S10: Critique & Contemplation

[Skydiver]

and jonas continued to try to prove himself for a good chunk of s6. there was a tension between him and jack that was very noticible until shadowplay or so. and even after that you could sense that while jack accpeted him on the team, he didn't exactly welcome the person of jonas with open arms.

I think jack was the last to truly accept jonas, while teal'c was first, then sam.

that tension made it real because it's how real life relationships work. any new member into a group will face hostility of some degree and hae to prove their worth.

but with cam and vala we really didn't get that. Oh, we got lip service to cam, but it was laced with 'mister hopped up on ritalyn hyper active to see everything cambo' silliness. and pushed OTT with Hewo antics.

Sam, Daniel and Teal'c should have questioned cameron. tehy should have said 'dude, you may be the boss on paper but i've been through this gate more times than you ever wil, so you might want to listen to me'. but they didn't even question him, even when he did some truly bonehead stunts.

With vala, there was a little 'we don't trust her' but once it was a done deal that she was joinng the show, her joining the team was a foregone conclusion and no one was even permitted to DARE to question her suitability. it was as if coop said 'i adore vala, thus you WILL adore vala, and if you don't, get off your lazy tush and start to adore her cause anyone that has a brain can see that she's just adorable' as he pushed and pushed and pushed her forth with a vigor that bordered on obsession.

And anyone that dared to qusetion was mocked and belittled.

[jckfan55]

but with cam and vala we really didn't get that. Oh, we got lip service to cam, but it was laced with 'mister hopped up on ritalyn hyper active to see everything cambo' silliness. and pushed OTT with Hewo antics.

And according to the S9 Companion, to his credit Ben Browder was very skeptical about the "hyper Cam" and had to be talked into it.

Sam, Daniel and Teal'c should have questioned cameron. tehy should have said 'dude, you may be the boss on paper but i've been through this gate more times than you ever wil, so you might want to listen to me'. but they didn't even question him, even when he did some truly bonehead stunts.

Exactly! I could see that they didn't want to do the whole season arc of coming to accept Cameron, but he said in Ep. 1 That he wanted to "learn from the best." I didn't see a whole lotta learning going on.

[Skydiver]

and that's what stood out like a sore thumb. they SHOULD have questioned him. Sam should have asked 'why the hell am i losing my command'
daniel should have asked 'yeah, nice new guy, but why is he the boss?'
teal'c should have asked 'i do not share the same faith in this person as i did o'neill'

but it was like the writers were so afraid that fans wouldn't accept him that they thought if the characters did whole heartedly and unquestioningly then we would too.

they didn't let us accept cam and SEE that he fit the team, they tried to SHOW us...then mocked us when we said 'umm, yeah, but i see the man behind the curtain'

And good for ben to question. Cameron is a walking paradox.

comedic, impulsive goof ball
serious, driven leader

and you can't be both at the same time. They further compounded cameron's paradox by writing him to facilitate whatever hole filled plot they came up with. Needed a super soldier to kick tushie, cam will do it. need an idiot to push the button that is clearly labeled 'don't touch' cam will do it.

they used and abused him and cam suffered for it. suffered to teh point that no amount of backstepping and revisionist writing in s10 can fully redeem him. He is a mansion built on sand....looks pretty but watch out when the tide comes in.

[AGateFan]

and jonas continued to try to prove himself for a good chunk of s6. there was a tension between him and jack that was very noticible until shadowplay or so. and even after that you could sense that while jack accpeted him on the team, he didn't exactly welcome the person of jonas with open arms.

I think jack was the last to truly accept jonas, while teal'c was first, then sam.

that tension made it real because it's how real life relationships work. any new member into a group will face hostility of some degree and hae to prove their worth.

but with cam and vala we really didn't get that. Oh, we got lip service to cam, but it was laced with 'mister hopped up on ritalyn hyper active to see everything cambo' silliness. and pushed OTT with Hewo antics.

Sam, Daniel and Teal'c should have questioned cameron. tehy should have said 'dude, you may be the boss on paper but i've been through this gate more times than you ever wil, so you might want to listen to me'. but they didn't even question him, even when he did some truly bonehead stunts.

With vala, there was a little 'we don't trust her' but once it was a done deal that she was joinng the show, her joining the team was a foregone conclusion and no one was even permitted to DARE to question her suitability. it was as if coop said 'i adore vala, thus you WILL adore vala, and if you don't, get off your lazy tush and start to adore her cause anyone that has a brain can see that she's just adorable' as he pushed and pushed and pushed her forth with a vigor that bordered on obsession.

And anyone that dared to qusetion was mocked and belittled.

The season was also not about jonas. Heck there were entire episodes when jonas wasnt even around. And except for the first couple of eps he wasnt really pushed. He FIT IN with the team that already existed. For Cam and Vala they changed the TEAM, the characters, nay the cannon of the stargate universe itself to fit them in.

The stargate universe was a wonderful thing. The cam and vala universe is a sad and annoying thing.

[Jackie]

And according to the S9 Companion, to his credit Ben Browder was very skeptical about the "hyper Cam" and had to be talked into it.



Exactly! I could see that they didn't want to do the whole season arc of coming to accept Cameron, but he said in Ep. 1 That he wanted to "learn from the best." I didn't see a whole lotta learning going on.

I think they should have let BB have a lot more input. Bowder is a very intelligent guy who knows his stuff. Everything (what little of it) that I've read where Bowder had reservations about aspects of his character was correct. He stopped a kissing scene between himself and AT in ripple effect because he knew it would not be a good thing to put in the show.

I often wonder if BB had the influence that RDA had--if the show could have been better with his input. I think BB talent is really under estimated and I bet he would be a good director too.

[Skydiver]

i wonder htat too. Like i've said elsewhere, having met rda, even for a short bit, i can see that there's a lot of rick in jack. I think rick toned down the silliness they may have written for jack. Made him more normal and less hewo.

just like AT has gotten them to make sam more normal over the years.

they should have listened to Ben. I don't think they give the actors enough credit when it comes to some things. The actors are more than bodies spouting lines, they literally become the character. adn who better to know how the character would act than those acting the character?

[Jackie]

Also after all those years on Farscape--I'm sure BB picked up a lot of information. Every interview I see with this guy is mind blowing. He's as humble as RDA but you can see the wheels in his head turning. He actually thinks about the questions.

I would love to see what BB could come up with if they had let him write and direct an episode. I bet it would have been one of best to come out of Stargate as a whole. (Originally I was going to post an ep out of season ten--but that wouldn't have been much of a challenge.)

[Skydiver]

LOL

i was struck with the same idea when i got to talk to Jamie. Lee Adama isn't just a character he plays, it's a part of him. And his enthusiasm and intelligence about Lee was fascinating to see.

I've never met ben, and likely never will, but if he's half the actor that Jamie is, then yeah, they should have let him have more input. ben could perhaps have evened cam out and made him a bit more real and less of a cartoon

[Jackie]

I saw the interview with Jamie B. and I was thinking that this guys knows more than the rest.

One of those guys who probably will go really far--long after BSG.

Does the premiers for Stargate and SGA start this fri in the US? I lost track.

[Skydiver]

next friday, the 13th

prophetic eh??

[JessM]

With vala, there was a little 'we don't trust her' but once it was a done deal that she was joinng the show, her joining the team was a foregone conclusion and no one was even permitted to DARE to question her suitability. it was as if coop said 'i adore vala, thus you WILL adore vala, and if you don't, get off your lazy tush and start to adore her cause anyone that has a brain can see that she's just adorable' as he pushed and pushed and pushed her forth with a vigor that bordered on obsession.

And anyone that dared to qusetion was mocked and belittled.

Yep, and he used Daniel as the pitchman for her, no matter how silly it might've made him look (well imho anyway... still can't get believe those particular words from that Morpheus scene came out of Daniel's mouth).

[Mandysg1]

Yep, and he used Daniel as the pitchman for her, no matter how silly it might've made him look (well imho anyway... still can't get believe those particular words from that Morpheus scene came out of Daniel's mouth).

Neither can I

[Skydiver]

i can, if daniel was thinking with his hormones.

i do know that daniel has always been the most...open of hte group. The most likely to trust without totally questioning...of course he is also the most likely to focus on the short term and kinda block out the long term consequences.

But after he witnessed first hand what vala was capable of. After she nearly got a few dozen folks killed stealing the promie, i jsut don't get how he could not only trust her but argue FOR her. Mister Cynic Jackson shouldn't be so gullible.

if anyone should have been gullible, it should have been cam that argued for her. Imagine how it could have played out had major Mitchell argued for vala and dealt with her? Even if she spurned him and we still got the vaniel hour, there would be some tension there of cam wanting vala to stay, vala latching onto daniel. samand teal'c resenting vala's addition, sympathizing with daniel, wondering what cameron is thinking.

it would have been some realisitc tension.

Instead we got super hewo jackson and his arm decoration of vala

[AGateFan]

Also after all those years on Farscape--I'm sure BB picked up a lot of information. Every interview I see with this guy is mind blowing. He's as humble as RDA but you can see the wheels in his head turning. He actually thinks about the questions.

I would love to see what BB could come up with if they had let him write and direct an episode. I bet it would have been one of best to come out of Stargate as a whole. (Originally I was going to post an ep out of season ten--but that wouldn't have been much of a challenge.)

Ive seen the result of him writing and directing an ep. IMHO it was an absolute horror of an ep of farscape. The kind of ep that sort of maybe fit in with farscape but in a bad way. But its that kind of artsy over the top ep that Stargate really does NOT need.

[pittsburghgirl]

Ive seen the result of him writing and directing an ep. IMHO it was an absolute horror of an ep of farscape. The kind of ep that sort of maybe fit in with farscape but in a bad way. But its that kind of artsy over the top ep that Stargate really does NOT need.

yes but that is what we have been getting the last two years isn't it?

i have basically been referring to this show as the live action Tripping the Rift. Whatever that show was in its earliest presentations is not longer the same now. Newbies taking over, two of the established characters are no better than window dressing, another of the established is the second half of a couple -and even then-the character that he is connected to runs around like the envisioned porn directors idea of a female character (think about it-knee socks-pig tails, mini skirt) and as a Sam/Jack shipper-really appalled at the fact of Daniel and Vala shoved down our throats.

The one thing I do have to give the Daniel/Vala interaction though-Claudia Black does seem to drag things out of Michael Shanks performances that I really didn't think he had it in him. He shows more response in his scenes with Claudia other than dazed and confused.