S10: Critique & Contemplation

[Petra]

I have a total fangirl crush on Jonas, I really do. At the time when MS's Daniel was so cranky and miserable (and kinda harshing my enjoyment of the show, if I'm being honest) I found Jonas' sense of wonder and excitement about what he was doing refreshing. And the fact that the team brushed him off in the begininng and he had to earn their respect and trust and friendship, and that while Jack may have learned to depend and rely on him, he never liked him.
It was real. It was believable. Jonas was awesome. I wish we had more of him.

Absolutely I agree with everything except the bolded part - I tend to think Jack eventually, at the very end warmed up to Jonas on a more personal level too. I doubt he'd suggest a trip to Vegas, just the 2 of them, if he really didn't like him. Even if he was joking at the time.

I wish I could say Mitchell was half as great and enjoyable as Jonas was, but try I as I may, I can't.

Edit: hey, my 500 post! That's cool

[Crazedwraith]

The good thing about Jonas, in addition to being a decent character in his own right, they also in using him managed to use the other characters more as well. Teal'c for example got many more scenes in season 6 due to being friends with Jonas and lets face it, most of the time those scenes were hilarious.

[jasminaGo]

The good thing about Jonas, in addition to being a decent character in his own right, they also in using him managed to use the other characters more as well. Teal'c for example got many more scenes in season 6 due to being friends with Jonas and lets face it, most of the time those scenes were hilarious.

Absolutely!

Alien conspiracy?

[Crazedwraith]

Have you considered Jonas Quin?
..Now, I know you've been practising but I still can't tell... Was that a joke?

[VSS]

Two things I liked about S9 &10. Sam didn't have the whole Pete & Jack thing hanging over her. Sam and Cam had a comfortable rapport. I still thought it could have been better dealt with, but hey, looking for silver linings here. If we had gotten to know Cam gradually, I think that Sam/Cam friendship could have been a strong element for me.

As much as I hate to say it, I kind of agree with that bolded part. Sam and Jack had a bit of a dysfunctional relationship, and by that I mean at work as well. I suppose that's realistic, but that doesn't mean I like it. When you do what I did, and that's jump between season 8 and straight into some random episode in season 10, her self-confidence was strikingly improved. I'm sure fans will differ on what's behind that, but one thing is for sure, working without Jack seemed to have helped her career later on as much as working with him did in the beginning.

I think one aspect that probably hindered not just Cam's relationship with Sam but with the rest of the team, was that it felt like most of the initial episodes focused on the character (Babylon, Collateral Damage, Stronghold) developed him outside of the team context.

Yes, and they kept doing it, even in Continuum. I mean come on, it's nearly the end of the saga of SG-1 and they're still doing backstory on Cam! I really don't care about him one way or the other, but that was no place for us to be rehashing his childhood. Although, to be fair, they did an awful lot of that not-with-the-team stuff with Jack, but since they had years to work on the character, it didn't seem out of place. They were trying to do that with Cam, and it just didn't work.

I agree, which is why I think it probably would have served the story better for Vala to be a reoccurring character rather than a full-time team member.

I blame Vala on the S/J ship. It's a sad fact that from the very beginning the writers chose to focus on the female characters love lives more than the men's. For whatever reason, they didn't want to address Sam and Jack's relationship on-screen after season 8 but had written themselves into a corner with her. So along comes Vala. Now, the obvious solution here would be able to do a better job of writing relationships, but there's no way they were capable of that in S9 and S10. We got the cliched interstellar sexpot instead.

I love this idea. And it would be realistic. Prometheus was the only ship I liked and didn't mind seeing, when she blew up I was really shocked. And a little relieved, as I thought that it would mean we'd be back to using the Gate. Unfortunately it turned out we had a whole fleet of ships, getting more and more advanced, and it stopped having anything to do with reality.

Oh, now I'm really depressed because I never thought of it that way. They had a chance to turn back to the original premise of the series and didn't. Great. Thanks a lot, col aga.

I agree.

Honestly, the whole Sam/Cam friendship thing for me was nothing more than part of the 'you must like Mitchell' campaign TPTB had going on.

If Sam and Cam are good friends, and she's doesn't mention the fact that after leading R&D she's been demoted down to 2IC in a team she once lead serving under someone with less experience then her, everyone else will also forget about that, because... well... they're buddies.

ROFL. I agree!

I have a total fangirl crush on Jonas, I really do. At the time when MS's Daniel was so cranky and miserable (and kinda harshing my enjoyment of the show, if I'm being honest) I found Jonas' sense of wonder and excitement about what he was doing refreshing. And the fact that the team brushed him off in the begininng and he had to earn their respect and trust and friendship, and that while Jack may have learned to depend and rely on him, he never liked him.

It was real. It was believable. Jonas was awesome. I wish we had more of him.

Oh very well said. It wasn't necessary for the team to accept Mitchell in order for us to accept him. That's where they really failed. Heck, had they made him seem like a nice enough guy that was simply not trusted by the team because he was not Jack, or because Sam should have had the command, we'd have been rooting for the poor man!

[VSS]

One other thing I noticed is that there's very good reason to think that Sam is just as competitive as any guy when it comes to her rank and being the leader. For instance, in Bounty she tells Aris Bock she's been promoted to Major and in Endgame she corrects members of The Trust when they fail to call her "Colonel." In bloodlines she's positively grinning at Bra'tac when he calls her a great warrior and ticked when he dismisses her as a woman. So I'm not sure why she'd just write off a command just because she likes being a scientist. The two are not mutually exclusive.

[Vladius]

During Seasons 1-8, they developed Jack, Sam, Daniel, Teal'c, Jacob Carter, Bratac, etc.

No one complained.

During Seasons 5 and 6, they developed Jonas Quinn.

No one complained.

During Seasons 9 and 10, they developed Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran.

"WHAT! CONSIDERED HEROES ALREADY? WHAT AN OUTRAGE!"

[Vladius]

One other thing I noticed is that there's very good reason to think that Sam is just as competitive as any guy when it comes to her rank and being the leader. For instance, in Bounty she tells Aris Bock she's been promoted to Major and in Endgame she corrects members of The Trust when they fail to call her "Colonel." In bloodlines she's positively grinning at Bra'tac when he calls her a great warrior and ticked when he dismisses her as a woman. So I'm not sure why she'd just write off a command just because she likes being a scientist. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Being deserving of respect doesn't make you a great leader or even comfortable with leading.

[KatG]

During Seasons 1-8, they developed Jack, Sam, Daniel, Teal'c, Jacob Carter, Bratac, etc.

No one complained.

During Seasons 5 and 6, they developed Jonas Quinn.

No one complained.

During Seasons 9 and 10, they developed Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran.

"WHAT! CONSIDERED HEROES ALREADY? WHAT AN OUTRAGE!"

No need to yell. We can read what you're writing just fine.

The development of Jack, Sam, Daniel and Teal'c, took place concurrently. Each character was developed over the seasons.

Jonas development happened slowly, we got to know him as the team did, and in doing so, learned more about Jack, Sam and Teal'c.

Cam's and Vala's development took place at the expense of Sam and Teal'c, and any development that Daniel got was directly related to Vala and imo it wasn't a flattering development at all.

[VSS]

The development of Jack, Sam, Daniel and Teal'c, took place concurrently. Each character was developed over the seasons.

Yes, I meant to mention that but I was already rattling on a bit.
Perhaps that's why the eps devoted to Cam stuck out like a sore thumb. It's okay to rotate through the characters in between the "team" eps when there are plenty of seasons in which to do it. And, again, to be fair they knew they had 4 more seasons to work on the original four characters, whereas S9&10 were renewed on an annual basis. The Jack eps also did outnumber others, I think. I don't know what to say about that except Cam was no Jack.

However, it would have been better not to try to cram all of that in at the expense of the other characters. As you mention, Jonas was handled with more subtlety and it seems that went over much better, though he, too, was replacing a beloved character more or less.

[Ashizuri]

During Seasons 1-8, they developed Jack, Sam, Daniel, Teal'c, Jacob Carter, Bratac, etc.

No one complained.

During Seasons 5 and 6, they developed Jonas Quinn.

No one complained.

During Seasons 9 and 10, they developed Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran.

"WHAT! CONSIDERED HEROES ALREADY? WHAT AN OUTRAGE!"

But Sam, Teal'c, Jacob etc. were not considered hero's in the beginning. Jack and Daniel, to fans of the original movie, probably were, but we had already learned part of their story. Jack wasn't thrilled that Sam was on his team at the start, the government et al weren't fans of Teal'c and wanted to disect him. We watched these characters become hero's, we weren't told.

Jonas was mistrusted and even semi-disliked when we first met him and had to work for a season to become a trusted member of the team.

In both of these instances the characters grew realistically and organically.

We were told that Mitchell was a hero from the very first minute he was on screen! He didn't have to grow, he just was, and it rang false.

Surely you can see the difference.

And to everything thing that KatG posted as well.

EDIT: Vala is not a hero. A semi-charming anti-hero, maybe, for one of her most recognizable traits her lack of heroic/selfless qualities.

[silly sally]

During Seasons 1-8, they developed Jack, Sam, Daniel, Teal'c, Jacob Carter, Bratac, etc.

No one complained.

During Seasons 5 and 6, they developed Jonas Quinn.

No one complained.

During Seasons 9 and 10, they developed Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran.

"WHAT! CONSIDERED HEROES ALREADY? WHAT AN OUTRAGE!"

I don't think they really developed Cam and Vala; at least not in a believable way according with the already established canon...

[EvenstarSRV]

I for one wasn't so keen on their "friendship". I mean I liked it before Sam came back to the SGC, it was very refreshing and nice to see her comfortable and relaxed with another officer (not that we didn't see it before; Sam's comfortable friendship with Col Ronson immidiately comes to mind), but once she did I couldn't buy it. It rang false to me that she'd be so friendly with a guy who repeatedly put her closest friends - and her - at risk. Not to mention the whole command thing.

Good points, which is why I think it really took until Line in the Sand for me to fully buy their friendship, after Cam had eased off some of the recklessness and the command thing wasn't as much of an issue.

The whole fleet of new, awesome ships made me wonder if the budget problems that had always faced the SCG/Program had suddenly disappeared, but I assume that those very belivable problems went out the window with most of the previous canon.

I think it was mentioned in an early season 9 episode (Ties that bind?) that the Pentagon wanted to divert funds from the SGC to building ships, so that's probably where they got the money to crank out ships every few months but not to train new SGC members.

One other thing I noticed is that there's very good reason to think that Sam is just as competitive as any guy when it comes to her rank and being the leader. For instance, in Bounty she tells Aris Bock she's been promoted to Major and in Endgame she corrects members of The Trust when they fail to call her "Colonel." In bloodlines she's positively grinning at Bra'tac when he calls her a great warrior and ticked when he dismisses her as a woman. So I'm not sure why she'd just write off a command just because she likes being a scientist. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I definitely agree that they're not mutually exclusive, I think Sam is probably just as proud of her military achievements as she is of her scientific ones. The way I like to rationalize Sam losing command in seasons 9-10 is her choosing to temporarily defer her military career goals for the good of the mission. And then when the opportunity presented itself, she took the career advancement of commanding Atlantis.

[Crazedwraith]

During Seasons 9 and 10, they developed Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran.

"WHAT! CONSIDERED HEROES ALREADY? WHAT AN OUTRAGE!"

Would you like to point out where anyone actually said that?

In fact the second statement is totally unrelated to the first. People aren't complaining that Cameron got character development but that he didn't. He was just dumped in the team in the first episode with a bunch of flash backs designed to make him look the heroic cool awesome badass straight from the start. Ad opposed to introducing him and then letting character development transform into a heroic character we liked.

I love this idea. And it would be realistic. Prometheus was the only ship I liked and didn't mind seeing, when she blew up I was really shocked. And a little relieved, as I thought that it would mean we'd be back to using the Gate. Unfortunately it turned out we had a whole fleet of ships, getting more and more advanced, and it stopped having anything to do with reality.

THis is a good point and on a related note I felt similar feeling when they blew up the Korelev in the season 9 finale. Once again conforming to the pattern that russians are stargate's Redshirts.

In both cases I feel the show could have been much more interesting if 1) They had not introduced the Odessey straight away or 2) blown up the odessey.

In either case the situation would have been more interesting with out a ship as safety net for last second beam outs or having to depend on russian good will for ship aide. It also would mean they wouldn't have killed off the awesome re-occurin character of Chekov who's passing was barely noted by anyone in universe.

[Ashizuri]

I think it was mentioned in an early season 9 episode (Ties that bind?) that the Pentagon wanted to divert funds from the SGC to building ships, so that's probably where they got the money to crank out ships every few months but not to train new SGC members.

Ah. I missed that.
Lame.