S10: Critique & Contemplation

[GateGipsy]

Hmmm interesting take on the scene between Vala and Daniel. Vala's treatment of Daniel had been really cavalier. She knew all the buttons to push and she pushed them quite frequently. She teased him all the time, and mostly never seemed to be serious with him. But he clearly had feelings for her quite early on. The compassion he showed when he saw her burned body was quite deep. So I saw a man at the end of his tether, who couldn't take anymore and was saying everything he could think of that would end his torment - her taking his feelings and emotions lightly and using them as little playthings. That it was all a forced and very thin facade was obvious as soon as she made it clear that she wasn't taking his feelings lightly and she wasn't simply using them as little playthings. It was a facade that he discarded without a second thought and without any sort of 'but hey what about all those games she's played with me over the last year'. As soon as he knew that her feelings for him were genuine he dropped all pretense. That is why people saw the scene as romantic.

Suse - Mitchell I liked, and I could watch Ben Browder play him quite happily. I could never accept him as leader of the team though because that would always be Sam for me. I know they had some sort of joint leadership thingie going on, but that didn't work for me. Sam was the boss, in my universe anyway I totally agree about Tomin. Wasn't he a brilliant character? The actor did a great job. He was definitely a highlight of the season, and another reason why I liked S10 more than S8 or S7.

[Mandysg1]

Wow! People got chatty all the sudden!

Vala, after she stopped sexually harassing every male in sight AND when she wasn't written as Pigtailed Space Bimbo Who Lost Quite A Few IQ Points When She Bunched Her Hair, I learned to like. In smallish doses. When someone returned her interest (Mitchell's friend in the otherwise horrible Bounty) she was even funny. Her interactions with Tomin were always spot on. Very moving. Kudos to Claudia.

Mitchell... I had sporadic nanoseconds when I liked the character. Usually when he wasn't 'leading' or telling Grandma stories. I know when I heard BB was coming on to play Major Mitchell (and yes, it was Major at first) I was excited. Not overjoyed, because even in Farscape his character wasn't my favorite - I really liked the secondary characters better than the leads - but ready to accept him. That lasted, oh 20 seconds into Avalon. I kept thinking it would get better after Sam was back. And when I realized that the character was meant to be team lead - in spite of his lack of qualifications and over someone who had already lead ... well, I wasn't happy.

Between a Farscape lead being 'added' to the cast AS the lead AND leader and another Farscape lead added for a story arc - but used so heavily it seemed she was the star - it really felt as if they were taking over. I *know* it wasn't the actors faults. I don't blame them.I blame...various others. They had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And the same results.

If they would have been added to the show instead of being strong-armed in I might have liked the characters. But

Then we have the Ori. Boring!! I was never a fan of the ascended. Used quite sparingly I didn't much care. I barely made it through the whole Ascended!Daniel dreck. I recognized it for the 'creative' way it was to get Daniel back and went on. But creating Bad!Guys out of them? No. Too much. To add insult to injury both series now revolved around the Ancients and the search for their tech. Oy.

S10 was better to me than S9. Though that's damning with faint praise.

suse

Vala could have worked as a secondary character, but how they portrayed her and Cam in s9...well let's just say first impressions are very important. They tried back peddaling in s10 with the characters, (and yes Vala was much better when paired with Tomin than any of SG1), but it was a case of too little too late. They made me sick of these characters, so much so I can't rewatch any of s9 and most of 10 with them in it. With S7 and 8 I can rewatch almost all of them except Prometheus Unbound and Citizen Joe. So 18/20 is a lot better than 1 or 2/20.

[jckfan55]

It was the opposite for me. I felt there was very little team feeling, certainly none that didn't feel forced upon us. The basic story ideas may have been good, but I felt there were too many plot-holes or 'beaming away in the nick of time' moments. The Ori story arc, for me, was just one great big yawn.

I could easily add my take on that quote by saying that most I know hated it, but I may only be talking about two out of three people. Hardly earth-shattering numbers.

All I could think of with this was those commericials--"two out of three dentists recommend..."

Wow! People got chatty all the sudden!

Vala, after she stopped sexually harassing every male in sight AND when she wasn't written as Pigtailed Space Bimbo Who Lost Quite A Few IQ Points When She Bunched Her Hair, I learned to like. In smallish doses. When someone returned her interest (Mitchell's friend in the otherwise horrible Bounty) she was even funny. Her interactions with Tomin were always spot on. Very moving. Kudos to Claudia.
suse

it was kind of "what might have been" with Vala. I do think CB did her best.

[Ashizuri]

Hmmm interesting take on the scene between Vala and Daniel. Vala's treatment of Daniel had been really cavalier. She knew all the buttons to push and she pushed them quite frequently. She teased him all the time, and mostly never seemed to be serious with him. But he clearly had feelings for her quite early on. The compassion he showed when he saw her burned body was quite deep. So I saw a man at the end of his tether, who couldn't take anymore and was saying everything he could think of that would end his torment - her taking his feelings and emotions lightly and using them as little playthings. That it was all a forced and very thin facade was obvious as soon as she made it clear that she wasn't taking his feelings lightly and she wasn't simply using them as little playthings. It was a facade that he discarded without a second thought and without any sort of 'but hey what about all those games she's played with me over the last year'. As soon as he knew that her feelings for him were genuine he dropped all pretense. That is why people saw the scene as romantic.

Y'know, had the Unending rant happened in season 9, or early season 10, I would buy the "man at the end of his rope" justification, but after Momento Mori, where he's taking her out on "not-dates" at fancy restraunts and she breaks down crying in his arms after he's the only one able to get through to her...not so much. There is a relationship there. Whether you want to see it as romantic or friends or allies, there is mutual respect and concern.

Vala didn't have much character growth during her short run on the show and I have to handwave the small bit she did have to justify Daniel's actions in Unending as being the actions of a man who can't take any more.

Pfft. More like the actions of a terrible writer. This is what I picture going on in the writers room during the Unending brainstorming.

EDIT: I did not write the Unending writers room parody, but I laughed the whole way through it and it summed up my feelings perfectly.

[EvenstarSRV]

Hmmm I'd have to watch those episodes again. I don't remember anything that struck me that way.

From what I can remember, Daniel pulled down Vala's hand repeatedly in Beachhead when she wanted to say something. And then in Pegasus Project, Vala starts heading a different direction than Daniel and Weir, and Daniel pulls her towards him by her arm.

OK I don't get where you're coming from here at all. I think that if Vala was the sort of person who needed 'time to recover' that, er, actually I just can't see Vala as needing time to recover. If she did, then she'd have got that time; Daniel wouldn't have had much choice in the matter. Next time I watch that episode I'll see if I can watch that scene from your perspective but I gotta tell you, I just don't get it at the moment. I really don't read it that way. It just seemed to be a very passionate, very simple, declaration or expression of feeling, by both Daniel and Vala.

From my memory of the scene, Daniel thinks Vala is continuing to mess with him, so he goes off on his tirade, which I thought was understandable. Then Vala's tears make him think that perhaps she wasn't just messing with him and that somehow gives him leave to say ok, I'll believe you now, let's kiss, etc.

So to me, the scene went from Daniel ranting that he'd never in a million years imagine himself in a relationship with Vala, to suddenly, and entirely on his terms, they start a relationship. It went straight from anger/annoyance to 'love' on Daniel's part and I just didn't care to see that.

Vala didn't get to say a single word in response to Daniel's rant, and I just didn't find that believable for a forthright person like Vala. This is a woman who can hold her own in just about any situation, and all she's going to do after Daniel rants at her is cry? That's what I meant by time to recover, some scene to allow Vala to get on equal footing with Daniel before they begin a relationship.

Part of my issue is probably that I saw Daniel as mostly just tolerating Vala for a lot of season 9-10. There were moments of concern like in Origin, Momento Mori, etc, but for the most part she just seemed to annoy Daniel, I didn't see any underlying romantic feelings between the two characters. I saw Daniel's annoyance as just that, not a facade for his true feelings for her, same for Vala.

[Melora]

Just as many anti-S/J shippers see Jack as having no romantic feelings for Sam, I never got the impression that Daniel had any romantic feelings for Vala. Like EvenstarSRV mentioned, he barely tolerated her at the beginning of Season 9. By the end of the series, I felt he tolerated her and had perhaps a begrudging respect for her. But I never saw Daniel as having deep romantic feelings for her to the point where he would have to put up facades and pretend to have such disdain for her in order to protect his fragile heart. Daniel’s reaction in the Vala burning scene to me was just a typical Daniel reaction. He feels empathy, compassion, and righteous indignation for any human being who is suffering unjustly. He would have acted the same way had it been anyone who he cared even a little about. Vala, on the other hand, was clearly attracted to Daniel (and many others )and perhaps a little besotted with him.

I have to agree with Ashizuri on this. If a man talked to me the way that Daniel talked to Vala in Unending, I would walk out and never look back. No matter what Vala had done to Daniel in the past, it does not justify his actions. Two wrongs do not make a right. It just made me realize how dramatically Daniel changed in the last couple of seasons. He changed to the point that I didn’t really know or really like him as a character anymore. Perhaps it was a realistic direction to take the character, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

But as a wise person once pointed out - the events of Unending technically did not happen to "our" team, with the exception of Teal'c. So nothing ever really happened between our Daniel and Vala.

[HPMom]

Just as many anti-S/J shippers see Jack as having no romantic feelings for Sam, I never got the impression that Daniel had any romantic feelings for Vala. Like EvenstarSRV mentioned, he barely tolerated her at the beginning of Season 9. By the end of the series, I felt he tolerated her and had perhaps a begrudging respect for her. But I never saw Daniel as having deep romantic feelings for her to the point where he would have to put up facades and pretend to have such disdain for her in order to protect his fragile heart. Daniel’s reaction in the Vala burning scene to me was just a typical Daniel reaction. He feels empathy, compassion, and righteous indignation for any human being who is suffering unjustly. He would have acted the same way had it been anyone who he cared even a little about. Vala, on the other hand, was clearly attracted to Daniel (and many others )and perhaps a little besotted with him.

I agree with you here. A big part of Daniel's character was he always spoke his feelings even when it angered people, put him in a bad light with his superiors or was not a popular idea. He's not a guy with a hidden agenda. He was always a bit clueless when a woman was flirting with him, but that's different than him hiding his feelings because he might get hurt. I think the Vala character was one of those women who just have to have male attention and that's why she was so attracted to Daniel and anyone else with a.... well, you know what I mean.

[jckfan55]

I try to block Unending from my mind.

[VSS]

I try to block Unending from my mind.

I only watched the last fifteen minutes of it, so that's pretty easy for me to do. After reading this thread I've lost most of my motivation to watch the rest.

[leiasky]

I try to block Unending from my mind.

Me too.

[Petra]

Me too.

I don't For me the last 2 seasons are AU, or another series, and what happens in this other universe doesn't affect my universe of seasons 1-8. So I don't block Unending any more than the 39 episodes before it.

[Allie_Kreek]

I don't For me the last 2 seasons are AU, or another series, and what happens in this other universe doesn't affect my universe of seasons 1-8. So I don't block Unending any more than the 39 episodes before it.

lmao... that is some serious denial!

[Petra]

lmao... that is some serious denial!

Yep. And not only I don't have the slightest intention of curing it, I'm actually quite proud of it...

[Mandysg1]

lmao... that is some serious denial!

Yep. And not only I don't have the slightest intention of curing it, I'm actually quite proud of it...

Lol, some of us will be joining you for a trip to that river in Egypt

[Vladius]

Vala could have worked as a secondary character, but how they portrayed her and Cam in s9...well let's just say first impressions are very important. They tried back peddaling in s10 with the characters, (and yes Vala was much better when paired with Tomin than any of SG1), but it was a case of too little too late. They made me sick of these characters, so much so I can't rewatch any of s9 and most of 10 with them in it. With S7 and 8 I can rewatch almost all of them except Prometheus Unbound and Citizen Joe. So 18/20 is a lot better than 1 or 2/20.

BUT I LOVE CITIZEN JOE!

I also love Season 9 with the exception of the Vala episodes.

Other than that I agree with you.