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

[jdjunkie]

You are also right that it's cumulative drip, drip, drip which makes S/J so insidious and pervasive. Compounded by it never progressing, never going anywhere, just a pointless intrusion into story lines which don't need it or benefit from its inclusion.

FF

Drip, drip, drip ... like Chinese water torture, only with added doe eyes and "prune juice, stat!" moments.

There were times it dripped and times it hit like an unwelcome summer deluge.

Either way, it was damp, uncomfortable and unwelcome.

Also ... would anyone like to share their (un)favourite supposedly shippy moment? My vote goes to an entire ep ... Threads (minus the much more interesting and satisfying Daniel and Oma bits).

[Callista]

Mine is most definitely from Divide and Conquer where they are declaring that the reason Jack didn't leave Sam behind was because he cared for her "more than he is supposed to" even though Teal'c and Daniel were standing right outside the door waiting to get blown up right along-side of the love birds.

[jdjunkie]

Mine is most definitely from Divide and Conquer where they are declaring that the reason Jack didn't leave Sam behind was because he cared for her "more than he is supposed to" even though Teal'c and Daniel were standing right outside the door waiting to get blown up right along-side of the love birds.

Yes, Daniel and Teal'c's similarly self-sacrificing actions were conveniently forgotten in the rush to delcare their forbidden love.
I also love how very hard Jack had to be prompted to remember those "buried" feelings. "Oh, that ..." Yes ... so deep and meaningful.

[Aragon101]

I've always said that TPTB are comedy writers who can do some great sci-fi and friendships, but as soon as they dip into romance, it's like they're taking notes from Mother Goose.

A writer is always biased towards what they like, and if TPTB were so convinced that Sam and Jack must get together and even God himself can't stop it, then stop pussyfooting around and do it. Instead we got 10 years of annoying hints, the not so subtle "Hey look!" moments, and not a damn thing to show for it since neither seems to derive any joy from the relationship.

Continuum was the place to end it, but instead they just gave a ton of other pathetic hints. It all leaves a bitter taste in my mouth because if RDA and the USAF were so adamant about it not happening, TPTB should have just scratched that idea or figured out how to have it without making both characters look like high school teenagers when they're supposed to be saving the planet.

SGU hasn't inspired me one damn bit with its relationships either.

The only romance that they seem to be able to do is either blase flirting, or formerly established relationships like Jack/Sara, or if you look closely, John/Nancy (from Outcast) According to Mallozi's blog, they were going to bring Nancy back so Sheppard could have someone.

So it's more along the lines that these guys know how to write people already together, they just can't actually put them with each other from the start

[discodiva]

Mine is most definitely from Divide and Conquer where they are declaring that the reason Jack didn't leave Sam behind was because he cared for her "more than he is supposed to" even though Teal'c and Daniel were standing right outside the door waiting to get blown up right along-side of the love birds.

Yes, Daniel and Teal'c's similarly self-sacrificing actions were conveniently forgotten in the rush to delcare their forbidden love.
I also love how very hard Jack had to be prompted to remember those "buried" feelings. "Oh, that ..." Yes ... so deep and meaningful.

Word!..(I seem to be saying that a lot on this thread...)

D&C was the biggest pile of mawkish, and imho amateurish, muck ever.....and all for a plotline to get rid of a reasonably interesting character (Martouf) for the sake of a very poorly thought out and shabbily constructed "romance"...


Deeds xx

[jdjunkie]

But Deeds, Martouf had to go ... he was getting dangerously close to being an interesting and believable love interest for Sam.

The Ship was in danger of coming up against a chemistry-laden relationship. That would never do. Poor Martouf had to go. Just like Narim and Pete and Barrett and poor old Joe Faxon (I really liked him and Sam) and anyone else who may have Come Between!

[Callista]

I've always said that TPTB are comedy writers who can do some great sci-fi and friendships, but as soon as they dip into romance, it's like they're taking notes from Mother Goose.

A writer is always biased towards what they like, and if TPTB were so convinced that Sam and Jack must get together and even God himself can't stop it, then stop pussyfooting around and do it. Instead we got 10 years of annoying hints, the not so subtle "Hey look!" moments, and not a damn thing to show for it since neither seems to derive any joy from the relationship.

Continuum was the place to end it, but instead they just gave a ton of other pathetic hints. It all leaves a bitter taste in my mouth because if RDA and the USAF were so adamant about it not happening, TPTB should have just scratched that idea or figured out how to have it without making both characters look like high school teenagers when they're supposed to be saving the planet.

SGU hasn't inspired me one damn bit with its relationships either.

The only romance that they seem to be able to do is either blase flirting, or formerly established relationships like Jack/Sara, or if you look closely, John/Nancy (from Outcast) According to Mallozi's blog, they were going to bring Nancy back so Sheppard could have someone.

So it's more along the lines that these guys know how to write people already together, they just can't actually put them with each other from the start

That's a really good point!

I can see where it's harder to start a relationship on television because it seems like the GREAT BOOK OF TV ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS declares that good-looking, successful, smart and/or funny people can not simply ask each other out on a date if they are attracted to the other one and then take things from there. It has to be "complicated". (Man, how I hate it when TV people try to explain their relationships and they always end up just saying "It's complicated"!) Jeeminy! Could there be any more complicated relationships than they had between Jack and Daniel, Jack and Teal'c, Teal'c and Sam, or Daniel and Teal'c? Really, I think just looking at the people without taking romance into it Jack and Sam and Daniel and Sam had the least complicated relationships of any of them. Jack and Sam were both from a military background. Sure Sam was a super-genius scientist, but Jack couldn't have been as dumb as he sometimes pretended, could he? He was at least bi-lingual, he apparently was a test pilot (at least after a few seasons), he's a Colonel so I think that means he had to have some sort of upper-level degree, doesn't it? Anyway, that doesn't make for complications as much as just a little difference in interests.

Really, the only thing that made it "complicated" was the regulations. And the problem with that particular complication is that there really isn't any way to ever overcome it without one of the leads leaving the team, which makes them not a lead anymore or you have to make them break the rules which makes them not this show's version of "heroes" anymore. In real life, I can't imagine that these two people wouldn't have been able to work it out simply by getting one of them transferred. And with the clout and importance that they both had, I find it very doubtful that the Air Force wouldn't bend over backwards to keep them both happy.

But it's TV. They'd written themselves into the paradox of a couple who can't get together as long as they're both still leads on the show because the show is about this one team instead of about the whole base. And it turned out to be a really long-running TV show so it had to get stretched out to the point of making both the characters look weak and emotionally stunted...which is exactly the opposite of how they were in the beginning. Finally one of them did leave, but who wants to watch just one-half of the romance/passion/dating part of the relationship? That's dull. That's worse in TVland than just having a nice, naturally-progressing, uncomplicated relationship! There won't be any visible kissing!! So they had to dump that relationship and they made another one between two different leads. They didn't kill it all together because that would make some of the viewers really, really angry after all they'd hoped for for five or more years. They just stuck vague hints in to try to keep those viewers, but focused on the new relationship.

Established relationships in TV don't have to be "complicated". Sometimes they are (but usually by making one of them a cheater or an alcoholic or something), but if both the involved characters are supposed to remain likable the relationship just stays in the background while the main story goes on.

[jckfan55]

D&C was the biggest pile of mawkish, and imho amateurish, muck ever.....and all for a plotline to get rid of a reasonably interesting character (Martouf) for the sake of a very poorly thought out and constructed "romance"...


Deeds xx

I was never a particular fan of Martouf but I didn't see the need to kill him off either. The idea of suspecting one or more of SG1 of being a zatarc was not a bad idea, imho. Making the reason they failed the test be the hidden love was blech. And you notice they had to show us "previously unseen moments" from Upgrades to justify it. In Upgrades you had a normal adventure moment w/ Sam & Jack and the refusal to leave was by Teal'c and Daniel!

Re: D&C--when I saw that ep, silly me thought the "leave it in the room" moment actually meant the end of S/J. Oh, if only.

[Frostfox]

Drip, drip, drip ... like Chinese water torture, only with added doe eyes and "prune juice, stat!" moments.

There were times it dripped and times it hit like an unwelcome summer deluge.

Either way, it was damp, uncomfortable and unwelcome.

Also ... would anyone like to share their (un)favourite supposedly shippy moment? My vote goes to an entire ep ... Threads (minus the much more interesting and satisfying Daniel and Oma bits).

Oh, Ghu, Sam/Jack, how I loathe thee. Let me count the ways.
Picking one is so hard.
Do I choose Sam, dressed as a dowdy school ma'am, interrupting Jack and his girlfriend's BBQ?
Or Invisible!Jack as a sexual pervert in the women's showers?
Or Sam mithering Jack about 'Feeling feeeeeeeeelings.' while he's dying from the Ancient download in Lost City.
Or the Evolution trash I mentioned above with the soft focus Sam who her own father can't possibly protect as well as Sir.
Or the Daniel/Sara 'A' plot being second to Sam's bloody lovelife (not strictly S/J but part of the despicable recasting of Sam as The Girl on the team)
Or the climax of the Ascension story line being the shoved to the side so Sam and Jack can play pat-a-cake.
Nope, I will choose that dreadful, clingy, cloying hug in Heroes which relegated Janet and Cassie, ( remember them? Sam's best friend and the little girl she was helping to bring up?) to an afterthought compared to the wonder which is Sir Ruined one of the best episodes SG1 ever did, and that was mostly due to poor directing rather than the script. Utterly vile.

FF

[Aragon101]

On a lighter note, here's a little crack!fic i wrote to take the piss out of the situation

True Love Warps Space and Time

i was grilled over an open flame by several shippers who (and a quote) said i was petty and had no right to write it

[Frostfox]

That's a really good point!

I can see where it's harder to start a relationship on television because it seems like the GREAT BOOK OF TV ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS declares that good-looking, successful, smart and/or funny people can not simply ask each other out on a date if they are attracted to the other one and then take things from there. It has to be "complicated". (Man, how I hate it when TV people try to explain their relationships and they always end up just saying "It's complicated"!) Jeeminy! Could there be any more complicated relationships than they had between Jack and Daniel, Jack and Teal'c, Teal'c and Sam, or Daniel and Teal'c? Really, I think just looking at the people without taking romance into it Jack and Sam and Daniel and Sam had the least complicated relationships of any of them. Jack and Sam were both from a military background. Sure Sam was a super-genius scientist, but Jack couldn't have been as dumb as he sometimes pretended, could he? He was at least bi-lingual, he apparently was a test pilot (at least after a few seasons), he's a Colonel so I think that means he had to have some sort of upper-level degree, doesn't it? Anyway, that doesn't make for complications as much as just a little difference in interests.

Really, the only thing that made it "complicated" was the regulations. And the problem with that particular complication is that there really isn't any way to ever overcome it without one of the leads leaving the team, which makes them not a lead anymore or you have to make them break the rules which makes them not this show's version of "heroes" anymore. In real life, I can't imagine that these two people wouldn't have been able to work it out simply by getting one of them transferred. And with the clout and importance that they both had, I find it very doubtful that the Air Force wouldn't bend over backwards to keep them both happy.

But it's TV. They'd written themselves into the paradox of a couple who can't get together as long as they're both still leads on the show because the show is about this one team instead of about the whole base. And it turned out to be a really long-running TV show so it had to get stretched out to the point of making both the characters look weak and emotionally stunted...which is exactly the opposite of how they were in the beginning. Finally one of them did leave, but who wants to watch just one-half of the romance/passion/dating part of the relationship? That's dull. That's worse in TVland than just having a nice, naturally-progressing, uncomplicated relationship! There won't be any visible kissing!! So they had to dump that relationship and they made another one between two different leads. They didn't kill it all together because that would make some of the viewers really, really angry after all they'd hoped for for five or more years. They just stuck vague hints in to try to keep those viewers, but focused on the new relationship.

Established relationships in TV don't have to be "complicated". Sometimes they are (but usually by making one of them a cheater or an alcoholic or something), but if both the involved characters are supposed to remain likable the relationship just stays in the background while the main story goes on.

Oh, here, here, well articulated.

I keep harping back to DS9, I'm afraid.
Look at Julian Bashir (please do, he was awfully decorative) - came into the show a greenhorn.
Had a huge crush on Jadzia Dax.
Had an exceedingly complicated, (possibly sexual?) relationship with ex-torturer/spy/soldier/tailor Garak.
Had a relationship with the beautiful Leeta (who, in possibly a TV first, ends the relationship to start one with Rom. How often does a beautiful women split from a handsome man to go with a less handsome man who isn't rich or successful, just because she loves him).
Had a simple but deep relationship with Miles ("I love my wife, I just like you more")
Attempted a relationship with a patient (Serina) which failed.
Ended up with Ezri Dax.
All in seven years, all handled like real relationships, sexual or otherwise, deftly shown without ever making the character look like a saint or imbecile, just like a person.

With Sam and Jack, I will only cut TPTB so much slack; they knew from it's inception that they would not be able to consummate or progress the relationship in a reasonable manner due to to the USAF's contribution to SG1. TPTB didn't know how long SG1 would run, that just compounded matters, it doesn't excuse that the relationship was flawed and doomed to be unfulfilled from the start.

FF

[jdjunkie]

Oh, Ghu, Sam/Jack, how I loathe thee. Let me count the ways.
Picking one is so hard.
Do I choose Sam, dressed as a dowdy school ma'am, interrupting Jack and his girlfriend's BBQ?
Or Invisible!Jack as a sexual pervert in the women's showers?
Or Sam mithering Jack about 'Feeling feeeeeeeeelings.' while he's dying from the Ancient download in Lost City.
Or the Evolution trash I mentioned above with the soft focus Sam who her own father can't possibly protect as well as Sir.
Or the Daniel/Sara 'A' plot being second to Sam's bloody lovelife (not strictly S/J but part of the despicable recasting of Sam as The Girl on the team)
Or the climax of the Ascension story line being the shoved to the side so Sam and Jack can play pat-a-cake.
Nope, I will choose that dreadful, clingy, cloying hug in Heroes which relegated Janet and Cassie, ( remember them? Sam's best friend and the little girl she was helping to bring up?) to an afterthought compared to the wonder which is Sir Ruined one of the best episodes SG1 ever did, and that was mostly due to poor directing rather than the script. Utterly vile.

FF

The Heroes hug is truly among the higher echelons of shippy yukiness. I'm still angry over what it says about the regard Janet and Cassie are held in by those responsible for that ep.

Also ... please cease and desist forthwith from using those sickly lovey-dovey smilies. Euuuuwwww.

[Frostfox]

The Heroes hug is truly among the higher echelons of shippy yukiness. I'm still angry over what it says about the regard Janet and Cassie are held in by those responsible for that ep.

Also ... please cease and desist forthwith from using those sickly lovey-dovey smilies. Euuuuwwww.

Sorry.


I am evil.



FF

[jdjunkie]

Yes. Yes you are.

This is a long-established and undeniable fact.

[Frostfox]

Mine is most definitely from Divide and Conquer where they are declaring that the reason Jack didn't leave Sam behind was because he cared for her "more than he is supposed to" even though Teal'c and Daniel were standing right outside the door waiting to get blown up right along-side of the love birds.

Oh, you know that the-guy-who-dies-a-lot and the big-guy-with-the-tattoo don't count, don't be silly Callista, nothing can compare to the love of TPTB's magic pair.
Yet another example of Team taking a hit, because Sam and Sir have to be shown as having a greater, a better love than the bond between the four of them that was shown in the first few seasons.

Yes, Daniel and Teal'c's similarly self-sacrificing actions were conveniently forgotten in the rush to delcare their forbidden love.
I also love how very hard Jack had to be prompted to remember those "buried" feelings. "Oh, that ..." Yes ... so deep and meaningful.

Wonder if that was an early example of RDA's feelings on the mess? Up until then the relationship had been more subtle and open to interpretation. D&C (got to love an episode the initials of which stand for a particularly nasty [and, dare I say appropriate] medical procedure).

I've always said that TPTB are comedy writers who can do some great sci-fi and friendships, but as soon as they dip into romance, it's like they're taking notes from Mother Goose.

A writer is always biased towards what they like, and if TPTB were so convinced that Sam and Jack must get together and even God himself can't stop it, then stop pussyfooting around and do it. Instead we got 10 years of annoying hints, the not so subtle "Hey look!" moments, and not a damn thing to show for it since neither seems to derive any joy from the relationship.

Continuum was the place to end it, but instead they just gave a ton of other pathetic hints. It all leaves a bitter taste in my mouth because if RDA and the USAF were so adamant about it not happening, TPTB should have just scratched that idea or figured out how to have it without making both characters look like high school teenagers when they're supposed to be saving the planet.

SGU hasn't inspired me one damn bit with its relationships either.

The only romance that they seem to be able to do is either blase flirting, or formerly established relationships like Jack/Sara, or if you look closely, John/Nancy (from Outcast) According to Mallozi's blog, they were going to bring Nancy back so Sheppard could have someone.

So it's more along the lines that these guys know how to write people already together, they just can't actually put them with each other from the start

There was plenty to please the fans of Sam and Jack in early seasons, without the character assassination and farce of later seasons. When they were writing Sam and Jack as team mates, it worked, it worked well, it was only when, as you say, they moved away from what they are good at writing, the humour and adventure and the friendship, that it all went horribly wrong.

Word!..(I seem to be saying that a lot on this thread...)

D&C was the biggest pile of mawkish, and imho amateurish, muck ever.....and all for a plotline to get rid of a reasonably interesting character (Martouf) for the sake of a very poorly thought out and shabbily constructed "romance"...


Deeds xx

Martouf, victim sacrificed on the glorious altar of S/J ship, like Janet and Jacob after him. What a waste. He didn't even get a good episode to go out on.

But Deeds, Martouf had to go ... he was getting dangerously close to being an interesting and believable love interest for Sam.

The Ship was in danger of coming up against a chemistry-laden relationship. That would never do. Poor Martouf had to go. Just like Narim and Pete and Barrett and poor old Joe Faxon (I really liked him and Sam) and anyone else who may have Come Between!

Heaven forbid any relationship, any friendship out shine Sam and Sir. Which proved rather a problem for TPTB as almost every relationship on the show was more believable and charismatic. Oops. And the other relationships and friendships didn't need soft focus camera work, syrupy music or special treatment. Double oops.

I was never a particular fan of Martouf but I didn't see the need to kill him off either. The idea of suspecting one or more of SG1 of being a zatarc was not a bad idea, imho. Making the reason they failed the test be the hidden love was blech. And you notice they had to show us "previously unseen moments" from Upgrades to justify it. In Upgrades you had a normal adventure moment w/ Sam & Jack and the refusal to leave was by Teal'c and Daniel!

Re: D&C--when I saw that ep, silly me thought the "leave it in the room" moment actually meant the end of S/J. Oh, if only.

Don't be daft! It was like a scab which was never allowed to heal, every time it seemed gone, TPTB had to knock the top off it and set it bleeding again. As Aragon points out, Sam and Jack was their special baby, the golden couple, so much more important than any other relationship on the show, er... so special they ended up with several million light years between them but, hey, the third movie will have the long anticipated wedding on the gateramp, and the ending will be nine months later at the birth of the twins, Janet and Jacob. Just you wait.

FF