Sam Carter/Amanda Tapping Discussion/Appreciation

[majorsal]

Is there any room here for somebody who thinks Browder is doing a terrific—albeit thankless—job and getting slammed unfairly? Or who thought Ripple Effect was one of the three or four best episodes of the season (along with Prototype, Off the Grid and last night's installment), even though it pissed off the S/J shippers no end?

Or me. Especially since Carter no longer had to worry about staying faithful to Fraiser.

Anyway, instead of focusing wrath on the hard-working Mr. Browder, shouldn't it be directed at RCC, proud papa of Vala, primary culprit in Sam's dumbassification in S7/8 and the two-faced fink who got caught tendering an S10 contract offer to CB while Amanda was left hanging? Just asking.
And what do you make of Brad Wright's return as co-showrunner for S10? Is it an implicit demotion/rebuke of RCC? He sure pent a dent in the show's relationship to both Tapping & Shanks, both of whom are now feeling expendable. For shame.

i don't rememeber anyone dissing 'ben browder'. mitchell is fair game, since he's a fictional character that's 'effecting' sam's place on the team and show.




sally

[Uber]

i don't rememeber anyone dissing 'ben browder'. mitchell is fair game, since he's a fictional character that's 'effecting' sam's place on the team and show.




sally

Yeah. Ben is great. Just saw him again in Farscape tonight and his performance was deep, meaningful and compelling. The humor was appropriate and the comedic timing was spot on.

I don't have Ben issues. I have Mitchell issues.

[Uber]

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

I don't think it's cheesy...it doesn't come out cheesy in my mind at least.

I just can't tell. I can hear her say it so clearly in my mind...she was irritated at the time and her tone communicated that sentiment.

[majorsal]

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.

what does that mean?




sally

[minigeek]

Simha, you write the friggin' best reviews! *g*

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. It is was real echo location, standing still on the surface wouldn't have done any good, 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 wondered about that! But not knowing the science as well, I didn't realize how badly it really was misrepresented. That's scary! I kept thinking that it was odd standing still would have such a profound effect on the insects - add to that the fact that the first poor af officer was standing perfectly still when they came up from the ground and devoured him whole, and the fact that Teal'c and Cameron were yammering about B movies while walking through the woods as though they were on their honeymoon even KNOWING that sound was supposedly an issue ..... and I was cringing a lot, myself.

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:

She's always great. It would be fun though, one of these days, to see Sam completely LOSE IT and go all UpYourZilla on someone's poor hind end. Heh. Yeah. That'd be fun.

minigeek

[Carterslave]

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?

If she never said "Dammit, Janet," she sure should have. How could they pass up a pop-culture reference like that? Well, I do recall them experiencing a lot of tension between them in Upgrades and there was a scene (deleted) in Ascension where she finds out from Fraiser that she was cleared for desk duty days earlier but that no one thought to tell her, which partially accounts for Sam's decidely insubordinate behavior throughout the remainder of the episode. Oh, and Janet had to show the whip hand in Entity when Sam wanted to blow off having her inury examined, but was brought up short (pun unintended) by Fraiser's stern "SAM!"

While it frustrated me that Sam and Janet were segregated until the final scene of RE (interesting that TPTB were willing to acknowledge the Janet/Daniel ship, however belatedly, but seem deathly afraid of Sam/Janet). Given that Martouf was a significant character in Carter's arc—and that considerable groundwork was laid for a Carter/Martouf ship until J. Glassner left the show & Wright/Cooper went all heavy on Sam/Jack (adios Martouf)—I don't begrudge a bunch of Sam/Martouf scenes per se, because 'Marty' is still a very popular character. But the Sam-Janet dynamic was a significant part of what made the series special to people, IMO, and it got pretty short shrift in RE, which otherwise felt like Old School SG-1 to me, even if I was more interested in the predicament of Desert Camo SG-1 (Janet, Martouf, Mitchell, etc.) than that of Black SG-1, but that's a minor quibble, I think.
TR really rocked her big scene w/ Landry, didn't she? And the expression on Carter's face when she hugs her friend at the finale? Pure bliss.
"May it not be the last time."

MajorSal, what I meant was that it's difficult for actresses to have careers past age 40 and, as TR and AT both neared their 40th birthdays, they saw attempts (successful in TR's case, alas) to yank their roles out from under them. Whether out of parsimony or respect for the Janet fandom, TR wasn't replaced for a whole season. Still, that's what I meant by the "vaudeville hook." In AT's case, it came in the form of being left out of discussions re S10, even while RCC was playing footsie w/ Ms. Black. I don't blame her but I sure blame him.

[minigeek]

Given the dimensional possibilities they explored in RE, I've always thought it could easily be the case that they bring Teryl back, while the Ori singularity is still in place. Have Janet her come through the gate in a similar fashion as before (perhaps the plague vaccine didn't work ), but not be able to get back, or even come through on purpose because (oh, I don't know, maybe her reality was blown away *g*), either way - have her end up on this side, and voila, here she could stay. I really wish they'd do something like that. I have nothing against Dr Lam., but Janet would be such a welcome return.

[Uber]

CarterSlave...I actually shipped for Martouf and Sam way back when. But then I saw the Jack O'Neill flirty smirk flash in Sam's direction and her reciprocate with that blinding gigawatt smile and all bets were off (sorry CS ).

I love JR Bourne. I love the dynamic he has with Amanda just like I love the dynamic she has with David. But in this episode, I was way more interested in the Sam and Janet dynamic. I had been looking forward to a teary-eyed reunion ever since I learned about who would be guesting.

I'm sad to say that I would have preferred not having JR there at all as the elements seemed extraneous to the story. Perhaps if the episode had been a two-parter or something where they could do justice to both of these arcs, that would have been one thing...

[Uber]

Given the dimensional possibilities they explored in RE, I've always thought it could easily be the case that they bring Teryl back, while the Ori singularity is still in place. Have Janet her come through the gate in a similar fashion as before (perhaps the plague vaccine didn't work ), but not be able to get back, or even come through on purpose because (oh, I don't know, maybe her reality was blown away *g*), either way - have her end up on this side, and voila, here she could stay. I really wish they'd do something like that. I have nothing against Dr Lam., but Janet would be such a welcome return.

And this IS science fiction. Daniel's died so many times I've lost count and yet he always manages to return...why can't Janet?

I disagree with those who say that Heroes would lose some of its impact. To this day I get teary-eyed watching Meridian and we all know how that ended up.

[Agent_Dark]

And this IS science fiction. Daniel's died so many times I've lost count and yet he always manages to return...why can't Janet?

I disagree with those who say that Heroes would lose some of its impact. To this day I get teary-eyed watching Meridian and we all know how that ended up.

Maybe an Evil!Janet can come back through the gate? :O

[majorsal]

spoilers for s9's ripple effect

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CarterSlave...I actually shipped for Martouf and Sam way back when. But then I saw the Jack O'Neill flirty smirk flash in Sam's direction and her reciprocate with that blinding gigawatt smile and all bets were off (sorry CS ).

I love JR Bourne. I love the dynamic he has with Amanda just like I love the dynamic she has with David. But in this episode, I was way more interested in the Sam and Janet dynamic. I had been looking forward to a teary-eyed reunion ever since I learned about who would be guesting.

I'm sad to say that I would have preferred not having JR there at all as the elements seemed extraneous to the story. Perhaps if the episode had been a two-parter or something where they could do justice to both of these arcs, that would have been one thing...

i can't name 'ripple effect' as one of my fave eps, because of what shouldn't have been there (sam/martouf almost kiss) and what should have (sam-janet friendship scenes).

oh, and i'm VERY glad that joe mallozzi insisted on taking out the sam-mitchell ship references.




sally

[Uber]

spoilers for s9's ripple effect

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i can't name 'ripple effect' as one of my fave eps, because of what shouldn't have been there (sam/martouf almost kiss) and what should have (sam-janet friendship scenes).

oh, and i'm VERY glad that joe mallozzi insisted on taking out the sam-mitchell ship references.




sally

And that said references induced a quite appropriate and much appreciated gag reflex in our favorite producer/shipper-at-large.

And btw, I wouldn't have minded that almost-kiss had there been any effort to back up the motivation behind it. It wouldn't have taken much...just a sentence or two...a mention of Jolinar or Sam's guilt or joy at seeing him not dead.

[Strix varia]

And what do you make of Brad Wright's return as co-showrunner for S10? Is it an implicit demotion/rebuke of RCC? He sure pent a dent in the show's relationship to both Tapping & Shanks, both of whom are now feeling expendable. For shame.

Really? Ooooooo... suddenly I feel better about season 10.

[majorsal]

spoilers for s9's 'ripple effect'

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And btw, I wouldn't have minded that almost-kiss had there been any effort to back up the motivation behind it. It wouldn't have taken much...just a sentence or two...a mention of Jolinar or Sam's guilt or joy at seeing him not dead.

the ONLY qualifier i could take from that scene was that sam was very tired and prob a bit punchy. so i took it that sam's defenses were down. and, adding into her past feelings for martouf (with and without jolinar) and her knowing how that martouf and her other self turned out, and feeling guilt about what she did to her universes' martouf... i settled on sam just losing sight of things a moment and almost acting out. it's the only way as an s/j shipper that i can handle that scene.

sorry non shippers for the deep ship essay.




sally

[Uber]

Really? Ooooooo... suddenly I feel better about season 10.

Ask anyone who's listened to me whine incessantly lately. The two reasons I'm sticking this out are Amanda "Isn't she lovely" Tapping and Brad "He just might be able to resurrect the show" Wright.