S10: Critique & Contemplation

[saberhagen83]

as to the episodes

well bad guys was crap. but...what if the team had stayed hidden? and the museum was attacked by REAL thieves? and sg1 can't just let innocent people be taken hostage. y et they also can't let themselves be seen...thus they become the ghosts in the museum. playing one side against the other with the ulitmate goal of getting the thieves out of the way so that they can get home

Oh I like this. I think that kind of storyline would have been far more interesting to watch. There was so much I didn't like about Bad Guys, the screaming woman at the beginning, the fact that SG1 "took hostages", and not to mention that weird security guard. Having a real hostage situation where SG1 gets trapped in the middle of would have been something far more exciting.

bounty...dude, lose the stupid aliens invade a high school reunion. stop reading bad fanfic and write something even marginally plausible. you want bounty hunters after sg1, fine. have them hiding from the ori on some planet and have to hide from the bountyhunters whiell also hiding from the ori...or something. ANYTHING better than a high school reunion for pete' sake

Again a better plot. In fact, when I heard of the episode title for the first time I was so hoping they would re-visit a storyline with Aris Boch. I kinda felt there was more to get out from that story told in S3, you know with Aris himself and his people.

family ties....was jsut so stupid in oh so many ways. first, since when is the sgc so stupid that they cut vala's father loose? and can't control him? dude, that's what cells are for. that's what other planets are for. lock him up on the alpha site
give us something better than the stupidity that we got. I've seen highschool written plays that are better htan family ties was

Family Ties. SGC these days, I think does anything it wouldn't do in the past. Just look at the fact that they let Vala come there despite what she had done in the past. Not to mention she was allowed to join the team. I just can't see that with Hammond or even Jack in command. It's like letting RepliCarter just walk into the SGC...sort of.

I honestly don't know how to fix that episode. Perhaps they could have Vala's father in it, but have him beeing more normal and maybe mix that with something from Vala's past like when she was taken as host.

[ccdsah]

I'm a bit late with the discussion about Daniel in "Absolute Power"
The trasnformation from innocent, peaceful scientist really surprised me but I guess it was meant to suggest that anyone no matter how naive can be corrupted by Absolute Power. However, if in S2 (?) this transformation surprised me, a similar episode in S10 would seem to me as a natural progression of Action Jackson (We see glimpses of the possible transformation in "Shroud" were Daniel condamns an entire race of beings...).

[jckfan55]

craptacularity - that is one of my new favorite words!

And Ivanova ROCKED! So did Kira Nerys.

on all counts. One of the things I liked about Kira is that they dealt at least a bit with the fact that she had done some pretty "distasteful" things as a freedom fighter/terrorist in her past. there were consequences & personal things she had to deal with that helped shape her character.

As for Coop's obsession with Fun. In one of the S10 commentaries one of the people mentioned something about a storyline/ep RDA didn't care for & he said "I've got to start going to concept meetings." I don't want to say RDA's presence would have been the solution to everything, but I do think RDA and Michael Greenburg were checks and balances on the sillyness. For ex, on another commentary--I think for S7 or 8 -- RDA was reported to have said something like "enough with Siler and the wrench."
I think he knows how to have fun, but not necessarily at the expense of the premise of the show. In those S1 interviews on the DVD, both RDA and AT talk about them wanting the show to make people think a bit along with entertaining them. And RDA talks about not aiming the show at the lowest common denominator. Sigh.

I also got the sense from a commentary where there was a crack made about a former writer,

Spoiler:

That the Rodney & lemons joke was about this person

that this person wasn't part of what I think of as the group think. I wonder if this person was sort of driven away. I looked up this writer on IMDB & she had been a tv writer for many years--maybe too old for the gang? But maybe that's just me seeing conspiracies.

[Jackie]

I don't know if Rodney and the lemon represented writers or anything. I know it's easy to get burned out when writing and want something new.

Sometimes when you are asked to write something your heart just isn't in then you look for a way out.

I get the impression from interviews and blogs that the writing team doesn't always have the same train of thought and they also argue a lot. In JM blog I remember his commenting on the "Big debate over the Daniel arc for season 10" He made it sound like Daniel had taken a huge turn for the worst and everything would be lost.

The shroud was a bit of a disappointment from a writers stance.

Spoiler:

Making Daniel a prior was sooo predictable. Making the team question Daniel was predictable, Merlin saved Daniel-predictable. Everybody back normal in the end-predictable. The Merlin genocide weapon was utterly lame. Andria coming back with a ton of ships, stupid. If they wanted to make us believe Daniel was in Danger then why not have Adria use some erase all of Daniel's memories and then plant him with false memories of his life as a devoted Ori follower. Tomin figures out that Daniel's mind has been altered into worshiping the Ori and that makes Tomin even more PO because his own religion has cross the final line of his consciousness.

I would have scrapped merlin and the weapon and found some other way of stopping the invasion. Maybe finding a device that could tele-transport you to the Ascended level but keep your body intact. Or maybe a device that would block the ascended from gaining power from worshipers. Maybe even having Daniel ascend-a device that could ascend the whole team and then give them a time limit to stop the ori or they die...lots of possibilities here.

I think group mentality has much to do with the writing on Stargate. MASH had wonderful writers who kept you glued to the set till the very last second the show aired. Never forget Colonel Potter and his horse. MASH canceled itself when the cast called it quits. They went out on a high note.

There was no reason for Stagate not to have done the same thing.

[Skydiver]

i also agree, rda and gekko put the kibash on a lot of coop's 'fun' over the years. Hence their near palpable 'joy' in several interviews at him being gone, thus them allowed to have 'fun' again.

I think rick and gekko nixed a lot of coop's sillier ideas, something that stopped once rick left.

coop was cut loose and ran with it...and couldn't/wouldn't admit that, you know, maybe rick had a good idea of 'good' adn 'bad' and maybe they should have listened to him rather than ignoreing him

If gekko was still involved, who knows, maybe the show would have ended on an up note instead of the pathetic whimper it did end on

[ccdsah]

i also agree, rda and gekko put the kibash on a lot of coop's 'fun' over the years. Hence their near palpable 'joy' in several interviews at him being gone, thus them allowed to have 'fun' again.

I think rick and gekko nixed a lot of coop's sillier ideas, something that stopped once rick left.

coop was cut loose and ran with it...and couldn't/wouldn't admit that, you know, maybe rick had a good idea of 'good' adn 'bad' and maybe they should have listened to him rather than ignoreing him

If gekko was still involved, who knows, maybe the show would have ended on an up note instead of the pathetic whimper it did end on

Maybe Rick was referring to Coop when at Avalon he said the relation with TPTBs was "scandinavian" nowadays...

[mapsc]

The guy I'm disappointed with is Brad Wright. I can't believe the same guy largely responsible for S1-S6 would just sit back and watch RCC slowly destroy the show. Not so slowly in S9.

Mike

[ccdsah]

The guy I'm disappointed with is Brad Wright. I can't believe the same guy largely responsible for S1-S6 would just sit back and watch RCC slowly destroy the show. Not so slowly in S9.

Mike

In his defense they've split responsabilities
SG-1 S9-10 RCC
SGA S2-3 BW

[Jackie]

If Cooper became the head honcho then not even BW could do anything about it.

Though, SGA had it's failing moments too. of course that would be--Irresponsible--for me to bring that up. But sometimes I find writing my opinion too--Irresistible--to ignore.

[the dancer of spaz]

If Cooper became the head honcho then not even BW could do anything about it.

Though, SGA had it's failing moments too. of course that would be--Irresponsible--for me to bring that up. But sometimes I find writing my opinion too--Irresistible--to ignore.

Problems like the Irrs, the Shep & McKay Hour, the lack of development for Teyla and Liz, etc. are why I've never been able to simply blame Cooper. While he had some lame-brained ideas about how to run the show in many ways, I think Wright allowed several flaws to continue in SGA as well.

No one's perfect. I don't think Gekko/RDA were either - I mean, Jack was just a bit too flippant and glib towards the end (for whatever reason), and the "cosmic giddiness" went a bit overboard at times. I love Jack, and I appreciate Gekko/RDA's involvement now more than ever, but still...

For me it will always come down to the same thing: a lack of creative checks & balances and continuity, a lack of an outsider's POV and diversity in the writers' room (yes, that refers to the all-male writers/producers), and the fact that the same 7-8 guys were writing, directing, producing 40-ep seasons. They were stretched beyond capacity, and it showed.

[Skydiver]

i whole hearted agree with you about goofball jack in the later seasons. several times i wanted to slap him for being so silly

as to brad controlling coop....hey as long as the network liked what he was doing, what was brad to do telling someone else how to run his show.

it's like two managers of two different mcdonalds...coop runs his store one way, brad another, and as long as corporate has no issue, why should either tell the other what to do?

and coop, apparantly, was wililng to lay his neck on the line and disregard the network's advice and it was stuf that coop would have to answer for

to me, you could see wehn both rick and brad just stopped caring about sg1...and it was with s7. brad withdrew, rda just had less and less to do and eventually said 'bye'

[the dancer of spaz]

It's interesting that you use the manager analogy, because the strongest example of that fact is the structure of the movies. RCC got his SG-1 movie, BW got his, and they left Atlantis to Mallozzi and Mullie.

I never know what to think with Cooper and Wright, because sometimes it seems like they're constantly looking towards the bigger and better things in the future - whether it's movies, more movies, the third series, whatever.

But it's very interesting that they were both rewarded with a film a piece, so they could do whatever they want with whomever they want.

[jckfan55]

No one's perfect. I don't think Gekko/RDA were either - I mean, Jack was just a bit too flippant and glib towards the end (for whatever reason), and the "cosmic giddiness" went a bit overboard at times. I love Jack, and I appreciate Gekko/RDA's involvement now more than ever, but still...

Very true, and I didn't mean to sound like "RDA is God!" or something. (though I do worship him. )
As often as I think RDA may have put the brakes on something, at other times they may have given him too much leeway for ad libs. to be fair, I obviously don't know the *real* story of how the whole dynamic worked.
I did not like the progressive "dumbing down" of Jack b/c they wanted to use him as an excuse to give the audience an explanation of what they were doing. And some of his wisecracks were a bit overboard, true.

For me it will always come down to the same thing: a lack of creative checks & balances and continuity, a lack of an outsider's POV and diversity in the writers' room (yes, that refers to the all-male writers/producers), and the fact that the same 7-8 guys were writing, directing, producing 40-ep seasons. They were stretched beyond capacity, and it showed.

Couldn't agree more.

[the dancer of spaz]

Very true, and I didn't mean to sound like "RDA is God!" or something. (though I do worship him. )
As often as I think RDA may have put the brakes on something, at other times they may have given him too much leeway for ad libs. to be fair, I obviously don't know the *real* story of how the whole dynamic worked.
I did not like the progressive "dumbing down" of Jack b/c they wanted to use him as an excuse to give the audience an explanation of what they were doing. And some of his wisecracks were a bit overboard, true.

LOL, I didn't think you sounded like "RDA is God!" And he is indeed worshippable.

I think some of the flaws can be considered natural ebbs and flows of the series' progression. A show can't go very long and be perfect. While the dumbing down of Jack may have been unnecessary, I feel like it wasn't as bad because it was one character. The entire structure of the series wasn't demolished in a matter of episodes. Entire characters weren't left in limbo.

TPTB are human, though. And I am willing to let S9-10 go as simply a course of missteps that was paved with good intentions. As long as they don't repeat mistakes in S4 or the films...

[scifithinker]

TPTB are human, though. And I am willing to let S9-10 go as simply a course of missteps that was paved with good intentions. As long as they don't repeat mistakes in S4 or the films...

I don't see how season 4 of SGA can be a great improvement unless there's change in how the show is produced. Hopefully, the drop to having to produce just one show instead of two is enough, but I rather doubt it. There needs to also be a change in the fun v. continuity equation for it to work.