Jack O'Neill/ Sam Carter - Part of a team, not a ship

[Frostfox]

Whoa. Carmen is way sexier than RDA

But I take your point about their age. I hadn't thought of that before. Damn you

And yeah, The Shroud helped a lot.

Oh, I don't think I'd kick either of them out of bed! They are both good looking men.

It was such an own goal though. I'd never even considered the age gap between Sam and Jack to be an issue until Jacob showed up. As was pointed out, once you get to a certain age (perhaps once the woman gets to her 40's and children become much less likely?) it becomes a bit academic.

But why do something to emphasise the gap? Why choose an actor (fabulous as Carmen was) who looks like the supposed 'love interest' and is clearly from the same generation? Choose someone older, someone different, when you see Carmen and RDA together in a shot you don't think father and son in law, you think brothers.

Just another item in the vast list of reasons why Sam and Jack is A Bad Idea.

FF

[Madeleine]

Yeah, perception's a funny thing. I wasn't online till the end of s5, so I'd watched to there without anything but my own perceptions. I saw Jack being a bit hormonal around Sam once or twice, but saw it as ordinary male immaturity* of the sort that most men keep for the pub.

(* I don't mean that in a nasty way: everyone has their immature side which comes out once in a while; Jack clearly has his, and he normally keeps it appropriately in check.)

Once I came online and discovered the existence of this big 'ship' thing which had people hoping for this and predicting that and writing stories about the other, I was first surprised; it wasn't hard to spot the shippy places in eps I rewatched after that, but I never myself found that interpretation.

Heroes was before Grace, I now remember: before then I'd never seen Sam be at all reciprocal, but from her paen to the wonder that is Jack onwards, she regularly seemed to have a pash for Jack, for the next year and a half.

Jack went on in the same vein as before: a bit of the laddishness now and again, an evident fondness for the pretty lady and not much more. Sam turned into a right drip.

Later, Sam was a not-drip in the last two years, including the eps that had Jack in them. While I feel sorry for the shippers (s7 and s8 really did string the shippers along) I was rather relieved that the failure to go anywhere with S/J in s9&10 meant the resurrection of the Sam I'd always liked in the earlier years.

[Frostfox]

(snip because we grew up using Usenet and it's wot we does)

Jack went on in the same vein as before: a bit of the laddishness now and again, an evident fondness for the pretty lady and not much more. Sam turned into a right drip.

Drippy Sam made me almost turn darkside on her! I loved Sam, this wasn't Sam! Then I got annoyed at the writers instead. Made me feel much better.

Later, Sam was a not-drip in the last two years, including the eps that had Jack in them. While I feel sorry for the shippers (s7 and s8 really did string the shippers along) I was rather relieved that the failure to go anywhere with S/J in s9&10 meant the resurrection of the Sam I'd always liked in the earlier years.

You weren't the only one, RDA said as much too, that he was proud that the show 'didn't go there' and I bet the USAF, a staunch supporter of the programe for so long, were relieved too. Not to mention vast swathes of fandom.
And we got 'real' Sam back in the end.

FF

[Frostfox]

They’re doing it again, aren’t they? The single most important thing about Sam is who she’s in luuurvvvve with. This time the character assassination came from SciFi in their interview with Amanda as part of their countdown to the end of the series.
It’s the old ‘picture speaks a thousand words’, Amanda can talk about all Sam’s accomplishments until the cows come home, but if they mostly show clips of her emotional life, then that’s what sticks, that’s what the viewer will remember.

They start badly with the cringe worthy ‘Reproductive Organs’ speech from the start of the show; a scene so horribly written that the show itself parodied it with Geek!Sam in Mobius. Yeah, let’s set the tone at the start of the interview, let’s start with a scene which makes Sam look like a deranged feminazi.
Forgive me, but I don’t remember the interviews with CJ and MS being all about their characters partners/wives? Were they? Perhaps I missed that part.
Sam has come a long way as a character from that clumsy start, but a lot of that is in spite of how the writers have treated her and comes down to the talent and warmth Amanda has brought to the role, rather than the impeccable writing skills of some of the numpties who’ve written her over the years.

As always, Amanda comes over as genuine and gracious and lovely and she has interesting things to say, I wish her every success on Atlantis and hope Sam is allowed a better chance to strut her stuff as a leader there than on Stargate SG1 (which is a whole other can of worms). I wish she’d been able to talk about Sanctuary, it needs the publicity and, more importantly, I’m sure the SciFi audience would love it.
But ScFi are only interested in her as a part of her relationships with other characters.
And they had to trump out the excruciable scene in Threads with her bothering the boss while he’s having a BBQ with the girlfriend. I hate the way they dressed her, particularly in comparison to how relaxed and pretty Kerry looks in that pink top. I hate, hate, hate the way they wrote that scene, so hesitant, so needy. I’m sure, in some other universe, it was written so she didn’t come over so weak and the whole scene didn’t come over so one sided; I wanted to slap RDA, here Amanda is, acting her socks off and RDA plays Jack so embarrassed to have her there. Wasn’t it supposed to be the love story to end all love stories? Pretty hard to see that when the male half acts as though he wishes he was somewhere, anywhere, else. There were several times in later seasons when I queried RDA’s acting choices and really felt for Amanda having to act against them, and we know he’s a good actor, we’ve seen him do it, why on earth, if you were going for ‘the love story to end all love stories’ would a director let him act as though it was all just too much trouble? Where was the spark? Where’s the flash of passion? I might not like the implied relationship between them but if you *are* going to do it, for heaven’s sake, get your principal male to play along. Get him to smile at her for gods sake, get him to interact with her like a fellow adult, anything to stop her looking like a confused, immature 40 (30?) something who needs to. Get. A. Life.

Amanda has lovely things to say about Sam as a role model for young women, there are so few in media TV, but I’m afraid, when the retrospective of Stargate SG1 is written by TV historians in ten years time, it will be remembered as the show which ran for ten years with the three guys who went through the big round blue circle and the girl who loved her boss. And that’s very sad for both Sam and Amanda as it reduces all that richness and all her hard work to a one note character, just like all the rest.

FF

[discodiva]

Thanks for the summary FF....saves me from having to look at it now...


Deeds xx

[grasshopper64]

They’re doing it again, aren’t they? The single most important thing about Sam is who she’s in luuurvvvve with. This time the character assassination came from SciFi in their interview with Amanda as part of their countdown to the end of the series.
It’s the old ‘picture speaks a thousand words’, Amanda can talk about all Sam’s accomplishments until the cows come home, but if they mostly show clips of her emotional life, then that’s what sticks, that’s what the viewer will remember.

They start badly with the cringe worthy ‘Reproductive Organs’ speech from the start of the show; a scene so horribly written that the show itself parodied it with Geek!Sam in Mobius. Yeah, let’s set the tone at the start of the interview, let’s start with a scene which makes Sam look like a deranged feminazi.
Forgive me, but I don’t remember the interviews with CJ and MS being all about their characters partners/wives? Were they? Perhaps I missed that part.
Sam has come a long way as a character from that clumsy start, but a lot of that is in spite of how the writers have treated her and comes down to the talent and warmth Amanda has brought to the role, rather than the impeccable writing skills of some of the numpties who’ve written her over the years.

As always, Amanda comes over as genuine and gracious and lovely and she has interesting things to say, I wish her every success on Atlantis and hope Sam is allowed a better chance to strut her stuff as a leader there than on Stargate SG1 (which is a whole other can of worms). I wish she’d been able to talk about Sanctuary, it needs the publicity and, more importantly, I’m sure the SciFi audience would love it.
But ScFi are only interested in her as a part of her relationships with other characters.
And they had to trump out the excruciable scene in Threads with her bothering the boss while he’s having a BBQ with the girlfriend. I hate the way they dressed her, particularly in comparison to how relaxed and pretty Kerry looks in that pink top. I hate, hate, hate the way they wrote that scene, so hesitant, so needy. I’m sure, in some other universe, it was written so she didn’t come over so weak and the whole scene didn’t come over so one sided; I wanted to slap RDA, here Amanda is, acting her socks off and RDA plays Jack so embarrassed to have her there. Wasn’t it supposed to be the love story to end all love stories? Pretty hard to see that when the male half acts as though he wishes he was somewhere, anywhere, else. There were several times in later seasons when I queried RDA’s acting choices and really felt for Amanda having to act against them, and we know he’s a good actor, we’ve seen him do it, why on earth, if you were going for ‘the love story to end all love stories’ would a director let him act as though it was all just too much trouble? Where was the spark? Where’s the flash of passion? I might not like the implied relationship between them but if you *are* going to do it, for heaven’s sake, get your principal male to play along. Get him to smile at her for gods sake, get him to interact with her like a fellow adult, anything to stop her looking like a confused, immature 40 (30?) something who needs to. Get. A. Life.

Amanda has lovely things to say about Sam as a role model for young women, there are so few in media TV, but I’m afraid, when the retrospective of Stargate SG1 is written by TV historians in ten years time, it will be remembered as the show which ran for ten years with the three guys who went through the big round blue circle and the girl who loved her boss. And that’s very sad for both Sam and Amanda as it reduces all that richness and all her hard work to a one note character, just like all the rest.

FF

I'm sure both AT and RDA are fedup with being asked about ship, but yeah it's sad that Scifi had drag up the Threads scene, IMO one of the most embarrasing scenes in the history of Stargate, but then I wouldn't expect much from Scifi.

Incidentally there a pic on JM's blog today of Sam's desk in Atlantis and there is that pic of Sam and Jack fishing on her desk, now I know JM has said they wouldn't be bringing any S/J over to Atlantis, I can't help feeling that TPTB have deliberately put it there as a nod to the shippers. Personally I feel it's a little inappropriate and a team pic would have been much better. I just hope the pic sits there and there will be no references that could be S/J, it's a different show after all........
Interestingly there is a pic of Daniel alone in a tuxedo, I have my own interpretations on that, but that's for other threads

[Frostfox]

Thanks for the summary FF....saves me from having to look at it now...


Deeds xx

Nah, Deeds, go watch it. Amanda looks lovely, she's as engaging as always, it's just sad that whatever aspirations she had and whatever hopes for how the character will be remembered, all SciFi see her as is 'the pretty woman' and half of 'Sam'nSir'. Now they are out of the picture, perhaps MGM will have a more mature attitude.

FF

[scarimor]

... They start badly with the cringe worthy ‘Reproductive Organs’ speech from the start of the show; a scene so horribly written that the show itself parodied it with Geek!Sam in Mobius. Yeah, let’s set the tone at the start of the interview, let’s start with a scene which makes Sam look like a deranged feminazi.

And once AT knew her contract was ok she told them what to do with these kind of lines.

Forgive me, but I don’t remember the interviews with CJ and MS being all about their characters partners/wives? Were they? Perhaps I missed that part.

Not wanting to start a cultural collision here with our Yankee friends... this seems to me to be a rather American thing. Now I may be wrong - it's just a perspective I've gleened over the years - but exactly the same thing happened to the American women's soccer team (way more successful than the England one, sulk ) when they were in the world cup final. Just about every US profile of the girls focused on what good family women/mothers/wives they were, not their footballing prowess. It was so noticeable it made me wtf?

[Frostfox]

I'm sure both AT and RDA are fedup with being asked about ship, but yeah it's sad that Scifi had drag up the Threads scene, IMO one of the most embarrasing scenes in the history of Stargate, but then I wouldn't expect much from Scifi.

Well, they aren't alone, everyone else is just as fed up.

Incidentally there a pic on JM's blog today of Sam's desk in Atlantis and there is that pic of Sam and Jack fishing on her desk, now I know JM has said they wouldn't be bringing any S/J over to Atlantis, I can't help feeling that TPTB have deliberately put it there as a nod to the shippers. Personally I feel it's a little inappropriate and a team pic would have been much better. I just hope the pic sits there and there will be no references that could be S/J, it's a different show after all........
Interestingly there is a pic of Daniel alone in a tuxedo, I have my own interpretations on that, but that's for other threads

I don't watch Atlantis so I won't see anything which goes over there, but I was hoping, for Amanda's sake, that they were going to leave all the relationship baggage behind for Sam; there's enough bad blood about characters leaving and Sam coming in without that dragging the character down too.

And once AT knew her contract was ok she told them what to do with these kind of lines.

Jolly well done for her. I always approve of her attitude; they should write Sam as one of the boys, Amanda would provide the female touch for her. And that's what they seemed to do for the first few years and it worked very well.

Not wanting to start a cultural collision here with our Yankee friends... this seems to me to be a rather American thing. Now I may be wrong - it's just a perspective I've gleened over the years - but exactly the same thing happened to the American women's soccer team (way more successful than the England one, sulk ) when they were in the world cup final. Just about every US profile of the girls focused on what good family women/mothers/wives they were, not their footballing prowess. It was so noticeable it made me wtf?

Oh, I think we can be just a shallow. The watercooler gossip at work (no I won't be watching, having my teeth drilled without anaesthisa is more appealing) is about Big Brother and one of the women on the show had been crying over hair straighteners. Aha, okay. I know they are locked away without any of lifes essentials (books, cat macros, books, interweb, books, LJ, books, iBooks, more books etc etc) but to be reduced to tears over a hair straightner? I do sometimes fell as though I am from another planet.

FF

[jckfan55]

And I did see Sam pining for Jack. She may have said leave it in the room, but it was Sam who went to his house for that excruciating scene in Threads;

Excruciating is exactly the word for it.

I do think it was a 2 way street with those 2, though. I initially was glad to see Pete (the idea of him) enter the picture b/c I thought it would put an end to S/J. Silly me. Of course I thought "leave it in the room" meant they would actually drop that whole "caring more than I'm supposed to" thing, too.

If they wanted to go the direction of a love life for Sam, IMHO they should have gone outside the SGC. The whole chain of command thing just makes it impossible.

[Frostfox]

Excruciating is exactly the word for it.

I do think it was a 2 way street with those 2, though. I initially was glad to see Pete (the idea of him) enter the picture b/c I thought it would put an end to S/J. Silly me. Of course I thought "leave it in the room" meant they would actually drop that whole "caring more than I'm supposed to" thing, too.

If they wanted to go the direction of a love life for Sam, IMHO they should have gone outside the SGC. The whole chain of command thing just makes it impossible.

The whole chain of command thing just makes it wrong. There are so many issues of contol and power in a relationship anyway, having been his subordinate for a decade makes it a minefield. We had a glimpse of Sam's previous relationship with a man who seemed controlling (Jonas the ex-fiancee) it would be very bad for her to repeat that mistake again.

And the issue is certainly reflects badly on both of them, not just Sam. I'm just more, protective? of Sam. She's the one who's career is just beginning, she's the one who would bare the brunt of the gossip. It's hard enough that she's the daughter of a General, that's enough to get tongues wagging, if she married one, particularly one she had been under for ten years, it could ruin it.

I don't think the writers thought the whole thing through.
Charismatic main man.
Beautiful female lead.
Two great actors, hey, wouldn't it be fun if?

They didn't stop to think about it properly, they have admitted before that they don't have a show bible, they just go with the flow.
If someone had sat down and considered implications, for the USAF, for the careers of the officers, for the impact on the team dynamic, for the reality of being a woman in a male enviroment, for who they had cast as Sam's father, etc, etc.
They might not have been so keen.
Fans are notoriously intellegent, we can think of a dozen reasons why it's A Bad Idea, it only takes a few minutes, you would have thought that the people paid to produce the show could have had the same thoughts?

FF

[Hubble]

Oh, I don't think I'd kick either of them out of bed! They are both good looking men.

It was such an own goal though. I'd never even considered the age gap between Sam and Jack to be an issue until Jacob showed up. As was pointed out, once you get to a certain age (perhaps once the woman gets to her 40's and children become much less likely?) it becomes a bit academic.

But why do something to emphasise the gap? Why choose an actor (fabulous as Carmen was) who looks like the supposed 'love interest' and is clearly from the same generation? Choose someone older, someone different, when you see Carmen and RDA together in a shot you don't think father and son in law, you think brothers.

Just another item in the vast list of reasons why Sam and Jack is A Bad Idea.

FF

Absolutely not true for me at all. When I see Carmen and RDA together, there is no way I think of them as brothers, nor do I see them as looking alike. For my money, RDA was way way more handsome and sexier than Carmen ever was, and still is. Jack's personality was much more charismatic than Jacob's was, IMO.


And...even if they were the same age, I personally don't see the problem. There have been many women who've loved and found happiness with men who are around the same age as their father. Oona O'Neill and Charles Chaplain had a very long, happy and successful marriage with a huge age gap between them.

I'm an anti S/J shipper as well as an anti D/V shipper, but on general principle I don't see age as a problem if the two people involved want to be together. I don't see age as one of the reasons why Jack and Sam were a bad idea at all – many other reasons, but not age, IMO.

[Frostfox]

Absolutely not true for me at all. When I see Carmen and RDA together, there is no way I think of them as brothers, nor do I see them as looking alike. For my money, RDA was way way more handsome and sexier than Carmen ever was, and still is. Jack's personality was much more charismatic than Jacob's was, IMO.


And...even if they were the same age, I personally don't see the problem. There have been many women who've loved and found happiness with men who are around the same age as their father. Oona O'Neill and Charles Chaplain had a very long, happy and successful marriage with a huge age gap between them.

I'm an anti S/J shipper as well as an anti D/V shipper, but on general principle I don't see age as a problem if the two people involved want to be together. I don't see age as one of the reasons why Jack and Sam were a bad idea at all – many other reasons, but not age, IMO.

I think there are as many reasons for disliking S/J as there are people on this thread, we all have different perspectives, what joins us is the general agreement that it was a bad idea, poorly executed and this is the thread to discuss that.
I like this thread best when it's languishing on page 27 - no news, in our case, is usually good news, when we don't have something to discuss, it means the dreaded 'ship hasn't raised it's ugly head again.

FF

[Vaniel4evah!]

I always hated S/J ship. There is absolutely no chemistry between the actors, while AT does her best, RDA always looks like he'd rather be getting a root canal and I hate seeing Sam reduced to 'The Girl' hopelessly pining after her unavailable boss.

I don't watch scifi to see romance and I hated the way S/J ship ruined the team dynamics.

The whole chain of command thing just makes it wrong. There are so many issues of contol and power in a relationship anyway, having been his subordinate for a decade makes it a minefield. We had a glimpse of Sam's previous relationship with a man who seemed controlling (Jonas the ex-fiancee) it would be very bad for her to repeat that mistake again.

This is so true. It's a big part of why I hated the ship. I loathed seeing Sam pining for a man she called 'Sir' and I thought it was degrading. Love or hate Pete, you have to admit that at least they were equals.

As for the age gap, it made Carter look like she was interested in Jack because of Daddy Issues.

The leer in WoO was horrible, creepy. I didn't like the idea of Jack having kissed her without her knowing. The scene with the snog was clearly played for laughs, with that yellow hat, how could it not be? But the leer afterwards, given the differences in age and rank between them, was tasteless, crude and disrespectful. Any man looking at me like that would regret it.

That scene was disgusting. Okay, Jack was bored and getting squirrely so I'll forgive him the kiss, but to let her know that something sexual happened between them that he can remember but she can't was inexcusable. Sam should have gone straight to General Hammond and demanded a transfer.

[Frostfox]

I always hated S/J ship. There is absolutely no chemistry between the actors, while AT does her best, RDA always looks like he'd rather be getting a root canal and I hate seeing Sam reduced to 'The Girl' hopelessly pining after her unavailable boss.

I don't watch scifi to see romance and I hated the way S/J ship ruined the team dynamics.



This is so true. It's a big part of why I hated the ship. I loathed seeing Sam pining for a man she called 'Sir' and I thought it was degrading. Love or hate Pete, you have to admit that at least they were equals.

As for the age gap, it made Carter look like she was interested in Jack because of Daddy Issues.



That scene was disgusting. Okay, Jack was bored and getting squirrely so I'll forgive him the kiss, but to let her know that something sexual happened between them that he can remember but she can't was inexcusable. Sam should have gone straight to General Hammond and demanded a transfer.

Don't worry about it. Stargate SG1 is over now, closed canon and the whole issue fizzled out. Even if they tried to resurrect it now (how?) they can't discount their own history.

Remember how the whole Riker/Troy thing ended up on Star Trek? They eventually got together years after the show ended and anyone who cared had moved on to new fandom and everyone else thought it looked embarrassing and rather sad.

Sam, bless her, is boss in Atlantis.
Jack's on Earth. He didn't retire to be with her.
End of story, they all lived happily ever after like mature adults, not lovesick teenagers.
The moment for Sam 'n Sir has passed.

FF