a factor, so those scenes made me really cringe, but ah well

I spent what now seems like a considerable part of this episode - pretty much all except the Sam bits (and, alas, even two of those ) with my hands knotted in my hair squalling - "Science, @#&#@ it!!!! Would you people please look up more than the spellings of the terms before you use them?????"

Spoiler:

Someone desperately needed to explain the difference between being sensitive to / attracted to sound and/or vibration, and actual echo location / sonar to the writers 'cause they apparently did not have a clue there was a difference, to judge from the way they kept changing their minds which of the two they were dealing with. If it was real echo location, standing still on the surface wouldn't have done any good in keeping bugs from finding/noticing them, and if it was sensitivity to sound/vibration all that clicking should have incited the bugs to attack each other. Plus, radio transmitters don't have to produce vibrations of any kind, including sound, in order to generate a radio signal or to send a transmission, nor would Sam need to turn up the volume on the speakers in order to turn up the gain on the signal, so that whole bit about the transmitter attracting the bugs was horribly laughable to me. Miserable science breeds lousy writing - and I won't even burden the thread with my opinion of the apparent spontaneous generation of insects from the carcass of a meatloaf (maybe it was lion-loaf ) or of scientists that decide to break protocol and feed the experiments on a whim.

I *loved* the way

Spoiler:

Sam handled the french delegate,

that was beautiful. And she handled it so well, too. Played the scenes just perfectly. Oy, I'm turning into such an Amanda Tapping fangurl, yeesh... *grin*

Turning into an Amanda Tapping fangurl is one of the few ways I can, myself, derive any joy from this season of SGone. And yes! Wasn't she great? am59:

Spoiler:

Both with the incredibly cliched 'self-absorbed, arrogant and cowardly Frenchman' (my French heritage is nearly 400 years back and I still wanted to smack somebody for perpetuating and pandering to that modern-day stereotype! ) and the political sychophant who gets to experience an epiphany, Woolsey - come to think of it, the political sychophant, and the political sycophant experiencing an epiphany are cliches, too, aren't they? I did think that they should have let Sam deal with the 'hero fighter pilot' cliche :innocent expression:, too while she was at it - when Colonel What's-His-Name-in-charge-of-the-base (hey, I told y'all before I have Jack-style issues with remembering the names of people and things this season ) said "We need to retake the Gate room" and CammiePoo instantly piped up "That sounds like a plan" Sam should have said "No, that sounds like a goal. The plan would be how we go about doing it. Now do you actually have any ideas on that front, Cam, or was the plan comment going to be the extent of your contribution?" (I would have said 'or were you just kissing up to another authority figure since it happens Landry's butt isn't available' but Sam's much more professional than that. )

But then again, I bought myself a t-shirt today that says "Careful - I had a bowl of cranky this morning" too.

[Carterslave]

I agree. Sam has a 'tude. We didn't get to see much of it throughout the series as the one she was usually ticked off with was Jack but the times when she was really perturbed with those who weren't her commanding officer and let loose on them or even the times when she almost didn't care what that person's authority was, she was brilliantly angry...
What other "Sam's got a 'tude" episodes can you think of?

Ya sure, you betcha! This aspect of Sam's character often goes unremarked but she's definitely got a chip on her shoulder, if not quite to the extent she did in the pilot episode. (Oy!) You can see it aplenty in The First Commandment, Glass Skull, Zero Hour. She's downright nasty to poor Rothman in the second of those episodes and chafes almost petulantly at what she perceives as a lack of confidence in her (by Jack) in the last one. Not to mention going clear off the reservation in Gemini with pretty disastrous consequences, although that was somewhat 'enabled' by having Jack & Teal'c display uncharacteristic passivity as every worst-case scenario came true. I'm sure that Sam's 'tude is a legacy of her strained upbringing w/ Jacob, which is one bit of character continuity which stayed nicely intact throught out the series. I only Jacob had stayed intact, too.

[Uber]

Ya sure, you betcha! This aspect of Sam's character often goes unremarked but she's definitely got a chip on her shoulder, if not quite to the extent she did in the pilot episode. (Oy!) You can see it aplenty in The First Commandment, Glass Skull, Zero Hour. She's downright nasty to poor Rothman in the second of those episodes and chafes almost petulantly at what she perceives as a lack of confidence in her (by Jack) in the last one. Not to mention going clear off the reservation in Gemini with pretty disastrous consequences, although that was somewhat 'enabled' by having Jack & Teal'c display uncharacteristic passivity as every worst-case scenario came true. I'm sure that Sam's 'tude is a legacy of her strained upbringing w/ Jacob, which is one bit of character continuity which stayed nicely intact throught out the series. I only Jacob had stayed intact, too.

Great post here and above CS.

BTW, after seeing a specific episode this year that shall remain nameless, I am now more than ever pushing/hoping/dreaming for the return of our favorite Napoleonic Powermonger. She's just brill and her presence adds such depth and pathos to any episode she's in. Further, her scenes this year...especially those with Landry...were incredibly compelling and helped make the episode. You know my big gripe about that episode though

Spoiler:

NO MEANINGFUL SCENES BETWEEN HER AND SAM. I mean she was her best friend FCOL. She performed her eulogy even. And TPTB decided to focus on Sam's friendship or whatever with Martouf from seven million years ago and ignore the much more recent/relevant friendship between her and Janet??? GROWL.

Back to this post...wasn't there one where she lost her patience with Janet? I seem to remember her fussing at her. I have her voice in my head right now saying, "Dammit, Janet!" and I don't know if that's real or something I read in a fic or what.

Any clues for the blonde and clueless?

[Tracy Jane]

Errrm, Ooober, the Dammit Janet has to be a fic. It's just too cheesy to be canon. I mean.... it's the title of a Rocky Horror song!

As for you.... nice to see you playing again