S10: Critique & Contemplation

[Silverwings]

The Wraith have the potential to cause trouble, sure... but I've never liked them. Their design just reads to me like the story writers and concept artists never grew out of their KISS emo phase. Their convoluted genesis and existence seems more like an excuse to have "wowzers, space vampires in black leather! We be dark and edgy!" than any real thought behind villains.

Ba'al as a dark manipulator (Descent's version of Ba'al) is a much more interesting villain... but he required more work to write. When you've got schlocky dudes with sucker hands, you can go for the visceral Aliens riffs and turn off the brain.

Tellingly, it seems like the most popular Wraith is Todd, and he mainly succeeds on acting contrary to established Wraith behavior.

[AGateFan]

Wraith must be an OK design since they were apparently stolen to fight Hellboy in his next movie .

[Gregorius]

Todd and Michael are the most popular Wraith mainly because they're cunning and devious. Kinda like Ba'al before he was turned into a joke.

I seriously hope that Michael succeeds in his plan and wipes the Wraith out, since they're so boring and stupid in their actions.

[Skydiver]

todd and michael are fun because they're not predictible. most of the wraith...they shoot you, chase you, try to eat you.

boring

theyr'e one dimensional red shirt villians

[suse]

I agree, TPTB had 3 major problems in season 9
1. Jack's leaving
2. Sam's absence
3. Cam's introduction
And they failed to solve properly all of them!
Some say season 10 got better, and of course it did they finally figured out what to do with Jack - ship him out to Homeworld Security never to be heard of again (if it weren't for BW!) Sam - hook her up with Cam make them best buddy and some
The only way I could watch S9-10 was to make a short marathon and you know what I realized? I can't remember a single memorable episode in the 'new show' that I'll ever watch!

Well,

1) They knew about Jack leaving. They could have handled his departure a bit much better (that Mitchell-love was terrible) by having him hand over the reigns of his *current8 position to the new general, not SG-1 over to... who they did.

2) They also knew AT would be gone for 5 eps. After all, late pregnancy is hardly a surprise. And while I ithnk they took advantage of AT being gone, I don't think they intentionally tried to *stick it* to the little woman It shouldn't have been a problem. Instead... <sigh>

3) 1000% agreed. His intro sucked. Bigtime.

But there are also a few other numbers:

4) Vala. While her introduction in S8 left something to be desired (putting it nicely) I was willing to give that a pass for S9. Oops. Or not. They *increased* her 'sauciness'. Apparently "sexy" and "fun" mean different things when Gekko isn't there. Which they weren't when PU was getting filmed - wasn't it mostly second unit?

They were so busy funning with her that when they had to integrate her into the team they had to change how she acted. Real smart guys.

5) Too much to do for the upper management/writers/directors. i understand trying to save money by having a smaller staff. But if the smaller staff is putting out sub-par work, exactly what are you saving?

Even S8 wasn't very good. The two-parters were excellent, but the stand-alones? Not so good.

Everyone was wearing so many hats something had to give. How you one be a writer and producer and sometime director when you have so many eps to put out? You can't. Obviously.

suse

[gateraid]

Cut the crap! Replicarter was one of the coolest villains ever, I wish they wouldn't have disposed of her so easily...

I never said I didn't like her, but from a production point of view, at the very least she is a cost saving measure, as were the Baal clones. Why hire a guest star when you already have an actor on (presumably) a set rate? And they could have played up the whole 'part-carter' aspect a lot more than they did.

Personally, I loved s8. It worked for me, but only because there had been sooo much set up. It was effectively the end of the series. While I liked bits of s7, the whole thing seemed like exposition (which as it turned out it actually was) and would have given up at the end of the season had it not been for the TLC movie (I know it was a two parter, but they'd written it as a movie and had been sitting on the script for years [with some tweaking]).

And having only 4 main characters, as much as I loved Hammond & Frasier et al, worked for me too. But only because they tried to wrap everything up for them towards the end of the season. That said, even though Zero Hour is one of my faves, why didn't they give Hammond/DSD an ep like that, even if it was only to take the load off RDA?

I think my initial point was (somewhere) that s8 would have been the time to bring in a new team member, who was part of the military and therefore capable of officially taking command in Sam's absence, instead of the whole SuperCam intro they went with in s9 and the subsequent backpedal in s10 to Dan/Valagate. But hey, hindsight's a ***** eh?

There were any number of ways they could have done things differently re early s9. They could have downgraded the Stargate project (as the Gaoald were dead) & placed Sam in acting command for the first 5 eps and filmed all her stuff from the desk or as inserts when she came back, and then when the Ori became a threat she could have gone back to SG1. Or Cam could have been the SG2 leader (a major) who after unleashing the Ori gets shifted to SG1. Whatever. The list of different ways is as long as a piece of string.

[scifithinker]

they focused on creating the impossible and unsustainable

needed a male lead. of COURSE that male lead couldn't take orders from the little woman (especially a little woman that sooo inconvenienced them by daring to have a life and family), thus the male lead needed to be the boss. However he also needed to appeal to the young viewers - the only ones that skiffy cares about - so he needed to be young, but he needed to be the boss, but to boss Sam - a nearly 20 year veteran of the Air Force - he should have been older than her, but an older guy wouldn't do, cause he wouldn't appeal to the young.

thus they needed an oxymoron. a experienced leader with the rank and time in service to boss around a 20 year veteran that was also young and enthusiastic and fun.

they couldn't have it both ways, and seemed unable to admit that something had to give and that they couldn't create someone that fit all those requirements, because they are mutually exclusive

so they ignored the logic and instead made Cameron, a character of contradictions. And they had such a poor grasp of what he was and what he needed to be that he literally changed from episode to episode, often little more than a plot device to make shoddily written and quickly cranked out template episodes work.

Ben did the best he could with thee situation he was tossed into, but the character of cameron was fatally flawed from his creation.

That is the perfect way to put it. It works on multiple levels.

[jckfan55]

And having only 4 main characters, as much as I loved Hammond & Frasier et al, worked for me too. But only because they tried to wrap everything up for them towards the end of the season. That said, even though Zero Hour is one of my faves, why didn't they give Hammond/DSD an ep like that, even if it was only to take the load off RDA?

Interesting point. DSD is a good actor & Hammond was popular so why not use him? I'm not sure though if that's about when DSD was edging to retirement himself, though.

There were any number of ways they could have done things differently re early s9. They could have downgraded the Stargate project (as the Gaoald were dead) & placed Sam in acting command for the first 5 eps and filmed all her stuff from the desk or as inserts when she came back, and then when the Ori became a threat she could have gone back to SG1. Or Cam could have been the SG2 leader (a major) who after unleashing the Ori gets shifted to SG1. Whatever. The list of different ways is as long as a piece of string.

I like this idea. I'm not sure how that could have worked for 5 episodes though. Maybe for one or two. And of course your idea presumes that they'd give SG1 back to Sam, which they clearly decided would rend a hole in the time/space continuum.

[gateraid]

Re the Hammond Zero Hour type ep, it's something they should have done much earlier in the series. RDA had been making noises about moving on/working less for a few years by the time the start of s9 arrived, but they just kept on working him. A phased withdrawl would have been more appropriate, rather than the rather abrupt end that eventuated

[Jackie]

Season 8 was supposed to be RDA's reduction season but instead of giving RDA the reduced Hammond role...they just started writing eps that centered in the SGC.

8 would have been the time to intro Mitchell as a new team member, under Sam. They could have had him take over as lead during AT's baby leave and then, hand lead back to Sam when she returned.

I would rather tptb had sam go missing in the first 6 eps than what they did. Putting her in area 51 and then having Cammie beg her to come back with a bit obnoxious.

Trow in Vala the Vamp...no wonder the ratings plummeted .

[suse]

Season 8 was supposed to be RDA's reduction season but instead of giving RDA the reduced Hammond role...they just started writing eps that centered in the SGC.

8 would have been the time to intro Mitchell as a new team member, under Sam. They could have had him take over as lead during AT's baby leave and then, hand lead back to Sam when she returned.

I would rather tptb had sam go missing in the first 6 eps than what they did. Putting her in area 51 and then having Cammie beg her to come back with a bit obnoxious.

Trow in Vala the Vamp...no wonder the ratings plummeted .

It's like they didn't have faith in their actor's ability to carry the show. Dude, in their sleep they could have done a better job than was done. Certainly the addition of the Farscape Duo makes it look like that.

suse

[Jackie]

It's like they didn't have faith in their actor's ability to carry the show. Dude, in their sleep they could have done a better job than was done. Certainly the addition of the Farscape Duo makes it look like that.

suse

TPTB never needed to add the whole farscape thing. Initially they just wanted Ben. CB as a guest for a few eps once in a great while would have been fine. That would be more than enough to get the attention of a few die hard farscape fans who would watch the show just for the actors.

The whole D/V thing in season 10...IMO...wasn't any better than season 9. TPTB just changed the show entirely to something I didn't recognize nor will I ever recongize at Stargate.

It's not just the actors that appears not to have tptb's faith but the whole concept of the show was changed.

[gateraid]

TPTB never needed to add the whole farscape thing. Initially they just wanted Ben. CB as a guest for a few eps once in a great while would have been fine. That would be more than enough to get the attention of a few die hard farscape fans who would watch the show just for the actors.

The whole D/V thing in season 10...IMO...wasn't any better than season 9. TPTB just changed the show entirely to something I didn't recognize nor will I ever recongize at Stargate.

It's not just the actors that appears not to have tptb's faith but the whole concept of the show was changed.

I do think the show improved somewhat in s10, but that's not saying much. S9 was basically just exposition and get to know Cam. And s10 was prolly better than it should have been as they crammed a lot in at the end in order to wrap everything up. I've never been a huge fan of Daniel though (less so since he came back) and the emphasis on DV as opposed to the two actual leads really bugged me.

I've never seen Farscape. I gather it's popular. So BB could just as easily have been the host of AFV instead of John Crichton. But the homecoming ep (the high school reunion) actually showed they had a good chemistry. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of that. But the ep itself was naturally pretty lame and implausible, even by their standards.

It just seemed like they never really stuck with a pattern long enough to get a good fit, and even when they did, they changed the other character to suit

[Jackie]

I do think the show improved somewhat in s10, but that's not saying much. S9 was basically just exposition and get to know Cam. And s10 was prolly better than it should have been as they crammed a lot in at the end in order to wrap everything up. I've never been a huge fan of Daniel though (less so since he came back) and the emphasis on DV as opposed to the two actual leads really bugged me.

I've never seen Farscape. I gather it's popular. So BB could just as easily have been the host of AFV instead of John Crichton. But the homecoming ep (the high school reunion) actually showed they had a good chemistry. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of that. But the ep itself was naturally pretty lame and implausible, even by their standards.

It just seemed like they never really stuck with a pattern long enough to get a good fit, and even when they did, they changed the other character to suit

I was a Daniel fan and tptb changed him to the point where he's no longer Daniel to me.

Season 10 was just silly IMO. BIf I were to actually rate the season 9 and 10 would be about the same. 10 failed miserably to cement in Mitchell, give the Ori some back bone and make them interesting. It failed to include the cast in a meaningful story. It failed to fix the issues brought before in season 9...like closer for Jack. I give season 10 less room for error than season 9.

Season 9, though poor, was essentially a new show, new cast and new arc. By season 10 tptb should have had a handle on what needing fixing. Instead they just changed Vala into a teenie bopper and shoved D/V down our throats. I am less forgiving with the utter failer of season 10.

both seasons ranked about a 2 on my over all scale of 10.

[scifithinker]

both seasons ranked about a 2 on my over all scale of 10.

Feeling generous, Jackie?