Sam Carter/Amanda Tapping Discussion/Appreciation

[Coley]

My fave has always been Apophis. To bad he's brown!!

Errr brown bread of course - "dead"

[Coley]

So many wonderful posts! Thanks to everyone for taking the time to type them up! I agree with so much of everyone's frustrations and feelings of loss regarding the changes with SG-1.

The following is a rant/lament about Seasons 9 and 10 and I have put it in spoilers for those who do not want to read such

Spoiler:

TPTB knew that they would lose some fans when they made these changes. They *knew* that they were making big changes. They *wanted* to make big changes. They were ready to move on - and they did.

Bringing in the 2 known lead actors from another series - that's a move I'll never understand. Bringing them in and centering SG-1 around them? Mind-boggling... and I can't think of another show anywhere who has done the same thing (let alone survived it). I can't imagine a new season of Farscape going over well if the only way that it could happen would be to have BB and CB play minor characters to Newly Crowned Lead Farscape Actors (say RDA and AT or MS) from Stargate.

It's unfathomable to me that TPTB didn't see that they would be setting up a huge division in the fan bases. Pitting the fan bases against each other. Creating a whole slew of ill feelings and nasty posts where folks erroneously bash actors and characters instead of lamenting the decisions made by those in power.

They made these changes with the full knowledge that they were going to lose fans. They were just hoping that they'd gain more than they lost.

And I'm sad...and disappointed... and angry... to be in the group of fans that they lost. Makes me feel insignificant (to them). Makes me feel that I was somehow always wrong about Stargate, but foolishly didn't see it.

Who knows what the ratings are going to do? Maybe they will come back up a bit... But telling all Gateworlders to go out and recruit 100 new fans apiece... that's a bit ridiculous. If new fans come on board, it won't be because the old veteran fans jollied them into the Stargate world. Many, loyal veteran fans are just struggling to find reasons to keep in touch with how Stargate develops from here on out.

Will they renew the series for a Season 11? For the first time, I find myself hoping that they don't renew it - if they aren't going to bolster Carter's character. If she isn't going to get to command... if Mitchell's the 'SG-1 Leader'... if it's going to be Vala-humor that create the highlights of the episodes... and if Carter isn't going to get to be a main hero, and she isn't going to contribute anything besides just being scenery... then for the first time, I'll actually post the feelings that I came to last night... I hope they cancel the show if they are just going to continue on the path that the created with Season 9.

Hope springs eternal... but the spring is drying up.

wonderful rant as always Astro and I agree with you - though it would be rough on all those people relying on the show for work!!

I really don't know how they could have been so shortsighted. I was saying it was a mistake on this thread for ages it seemed obvious to me it was a risky thing. It is a shame as the people who have made a howling mistake are not the only people who will cop for it. Everyone invloved will too if the show is cancelled - along with BB and CB possibly

If they hadn't grabbed like greedy spoilt little children BB and CB would probably have found as good if not better gigs and Stargate may have found other substantial actors when the time arose.

You always want to launch another series of a show on the high of the parent one. I still think there was a huge amount of interest in SG1 I think the show could have attracted more female viewers if Sam was in charge and they had got back to more team eps. Instead they didn't want a female leading SG1 (snort!) nor 3 or 4 actors ruling the show, so they pay probably more in a larger main cast, which then undermines the whole premis of the show - the tightly knit team whom we see go through the Stargate every week.

They haven't made one or two mistakes they have made a handful. If it is the people at Bridge who have been responsible for these decisions does anyone think they will be allowed to create a new series? Oh that is a genuine question, if anyone has an opinion!!

[Coley]

Errr better post on topic before Sky knobbles me!

Has anyone heard anything from the con TSax went to? Oh that's not on topic!

Thread related. I asked a while back about Deepspace - has anyone heard from her? How about MajorSam is she still on her summer nanouvres? And Lys - anyone know what has happened to Lys?

[AGateFan]

So many wonderful posts! Thanks to everyone for taking the time to type them up! I agree with so much of everyone's frustrations and feelings of loss regarding the changes with SG-1.

The following is a rant/lament about Seasons 9 and 10 and I have put it in spoilers for those who do not want to read such

Spoiler:

TPTB knew that they would lose some fans when they made these changes. They *knew* that they were making big changes. They *wanted* to make big changes. They were ready to move on - and they did.

Bringing in the 2 known lead actors from another series - that's a move I'll never understand. Bringing them in and centering SG-1 around them? Mind-boggling... and I can't think of another show anywhere who has done the same thing (let alone survived it). I can't imagine a new season of Farscape going over well if the only way that it could happen would be to have BB and CB play minor characters to Newly Crowned Lead Farscape Actors (say RDA and AT or MS) from Stargate.

It's unfathomable to me that TPTB didn't see that they would be setting up a huge division in the fan bases. Pitting the fan bases against each other. Creating a whole slew of ill feelings and nasty posts where folks erroneously bash actors and characters instead of lamenting the decisions made by those in power.

They made these changes with the full knowledge that they were going to lose fans. They were just hoping that they'd gain more than they lost.

And I'm sad...and disappointed... and angry... to be in the group of fans that they lost. Makes me feel insignificant (to them). Makes me feel that I was somehow always wrong about Stargate, but foolishly didn't see it.

Who knows what the ratings are going to do? Maybe they will come back up a bit... But telling all Gateworlders to go out and recruit 100 new fans apiece... that's a bit ridiculous. If new fans come on board, it won't be because the old veteran fans jollied them into the Stargate world. Many, loyal veteran fans are just struggling to find reasons to keep in touch with how Stargate develops from here on out.

Will they renew the series for a Season 11? For the first time, I find myself hoping that they don't renew it - if they aren't going to bolster Carter's character. If she isn't going to get to command... if Mitchell's the 'SG-1 Leader'... if it's going to be Vala-humor that create the highlights of the episodes... and if Carter isn't going to get to be a main hero, and she isn't going to contribute anything besides just being scenery... then for the first time, I'll actually post the feelings that I came to last night... I hope they cancel the show if they are just going to continue on the path that they created with Season 9.

Hope springs eternal... but the spring is drying up.

You know, I always used to talk about the show. Pretty much 24X7. I was always thowing out cool quotes and loaning out my DVDs to try to "recruit" new viewers. Then last year I become unhappy with how they are killing (metaphorically and in some cases reality .... JACOB) the old great Stargate characters for these newbs who I dont know and dont want to know.... pretty much all I was getting from some of fans of the "new" show is how if I dont like it dont watch. Ok so now I dont watch.

TPTB should have respected great characters like Carter, Daniel and Teal'c and not dismissed them. TPTB should have respected fans of Carter, Daniel and Teal'c and not dismissed them. And perhaps the fans of the "new" show should not so easily have dismissed us either. Maybe if you want the ratings on your favorite show to be high you shouldnt tell other fans on the fence to STFU and stop watching..... Just a thought.

I am sure the ratings will come back up... until Friday football starts and then they will fall off like every year. Of course by then Stargate may be on Tues and Eureka will be on Friday. Who knows.

Stargate was a great show because it had Great Characters doing Great Things. Carter is the best portrayl of a woman in Scifi. I think only Susan Ivonava comes close (well and Janet Frasier), but I still thought Carter was the best. She was always one of the things I pointed out that was special about this show. There you go, a woman, fully clothed, not whining about hair or makeup or whatever writers think women should be whining about. Just one of the guys pulling her weight doing her job and doing it well. What a great character

[Coley]

Yes but one thing to keep in mind is that Stargate moved from Showtime to the Sci-Fi network in S6. Showtime is a premium cable channel that most cable viewers do not subscribe to, so the viewing numbers would probably have been lower; and then in S6 they may have lost viewers do to the fact that they did not realize the show had changed to a new channel and time. The Sci-Fi channel was also a new cable network that was still struggling to create its audience base. If you notice one rating point in S6 was only 800,000 viewers, but it jumped up to over a million viewers by S8. The thing that is most disturbing about S9 and S10, is that for three years prior to S9 Stargate had showed an upward momentum accumulating a larger fanbase with each season even though it was already past the normal 'five year' longevity mark. This is something that is normally unheard of for a television show, so to see the drastic change in ratings for S10's premiere is a big...HUGE...drop in my opinion. It will definitely be interesting to see where they go with the second half of the season because if ratings don't pull up drastically, SG-1 might find itself replaced from it's normal Friday night line-up with shows like BSG, Dr. Who or Eureka come January. I doubt Sci-Fi would cancel the show outright, but they would definitely move it to another night if they felt they could draw larger numbers with the other shows. And with the lower ratings, it just may not be cost effective for MGM and Sci-Fi to continue with another season.

This is great analysis, thanks to you both for the great job! Kat it may also depend on how well DVD sales went. I believe the franchise made a substantial amount from them

[Coley]

or would it be MGM?

[Somnium]

Ok I know its been a while since I showed my face around here, but I have a huge favour to ask. Im looking for some nice clear pics of Sam in action for a little project Im doing. Thanks in advance

[Coley]

Ok I know its been a while since I showed my face around here, but I have a huge favour to ask. Im looking for some nice clear pics of Sam in action for a little project Im doing. Thanks in advance

http://www.bigbutton.com.au/~wickedgrin/gallery/

wicked grins has some great screen caps of a number of SG1 episodes!!

[Uber]

Hey all...the Crazy8's site now has clips from their 2006 films up:

http://www.crazy8s.cc/films2006.html

Amanda was in Breakdown.

Now I just need to get my grubby mitts on the full film.

[Coley]

You know, I always used to talk about the show. Pretty much 24X7. I was always thowing out cool quotes and loaning out my DVDs to try to "recruit" new viewers. Then last year I become unhappy with how they are killing (metaphorically and in some cases reality .... JACOB) the old great Stargate characters for these newbs who I dont know and dont want to know.... pretty much all I was getting from some of fans of the "new" show is how if I dont like it dont watch. Ok so now I dont watch.

TPTB should have respected great characters like Carter, Daniel and Teal'c and not dismissed them. TPTB should have respected fans of Carter, Daniel and Teal'c and not dismissed them. And perhaps the fans of the "new" show should not so easily have dismissed us either. Maybe if you want the ratings on your favorite show to be high you shouldnt tell other fans on the fence to STFU and stop watching..... Just a thought.

I am sure the ratings will come back up... until Friday football starts and then they will fall off like every year. Of course by then Stargate may be on Tues and Eureka will be on Friday. Who knows.

Stargate was a great show because it had Great Characters doing Great Things. Carter is the best portrayl of a woman in Scifi. I think only Susan Ivonava comes close (well and Janet Frasier), but I still thought Carter was the best. She was always one of the things I pointed out that was special about this show. There you go, a woman, fully clothed, not whining about hair or makeup or whatever writers think women should be whining about. Just one of the guys pulling her weight doing her job and doing it well. What a great character

Great post.

Brad Wright - take a look at Agatefan, Forever and Astro's posts and I dare you to whine about them!!

[astrogeologist]

ok guys, i need some help

I'm doing the fanfic rec on LJ for this month. and - of course - i'm reccing sam fic.

so can y'all help me out with some fic please?

I've got a couple but i'd like to rec some more. Sam gets so under recc'd as it is that i'd love to have a good half dozen or more fic to rec.

slash, ship or gen, all is good, it just needs to be a GOOD sam fic (and yes, i know that good is relative)

Here are some more Carter-fics that I've found over the years. Was just responding to a fellow Carter-fic fan's email regarding fic recs and I realized that it dovetailed nicely with Sky's post

[astrogeologist]

This is a cross-post from the WhingeNuts Thread:


OK, so here's a new question for our thread:

What was the last time that Carter's brilliance (or heroics) were 'central screen' and/or were crucial to the storyline or plot? When was the last time that 'Carter saved the day?' ((Minor scenes not what we're looking for here... looking for something big, like Carter's scenes in the silo with Cassie, and the elevator and going back down... or Carter's scenes in A Matter Of Time, where she's the one with the brilliance and acumen to figure things out and folks listen to her..., etc.))

My reply:

Spoiler:

I'd have to say that if the scenes in Reckoning aren't them (see quotes above), then it would have to be Grace. In Grace, she uses her science and her brilliant mind to save the ship, the crew and the aliens.

That would be mid-season 7... and we're now into Season 10. Now, I'm *not* advocating that Carter be so brilliant that she saves the day in every episode, or even in every other one. But it would be nice if it was a couple of times each season. And certainly more often than what we've seen in the past 3 years.

Balance. It's all about balance. If she saves the day every episode, then it's not going to work. If she's too perfect, it's not going to work. But they've gone too far the other side for the past several years, because she no longer shines as one of the main heroes. She no longer has moments to shine, she no longer has scenes or plot lines where she shines.

I've always been impressed by how many folks on this thread want to share the limelight between the main characters of the show. Therefore, it's very, very telling when the folks on this thread are posting their continued frustrations and disappointments with the show.

The show has lost it's balance. Both between characters and for each individual character.

The posts that led to the question above:

Spoiler:

But TPTB? Whoever made the nasty decision to write Carter out of command? Boy, do I wish I could give that person (or people) a good smacking! And the same for whoever has decided to write Carter as basically ineffective anymore... What have they written her as effectively and heroically doing in the past couple of Seasons? Not much! She's hardly ever (if ever) the one who actually figures things out anymore, instead she's just in the room when someone else figures it out.

The last thing that stands out for me is in Reckoning, where she's working with her father on the Ancient weapon. Where she figures out how to read the writing on the wall (turning the sections), and later when she figures out some stuff on her laptop with her father watching her (parting the Red Sea said sarcastically). Even here, she wasn't doing it *all*, Jacob/Selmak was helping.

After that? What has Carter done? Where are the big heroics? Where is the brilliant mind that we saw in previous seasons? Where's the hero that we saw in the bunker in Singularity?

Sigh....

Oh, hello! I know this isn't a popular opinion, but Carter in Reckoning makes me twitch. Frankly, astro-G, I think you're being too generous. Carter read monitoring data from her laptop screen whilst Jacob-Selmac did the work; heck, even Ba'al did more to get the device unlocked by guessing!

I'd been itchy since at least Evolution, but Reckoning was when I'd officially had enough of Jacob-Selmac.

[jckfan55]

Well, I haven't read anyone else's review of Morpheus yet, b/c I didn't want to be swayed. Read or not as you wish.

Spoiler:

The "lowered expectations" approach worked again. Sam got to be a bit more science Sam than I was afraid of. I liked that she helped figure out what was going on. I liked that Sam & Daniel had to rely on each other in the end, but I would have preferred a little more of a Sam- Daniel moment than we got. (pout) I liked that Sam was still trying to explain the problem as they locked her in the hazmat box. You'd think they'd be smart enough to know, though, that when Col. Carter is trying to tell you something, you listen. I liked that Mitchell didn't get to save the day. I didn't like quite that much Vala. Now if they had kept the SAm-Vala scene that CB mentioned on GW I might not have minded as much. Good news--I didn't hate Vala. They seem to have understood the need to tone her down a bit. So not great, but an entertaining enough episode.

[astrogeologist]

.
If you haven't voted yet:

GW Forum Poll: Season 6 Episodes with your Favorite/Most Memorable AT Acting Scenes

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July Celeeb Poll



For the July Celeeb Poll, we currently have AT in the number one position - and we've kept her there all month so far We currently have a nice lead, but the number two spot currently belongs to JAG's David James Elliot, who has a large fan-base to draw from. Please keep voting for AT folks, so that we don't lose our lead in the last few days of the month (remember how quickly we moved AT up the list near the end of the last month).

And, I humbly thank RoX, LA Doyle, SamFan31, Coley, Mandy, ForeverSG-1, Ooooober, and the others who have been logging in several times a day, every day, to vote for AT! The hard work shows - great job!

[Coley]

They have got to make the big 3 look mediocre, so the newbies can shine. Thay changed Daniel's personality completley in eps 1 to 5. The Daniel I knew would never have gone along with Vala's antics, rather he would have very much told her it was about time she changed. But Daniel being a little infatuated with her?? The Daniel who was captivated by Sha're?!!!

TPTB have been plotting Sam's demise for a while. Maybe vecause they didn't want her to lead SG1, Maybe because at approaching 40 they were looking for someone younger to replace AT, or maybe they though that AT may leave the show when she became a mother.

We all know no one discussed anything with Amanda - which I just find so unbelievanle rude. Most of the comments and suggestions which Amanda says she has made, but were ignored were all spot on - the kiss in affinity and the fact that Carter wouldn't be fooled so easily by Replicarter - and the ship - that it needed to be resolved one way or another.

It is sad as the big 3 who have helped make the series such a sucess should have gone out on top with the full and deserved focus on them.

I'm afraid if the show tanks TPTB will get the embarasment from failiure that they should feel from being so arrogant to Chris, Michael and Amanda. Shameful treatment all to get kudos from a newbie show and THEIR continued paychecks