The Cam and Vala discussion thread

[ReganX]

S8 paved the way for a Beau Bridges-size role for the General. Apparently S8 confused TPTB such that they couldn't decide which was the RDA-slot: SGC General or SG-1 leader. (And looking at that list, I can see why some viewers had trouble remembering that Carter led SG-1 in S8.) Thus, they chose neither and cast two "big leads".

That can't have helped matters cost-wise.

[Farscapefan]

to me, gender IS an issue with these boys

now if the female is a stereotypical role, they're fine. damsel in distress, girlfriend, maternal figure, 'sexy alien', they do 'fine' (that is if you consider perpetrating the stereotypes to be FINE)

but, when it comes to sam - and vala - they seem to get so hung up on cliches that the characters are shallow

sam, at least, had 6 good years of development, and two mediocre ones, to build on, and - i woudl guess - an actress that has developed the skill of tweaking the writers shortcomings to somethign a bit less insulting to your general female.

claudia isn't that fortunate. vala has less than a season of development and any sway she has is limited by being the new kid on the block (and, going by what amanda has said, coop won't even listen to her when she points out that 'sam wouldn't do that'...she gets dismissed iwth a 'yes, ok, fine, but i want the shot so do it this way please')

TO ME, sam has suffered under coop's leadership because his issues with writing women has carried over to how the general female is treated on teh show. and since he seems to have no issue perpetrating the stereotypes, then there's no one to grab the other writers and say 'hey boys, wanna get this character out of the 17th century please'

And it has nothing to do with coop's general skill as a writer. Sateda rocked. i found it a great episode for ronon...then i set it aside Memento Mori...which is exactly the same story at its most basic

Spoiler:

member of the team kidnapped, searching for said member, member facing his/her past

and MM is so lacking it's laughable...and - other than being a different show/galaxy, what's the main difference???? Sateda was a 'guy show' while MM was a 'girl show'

and, in sateda ronon does a good job of taking care of himself

Spoiler:

and the 'rescue' in the end is handled very well, in MM, vala is just the damsel in distress waiting to be saved...and we learn little to nothing about her past while we learn buckets about ronon's

these writers have gender issues. they seem to get so hung up on 'omg, i gotta write this strong female character' that they forget to just write teh character and don't sweat the gender.

this is thier major and fatal flaw. the writers, under coop, cannot and will not write the women as anything but cliches...and if anyone points that out to them, theyr'e dismissed because, well, we all just have issues don't we????

Vala, created by a person that has gender issues, will always be hampered by that because, consciously or not, coop & co will keep her in cliche city because she's more fun that way

If Memento Mori was written by Rob Cooper himself, it definitely would have been completely different episode. And much deeper, I'm sure of that. Mallozzi and Mullie (especially the first one) are not good at listening to people's suggestions, last year when Joe was still doing his Q&A here and at Solutions board there were suggestions for another things from Vala's past to explore. But Joe had his idea...

[Mandysg1]

What Jack centric episodes? Zero Hour... yeah, Zero Hour
They trie to keep Jack in the episodes. They tried to keep him a vital part of the show. Damn worth it, considering apparently the amount of money they were paying him to stay in the show. I actually had a problem with season 7 in that respect and thought it was compeltely unbalanced and Jack-lacking, unlike season 8 where they learned how to write around him better.

Let’s see out of 20 episodes, 10 took place on earth.

New Order parts 1 &2 had to do with getting Jack back, and before his promotion. They had the team split up, with Sam and Teal’c going off to find the Asgard to help Jack. Sam was captured, then we had Jack, Daniel and Teal’c helping the Asgard with the Replicators. So these episodes were tying S7 and 8 together.

Then we have Lockdown, Zero Hour, Avatar, Affinity, Covenant, Sacrifices, Endgame, Full Alert, Citizen Joe, and Threads taking place on earth (well Threads also took place in the Ascended Diner) But we didn’t get any real SG1 team show.

Icon was a Daniel show, with a little bit of SG1 thrown in, but not enough to highlight the team dynamics.

Prometheus Unbound, which I like to refer to as PU (because it describes how I much I like the episode) Was another Daniel centric show, with no team at all.

So let’s see, It’s Good to be King, is the first real SG1 (3 person team) show we really have. Oh but wait, we needed Jack for this mission.

Reckoning part 1&2 we had the team separated again. “The fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance as Sam and Jacob search for the only weapon capable of stopping the Replicator onslaught. O'Neill leads a defense of the S.G.C., while Daniel squares off against Replicator Carter.” Lets not forget Teal’c is also on Dakara fighting with the Rebel Jaffa, while Sam and Jacob are working on the weapon. Well at least we have Sam and Teal’c on the same planet.

Now the season Finale Mobeus, parts 1&2 have the old SG1 going off on a mission, including General O’Neill, but then we know things get screwed up and we get an alternate SG1.

So how much of a 3 person SG1 team did we get?

*Looks up* Oh I see DEM beat me to it

[Skydiver]

If Memento Mori was written by Rob Cooper himself, it definitely would have been completely different episode. And much deeper, I'm sure of that. Mallozzi and Mullie (especially the first one) are not good at listening to people's suggestions, last year when Joe was still doing his Q&A here and at Solutions board there were suggestions for another things from Vala's past to explore. But Joe had his idea...

and you psychially know how coop woulda written MM????

He approved it and signed off on it as show runner. I would think if he wanted it 'deeper' he woulda done that, either rewritten it himself as brad has been known to do, or told the writer to head back to the drawing board

IMHO, coop doesn't care if vala is 'deep'....only that she's played by claudia and that she's eye-candy and fun....and, going by how he writes other female characters, that seems to be ALL he cares about the ladies on the show

[Farscapefan]

and you psychially know how coop woulda written MM????

He approved it and signed off on it as show runner. I would think if he wanted it 'deeper' he woulda done that, either rewritten it himself as brad has been known to do, or told the writer to head back to the drawing board

IMHO, coop doesn't care if vala is 'deep'....only that she's played by claudia and that she's eye-candy and fun....and, going by how he writes other female characters, that seems to be ALL he cares about the ladies on the show

Well... I think he does care. Watch "Crusade" and "Flesh and Blood" again. His writing of Vala's character is 180% different from another wirters. Coop respects Claudia, definitely.

[ReganX]

Well... I think he does care. Watch "Crusade" and "Flesh and Blood" again. His writing of Vala's character is 180% different from another wirters. Coop respects Claudia, definitely.

But what about Vala?

[Skydiver]

I don't agree with you on this point. In S8, they were focusing mostly on Jack as being a General and running the SGC, instead of having more team shows, with the 3-person team. RDA wanted less screen time, they should have written him like Hammond, instead of writing all those on-base, Jack-centric shows.

what i saw was less focusing on jack and more a 'let's see how many episodes we can tape at once' and they accomplished this by persistently keepign the main characters as separated as possible, so that, using 3 separate film crews, they could tape parts of 3 different eps at once

thus, we had a very fractured team and feel to teh show

[Descent]

If Memento Mori was written by Rob Cooper himself, it definitely would have been completely different episode. And much deeper, I'm sure of that. Mallozzi and Mullie (especially the first one) are not good at listening to people's suggestions, last year when Joe was still doing his Q&A here and at Solutions board there were suggestions for another things from Vala's past to explore. But Joe had his idea...

Possibly but as showrunner, every script goes by him. He has had his hands into every episode since Season 7.

[Skydiver]

But what about Vala?

coop seems to have a crush on claudia that is just about as proportionate as he seems to wish amanda wasn't there....yet vala?????

vala is just his fun quip girl who's little more than arm jewelry for daniel

[Skydiver]

Possibly but as showrunner, every script goes by him. He has had his hands into every episode since Season 7.

which means, if he really had issues with the stereotyping of the female charactrers, he's the one person on the show that coulda changed it

yet he can't/won't see the issue and if anyone dares to bring it up to him, they're dismissed as simply having issues

[Mandysg1]

which means, if he really had issues with the stereotyping of the female charactrers, he's the one person on the show that coulda changed it

yet he can't/won't see the issue and if anyone dares to bring it up to him, they're dismissed as simply having issues

I would just hope that now that SG1 had been cancelled Coop also finds himself out of a job. I'd hate for him to carry this on to SGA or what ever the new incarnation will be.

[Farscapefan]

But what about Vala?

I can see a respect for character in the episodes I've mentioned.

[Skydiver]

i don't wish ill for the PERSON, however, given my dislike of the JOB he's done in the past 4 years, yeah, i hope that coop moves on and finds another series that i don't care about to perpetrate his vision of the world upon

what i'm afraid will happen though, given that many here agree that the lackluster writing is what killed the show...guess who'll jsut move across the street to atlantis and remain employed while the actors part ways and look for more work....yep the WRITERS

here's hoping brad has better luck keeping hteir juvenile tendencies intact than coop did

[LaCroix]

Originally Posted byDEM
S8 paved the way for a Beau Bridges-size role for the General. Apparently S8 confused TPTB such that they couldn't decide which was the RDA-slot: SGC General or SG-1 leader. (And looking at that list, I can see why some viewers had trouble remembering that Carter led SG-1 in S8.) Thus, they chose neither and cast two "big leads". [/

I seem to recall that Beau Bridges was on a three person short list to replace
the General's spot on the show.The other two were Louis Gosset Jr. and Stacy Keach.

Now Beau may have been recommened by RDA, since their stance about gun
control is like minded. MHO. But they did manage to add LGJr as a guest star
to the mix. The combination of these two during season nine, was in my opinion very pricey indeed.

I can't say for SK, since the shows been not renewed.

As always, JMHO. YMMV.

[Farscapefan]

i don't wish ill for the PERSON, however, given my dislike of the JOB he's done in the past 4 years, yeah, i hope that coop moves on and finds another series that i don't care about to perpetrate his vision of the world upon

what i'm afraid will happen though, given that many here agree that the lackluster writing is what killed the show...guess who'll jsut move across the street to atlantis and remain employed while the actors part ways and look for more work....yep the WRITERS

here's hoping brad has better luck keeping hteir juvenile tendencies intact than coop did

You know, I wonder what Coop did to you that you hate him so much? Your every post, every sentence about him is just... I don't know... so poisonous that it's really hard to read. For me, his vision for the show, and I don't care about past seasons, since I'm not fan of that part of the show, and his philosophy is really interesting. It's enough for me to listen to his DVD commentaries for season 9 episodes to respect and love this man for what he's doing with the show now.