S10: Critique & Contemplation

[jckfan55]

In terms of the writing for Cam, one of my main issues was that we were told he had lots of experience and he was a Lt. Colonel. But the way he acted was "happy go lucky" and irresponsible. The writers apparently thought that was more "fun"
I found it amazing that he would be in command of anything. Personally I don't think that kind of character is who you want in charge.

such as:
-- running off without coordinating w/ Carter (who was in charge of the mission) in Stronghold
--violating orders in a willful (and imho stupid) way in ? (where he pretends to be a drug dealer and they all wear leather) and almost gets them all killed

Now, SG1 always ran into trouble but it wasn't usually from being outright stupid

[jckfan55]

Yeah, I'd really agree with that. There was a tendency for non-arc episodes to be called 'filler' and labelled as pointless which was a real pity. If you look at early Sg-1 series the 'arc' really just was the season openers and closers, with a couple of related episodes sprinkled through out the other episodes.

I loved the approach of doing lots of stand alones. Some stories were related but everything didn't have to be. In the early years they were really intrepid explorers. And in the process you were building character history.

I think the jadedness of the writers was seen in the tone of S9 &10. It was all just a big adventure. Jack may have quipped a lot but (esp. in the early days) you knew that was not him taking a situation lightly.

It was hard to bond with Cam and Vala. Somehow Cam & vala felt more superficial, less real than the original team members.

[suse]

And it wasn't just that we had more time with the original team. It was the team's introduction. I liked Tomin. I like Vala after they toned her down.

[KayLyne]

And it wasn't just that we had more time with the original team. It was the team's introduction. I liked Tomin. I like Vala after they toned her down.

I agree. I liked Vala much more after they finally found where they wanted to go with the character. I think at first, they wanted her as much unlike Sam as possible, so they basically made her a caricature or cartoonish character.

[Skydiver]

I kinda liken it to Emergency. Dunno if any of you remember the show, old 70's show about firefighters and paramedics (how the whole paramedic thing started)

anyway, these guys could fight and bicker and snark and be ticked as heck with each other....until that alarm rang. Then it was ALL put aside and they did their job and watched each others backs.

SG1 was the same way. Yeah, jack snarked....but really, he's walking through a ring and zipping off to other planets....how would you deal? jack embraced the fantasticness of his experiences by mocking them. Honestly, when you heard anubis make his threats in the gateoom, weren't you thinking 'who talks like that???'

[suse]

Snarking to relieve pressure is one thing. Doing stuff that gets the team into doo-doo when they are not yet in it is quite another.

[KayLyne]

I kinda liken it to Emergency. Dunno if any of you remember the show, old 70's show about firefighters and paramedics (how the whole paramedic thing started)

anyway, these guys could fight and bicker and snark and be ticked as heck with each other....until that alarm rang. Then it was ALL put aside and they did their job and watched each others backs.

SG1 was the same way. Yeah, jack snarked....but really, he's walking through a ring and zipping off to other planets....how would you deal? jack embraced the fantasticness of his experiences by mocking them. Honestly, when you heard anubis make his threats in the gateoom, weren't you thinking 'who talks like that???'

Great 70's reference, Sky! Now I've got the urge to get out my dvd set.

And you're absolutely right. Jack O'Neill could joke and bring out his 'inner-child' as much as anyone, but when it came to actual battles & lives on the line, he was all about eliminating the bad guy & protecting his people.

Two glaring differences I see between Jack and Cam - Jack trusted those around him & made his decisions accordingly, plus he could hide his 'inner-child' when needed and get down to business. I didn't really see that with Cam. He didn't have the "off" switch for his 'inner-child', and had more of an "I lead, you follow" mentality in battles. Maybe that was due to him having just a pilot background. As a pilot, you're in charge of your own plane, and can be a bit more cavalier because it's just you & your co-pilot if you "go bang". As leader of a ground-support team, you've got more people's lives to consider.

That makes me think back to Sam in SGA's "The Seer", where she tells Shepherd - "This kind of decision used to be easy, but then I was just making it for myself. Now, I'm asking a lot of people to take a chance with me."

[gateraid]

I disagree. The comment is merely explaining the difference between bashing and not bashing. The posts you've quoted are merely ones attempting to give the OP an explanation as to why we feel we have differing opinions. However, if well thought out and well explained post equate to bashing for you, that's you're right to think so.

Plus, if there was any bashing going on, a mod would step in and stop it immediately, and they haven't. As a matter of fact, two mods have attempted to explain to the OP why we have differing opinions. Again, this does not translate to bashing.

Okay, I guess it has to be the hard way then

Is the above here referring to your quote or my post? Because I'd happily explain the difference between bashing and the posts I or even others who disagree with poundpuppy29 have made.

The general tone of attacking the poster, not the post, is what I was referring to. Such as....

It's probably just as well, since you have yet to put forth a single comment or argument in support of your opinions, and your comments are simply circling back and forth and repeating the same thing over and over again.

That could describe the entire thread, eh. I imagine if you went back a year, you'd still be criticising Vala's clothing, Cam's impulsiveness, and Sam's wallpapering (NB those are things that I object to on the show as well, but when you ram your opinion down the throat of someone else it is a bit of a turn off)

And still you fail to miss the point that many have made.

No, just a different opinion. This thread is for contemplation, no?

IMO, the character of Cameron Mitchell was acceptable - as a new character, bringing the show a new dynamic.

What wasn't acceptable is having his backstory as just a (superb) fighter pilot who could pick any assignment he chose (which ended up being leader of SG1) just because the program "owed" him for being shot down during a mission where SG1 was saving the world (yet again)

Again, I mostly agree that it was a poor setup for the introduction of Cam. However, if you recall, he assumed he was there to join SG-1 rather than lead it. He was as suprised as anyone when Landry informed him of his new role. He assumed he was going to learn from the best, but they had left. If General O'Neill didn't think he was up to it, he wouldn't have approved his transfer.

I can't say that I'll be sad about this because it means we won't have to read your repetitive posts where you ignore what has been said and supply your own "fandom" reason of what the posters really meant.

It isn't really a discussion if everyone agrees with you, that's called a sermon.

There you go again, saying what people really were thinking even though it is contrary to what has been very clearly stated. It is not unrealistic for people to expect a well written character that fits into the existing show universe, a qualified and experienced officer to lead the team is NOT unrealistic. Leaving the existing officer in charge, or appointing another existing team leader were perfectly reasonable options that were ignored to bring in an unqualified and inexperienced officer who demonstrated time and again how unfit for command he was.

Well, yeah, it would've made sense for Carter to still be the leader. But AT wasn't the lead actor, so it's unlikely they would have had her 2IC as the star. I agree it would've made a lot more sense for Cam to have had some SG experience - even it it were being assigned to an off-world base previously, or one of their covert operatives.

There were SO MANY MORE reasons given as to why Cam wasn't fit to lead the team. Comparing Jack's problem with authority to Cam's no experience, no qualifications, his incapacity to learn from mistakes and constant plain recklessness is ridiculous.

You've pretty much described Jack when he first started going through the gate.

yeah, yeah, yeah. Still ignoring people's opinions and supplying your own fan wank. That's as bad as if people dismissed your posts totally and said that you are just supporting any move that got MS more screen time. Would you please do everyone a favour and stop doing it.

Really, that's acceptable to say to another poster?

As for fandom wars maybe if you would stop ignoring or reducing well thought out reasons and critiques about a myriad of points to just 'Sam fans are jealous/territorial' then there would be less tension in the fandom. Oh and labelling posts as Cam and Vala bashing isn't helpful either, because if there were actual bashing going on (which there is not) then the mods would remove it.

I didn't even know there had been AT/MS fandom wars until I started reading this. I can see why there would be, but that's another issue entirely.

And without meaning to "bash", you don't seem to have a problem with the "attacks" made by the OP toward everyone answering him or her here.

I didn't read the entire thread, I just did what I normally do when I go back to a thread I've posted in before - skim the last few pages to get the gist of the discussion. What I did read was comments on the posts, not comments like "fan wank", "there you go again, completely missing the point".....

Many reasons have been mentioned as to why people didn't like the Vala character and none of them had anything to do with less screentime for Sam. The only problem I had regarding Sam in the last two seasons is that TPTB wrote her differently and didn't do her character justice, same for Teal'c. Considering all the things we've heard about TPTB and AT it's clear the way she was written was simply because they had to keep her in but for some strange reason were suddenly clueless as what to do with the character after eight seasons of a reasonably well established character and so they didn't really seem to care and pushed her to the background. Why? Because they needed to give the new characters their time to shine I'm sure and that's understandable but no reason to suddenly write weaker versions of good characters (like Sam and Teal'c, who were more on the sidelines than say Daniel). By expanding the main cast in one go (and let's be honest, Vala was already treated like main cast with all the screen time/focus she got in season 9) there was less screen time per character and while that could have been handled wisely, it wasn't. Instead, TPTB just did what they wanted from the get-go and wrote Stargate Command, every now and then reminding themselves that oh yeah, those other already established characters need some time too but we'll have to dumb them down so these two new characters and Daniel can look great.

The Sam & Teal'C stuff there I agree with. Sam seemed to passive to me in the last couple of years, but her lack of input into things can partly be explained away with her lack of screentime. It seemed like the Sam of old during The Road Not Taken, but one of twenty isn't exactly great odds. Teal'C suffered more because they didn't know what to do with the Jaffa after they killed the snakeheads. Not everyone cares about politics on Earth, why would viewers care about politics on another planet? If anyone should have been on the chopping block for the last two seasons, it should have been Teal'C, and have him come back on an 'as needed' basis (essentially taking over Bratac's role in the earlier years as the Jaffa liason)

Vala was very different from Sam indeed, but that's no reason to not like her. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I would have disliked the character if it was simply a clone of Sam only with long dark hair. My dislike for Vala has absolutely nothing to do with that she was different, just that she was written badly, poorly conceived, over the top and very hard to take seriously. Whether or not she was the reason Sam got less screen time is a completely separate matter. Frankly, I'm glad Sam got less screen time because I wouldn't have wanted to see more of how poorly they were writing and treating her character. It would have just irked me.

In s9, I would agree with you that she was hard to take seriously. The toning down they did with her in s10 seemed about right IMO. They couldn't make her completely serious, that'd be (even more) unbelievable. It's possible she was that way because being serious all the time would have made her dwell on some of the stuff she did when she was a host. Being flippant was probably her version of escapism.

And if you want to compare Janet to anyone you should probably do so with Lam, seeing how they're both female recurring characters and CMOs.

Not quite, Lam would have been Chief of Medicine, given that she was a civilian (CMO is a military position). I'm guessing they were referring to the amount of screentime the characters should have been given *shrugs* Yeah, even comparing Janet and Lam is a bit of a contrast with how the show changed in the last few years. I think if they'd nixed Lam being Landry's daughter it would have made a big difference to my perception of the character (who was competent, if a little young for the role). They always had this weird ex-wife/ex-husband vibe, it was a little creepy

If I was like you and would make ridiculous assumptions about other people's reasoning I would say you only like seasons 9 and 10 because Daniel got plenty of time on screen and you only like Vala because she was his space babe. And since Cam wasn't "mean" to Daniel like Jack always was and gave him plenty of time/space to run around off-world with no regard to his or the team's safety, it's clear why you like Cam.

um, what?

The only one who keeps talking about hate in the fandom is you, especially between AT fans and MS fans. Others have given perfectly well formulated arguments and reasons as to why they didn't like [character] or [show direction]. You are the one that keeps dismissing everyone's opinion because [argument] is only because it "meant less screen time for Sam" and that Sam isn't fit to lead SG-1 (simply because she's also a scientist and/or she went away in the first place because TPTB wrote it like that) or that it's basically all AT's fault for getting pregnant/going on maternity leave to begin with. Never mind that TPTB had no problem working around either of CB's pregnancies, including dedicating the entirety of season 10 to Vala and the Orici even if it meant rewriting whatever else they'd planned.

I gather they had little choice to work around CB's pregnancy, given Skiffy wanted her back when she was heavily pregnant. And from what I've read on this thread in the past, AT didn't want her pregnancy written into the show, so they had to create an excuse (admittedly a pretty dumb one) for her absence.

[gateraid]

continued in part two, for length

Yeah, I'd really agree with that. There was a tendency for non-arc episodes to be called 'filler' and labelled as pointless which was a real pity. If you look at early Sg-1 series the 'arc' really just was the season openers and closers, with a couple of related episodes sprinkled through out the other episodes.

And really are the best episodes of SG-1 really the arc ones? I think people would rather watch something along the lines of 'Windows Of Opportunity' myself.

---

As to Vala. Against its not that she's taking time from other characters. Or at least not just that. It's that her character is bad and doesn't make sense. Her presence on the SG-1 team made no sense. (she's a freakin' con woman and thief, why is she on a military team?) And she was generally under dressed and over sexed. SG-1 already tried that with Anise and it was painful then too.

It's the Seven Of Nine effect. But unlike Seven of Nine, Vala didn't also have a strong character arc and character development. And in Seven's case that was despite of that slutty catsuit not because of it. In fact like Troi and T'Pol most a lot of fans actually find her sexier / better looking on those few occassions they let her wear a damn uniform. OK, Trek tangent over.

So yeah Vala was just pandering to the lowest common denominator the lot of the time. What's really ironic is that TPBT know this is bad idea. Hell even in season 10 in 200 they gave a Cameron a line saying [i paraphrase] 'the Audience responds to intelligent well thought out stories not flashy effects' How could they give him that line and not figure out they were doing the opposite?

IMO, they were too trusting of Vala, and too hasty in giving her a spot on the team. What if she'd betrayed them at the end of s10? It's not like it wouldn't have been in her nature.

I don't think Troi is comparable to Seven or T'Pol. Troi was meant to be the audience voice (by that I mean that her stating the obvious was for narration purposes [and to piss people off]) initially, although they did move her beyond that role (marginally).

Even Kate Mulgrew objected to Seven intially (from what I've seen, I can't give you a link) due to her obviously sexualised costume, but realised there was a deeper character underneath. I didn't think it'd be possible to come up with a more figure hugging catsuit in Enterprise, guess I was wrong

In terms of the writing for Cam, one of my main issues was that we were told he had lots of experience and he was a Lt. Colonel. But the way he acted was "happy go lucky" and irresponsible. The writers apparently thought that was more "fun"
I found it amazing that he would be in command of anything. Personally I don't think that kind of character is who you want in charge.

such as:
-- running off without coordinating w/ Carter (who was in charge of the mission) in Stronghold
--violating orders in a willful (and imho stupid) way in ? (where he pretends to be a drug dealer and they all wear leather) and almost gets them all killed

Now, SG1 always ran into trouble but it wasn't usually from being outright stupid

The Stronghold thing is a flub on the part of the writers. Even in the GW transcript, it says Carter orders him to stand down. There should have been repercussions from that. And also, he apparently senior to her because he leads SG-1, but she's in charge of the mission? WTF? Shouldn't he be in charge of the mission and she take charge of SG-1?

I kinda liken it to Emergency. Dunno if any of you remember the show, old 70's show about firefighters and paramedics (how the whole paramedic thing started)

anyway, these guys could fight and bicker and snark and be ticked as heck with each other....until that alarm rang. Then it was ALL put aside and they did their job and watched each others backs.

SG1 was the same way. Yeah, jack snarked....but really, he's walking through a ring and zipping off to other planets....how would you deal? jack embraced the fantasticness of his experiences by mocking them. Honestly, when you heard anubis make his threats in the gateoom, weren't you thinking 'who talks like that???'

One would think they would all need a healthy release outside of work else they'd all go insane. A pity we hardly ever saw any of that

Great 70's reference, Sky! Now I've got the urge to get out my dvd set.

And you're absolutely right. Jack O'Neill could joke and bring out his 'inner-child' as much as anyone, but when it came to actual battles & lives on the line, he was all about eliminating the bad guy & protecting his people.

Two glaring differences I see between Jack and Cam - Jack trusted those around him & made his decisions accordingly, plus he could hide his 'inner-child' when needed and get down to business. I didn't really see that with Cam. He didn't have the "off" switch for his 'inner-child', and had more of an "I lead, you follow" mentality in battles. Maybe that was due to him having just a pilot background. As a pilot, you're in charge of your own plane, and can be a bit more cavalier because it's just you & your co-pilot if you "go bang". As leader of a ground-support team, you've got more people's lives to consider.

That makes me think back to Sam in SGA's "The Seer", where she tells Shepherd - "This kind of decision used to be easy, but then I was just making it for myself. Now, I'm asking a lot of people to take a chance with me."

To be fair, we had eight seasons to get used to Jack. It's unlikely Cam would've been unaware of how to lead a team. Logically, he'd have trained within teams of 'regular' AF fighter pilots, perhaps even leading them. He was in charge of a squadron of 302's on the Prometheus, so it's not like he would be unaware of being responsible for other people's lives. Whether that translated on screen is a matter of opinion (it didn't translate very well IMO)

[Crazedwraith]

Just some select points I wanted to address.

It isn't really a discussion if everyone agrees with you, that's called a sermon.

You also can't have a discussion if people don't listen to anything you have to say. To summarise the conversation went something like this.

poundpuppy; I like Cam and Vala. You just don't like him because he replaced AT!!
others: No, we don't like him because [reasons]
poundpuppy: I disagree. You're just rabid Sam fans!

Again no-one minds that poundpuppy disagrees but he's not actually explained his reasoning

You've pretty much described Jack when he first started going through the gate.

Oh please that's not a good argument. When Jack first stepped through the gate in the movie. They had very good reasons for selecting him. The suicidal depression. Meaning he wouldn't mind nuking the otherside. And in Children Of Gods they sent him out because he was the most experienced guy they had.

By the time Cam comes around, the SGC been on going for 8 years. They have plenty of experienced personnel they could have assigned instead of Cam so its not the same situation at all.

I don't think Troi is comparable to Seven or T'Pol. Troi was meant to be the audience voice (by that I mean that her stating the obvious was for narration purposes [and to piss people off]) initially, although they did move her beyond that role (marginally).

Seven And T'Pol have their roles in the series as well; spewing technobabble, mainly. I think its clear her counselor cleavage suits were designed for the eye-candy. Even if it was marginally more justified than the catsuits.

Even Kate Mulgrew objected to Seven intially (from what I've seen, I can't give you a link) due to her obviously sexualised costume, but realised there was a deeper character underneath. I didn't think it'd be possible to come up with a more figure hugging catsuit in Enterprise, guess I was wrong

I'd never heard that but I had heard Mulgrew noticed how insane and inconsistent Janeway's character was.

Of course the catsuit had nothing to do with Seven's character and arguably her arc would have been better if she'd remained borgized a few more episodes before getting humanised.

[fems]

Oh please that's not a good argument. When Jack first stepped through the gate in the movie. They had very good reasons for selecting him. The suicidal depression. Meaning he wouldn't mind nuking the otherside. And in Children Of Gods they sent him out because he was the most experienced guy they had.

By the time Cam comes around, the SGC been on going for 8 years. They have plenty of experienced personnel they could have assigned instead of Cam so its not the same situation at all.

I agree with this and we also shouldn't forget how proudly Cam states he's read all of their mission reports while recuperating in the hospital (which to me personally sounds like crap and awful security, but it's probably the only thing TPTB could come up with) so he really should have known better and have learned from their 'mistakes', which admittedly don't seem as bad as his own. Also, I don't think Jack was as reckless as Cam at any time during the show since he always kept the safety of his team in mind. Yeah, he'd annoy the bad guys but to me that was more an attempt to focus their attention on him instead of his team (and to just annoy them obviously) and he always took responsibility. Cam is just reckless with everyone and doesn't seem to care about their safety as long as he gets to run off and have fun...

[KayLyne]

The Stronghold thing is a flub on the part of the writers. Even in the GW transcript, it says Carter orders him to stand down. There should have been repercussions from that. And also, he apparently senior to her because he leads SG-1, but she's in charge of the mission? WTF? Shouldn't he be in charge of the mission and she take charge of SG-1?

If you remember, Cam was having issues with his friend who was dying at the time, so it was Sam in charge of the mission. Then Cam comes in late just before they go through the gate as Sam is giving a last-minute briefing. Cam then disregards any of the previous mission planning by Sam and goes to do his own thing, consequently almost blowing the entire mission.

[thekillman]

Yeah, he'd annoy the bad guys but to me that was more an attempt to focus their attention on him instead of his team (and to just annoy them obviously) and he always took responsibility

Also, the Goa'uld absolutely could NOT stand him. It usually made them more reckless. More dangerous too, on several occasions. But it was a pretty effective strategy at times.

[Skydiver]

Jack often used their own arrogance against them

[gateraid]

Just some select points I wanted to address.

You also can't have a discussion if people don't listen to anything you have to say. To summarise the conversation went something like this.

poundpuppy; I like Cam and Vala. You just don't like him because he replaced AT!!
others: No, we don't like him because [reasons]
poundpuppy: I disagree. You're just rabid Sam fans!

Again no-one minds that poundpuppy disagrees but he's not actually explained his reasoning

And when reasons were offered, you called them fan wank

Oh please that's not a good argument. When Jack first stepped through the gate in the movie. They had very good reasons for selecting him. The suicidal depression. Meaning he wouldn't mind nuking the otherside. And in Children Of Gods they sent him out because he was the most experienced guy they had.

By the time Cam comes around, the SGC been on going for 8 years. They have plenty of experienced personnel they could have assigned instead of Cam so its not the same situation at all.

It wasn't meant to be an arguement, merely an observation that the blanket statement describing Cam could just as easily have described Jack at the start of the show. Saying he was the most experienced guy they had isn't exactly high praise, given they'd only been on the one mission.

I'm not sure entirely what your objection here is - would you still have a problem if Cam was written exactly the same way, but his backstory was that he was the leader of SG-2, and we'd never seen him prior to Avalon? Like you, I think it was a foolish decision for Landry to assign a stargate newbie to lead the team, but it didn't really matter in the end. I doubt he'd have been written any differently even if he'd been in the SG environment for the previous ten years.

Seven And T'Pol have their roles in the series as well; spewing technobabble, mainly. I think its clear her counselor cleavage suits were designed for the eye-candy. Even if it was marginally more justified than the catsuits.


I'd never heard that but I had heard Mulgrew noticed how insane and inconsistent Janeway's character was.

The description she used was "va va voom" (with accompanying hand gestures) to describe Seven's look. That's the first time I've heard those comments about Janeway, at least from Mulgrew rather than a fan.

I agree with this and we also shouldn't forget how proudly Cam states he's read all of their mission reports while recuperating in the hospital (which to me personally sounds like crap and awful security, but it's probably the only thing TPTB could come up with) so he really should have known better and have learned from their 'mistakes', which admittedly don't seem as bad as his own.

I'm going to regret saying this, but what were his terrible mistakes? I don't particularly care for Cam, but I can't think of anything egregious that he did

Also, I don't think Jack was as reckless as Cam at any time during the show since he always kept the safety of his team in mind. Yeah, he'd annoy the bad guys but to me that was more an attempt to focus their attention on him instead of his team (and to just annoy them obviously) and he always took responsibility. Cam is just reckless with everyone and doesn't seem to care about their safety as long as he gets to run off and have fun...

Doesn't care about their safety? What was the speech to Vala about then (when Daniel was being zapped by Merlin's ancient mind probe)?

If you remember, Cam was having issues with his friend who was dying at the time, so it was Sam in charge of the mission. Then Cam comes in late just before they go through the gate as Sam is giving a last-minute briefing. Cam then disregards any of the previous mission planning by Sam and goes to do his own thing, consequently almost blowing the entire mission.

I remember the episode. I also remember that despite him ignoring Carter's order, the mission was only successful because of what he did. It's dumb writing, but it worked.

Also, the Goa'uld absolutely could NOT stand him. It usually made them more reckless. More dangerous too, on several occasions. But it was a pretty effective strategy at times.

Didn't work so well with the Tok'Ra though