Company of Thieves (1009)

[esoap524]

Despite popular opinion, humans don't explode in a vacuum.

Here ya go:

http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/vacuum.html

[majorsal]

Not as bad as I thought it would be. That snivelling alien coward at the end "Damn you, Cam Mitchell" just before blowing up was OOOOOOOTT though. So very bad sci-fi cliched.

Suse

you know my only real quibble with this ep? the scene where vala beamed the main bad guy out into space. now, i'm not an expert in just what happens to a person's body in space, but i know enough to know he'd have died almost instantly, and in a most painful way.

i appreciate realism on this show. i appreciate the writers looking info up to make sure it's realistic. in fact, i'll look up 'what happens to a human body in space?'

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/as...rs/970603.html

http://www.mit.edu/~goodmanj/madsci/912459934.As.r.html

okay, so he wouldn't die almost instantly, but i had a couple of other things right!





sally

[majorsal]

I remember this subject has come up on the boards at least once before, maybe more. I thought it was an intimidation tecnique as well, and it would make sense that in all their travels, someone would try to use it on Sam, not merely because of her looks, but also just the fact that she's female.

exactly. i'm actually surprised it hasn't happened more, and i mean that in a realistic sense. 'how dare a female do a man's job!'



sally

[majorsal]

if stargate sg-1 was real, she wouldve been raped a long time ago by the baddies...

yes.





sally

[majorsal]

I no longer feel as though I am watching Stargate.
It had the feel of reading a comic book - I've not seen anime and maybe that's what I mean.
For a comic book it was okay but a lot of whys.
Why was Carter on the ship?
Why was Daniel in the command seat? Surely there was some officer left on the ship who was more appropriate for that position.
Why do 'aliens' use American slang?
Why did Netan fall so readily for Mitchell disguise? When Daniel used the ring Lord Yu looked on him as a servant and mostly ignored him - here you would thing a persons actions, speach, body language would give him away.

zoser, stop asking intelligent questions! it's not like we're supposed to notice daniel continuing to where his leather outfit on the ship (that's after the team got control of the ship back), or the fact that he didn't wear his glasses again (he wears contacts?).




sally

[majorsal]

Which is precisely what's wrong with the show these days, imo. Star Trek clones I can get ten a penny. Stargate used to be a breath of fresh air precisely because it didn't use starships, handy transporter beams etc. It used to be about something different from all those other space operas out there. It used to be about a...now, let's think what was it called? Oh yeah...A STARGATE!!

If I want to watch ST:TNG I can haul out my DVDs. When I tune in to watch Stargate, I don't expect to see...well, this.

Albion

i actually like space-themed shows (star treks, etc). i'd prefer to see GATE travels on starGATE, but... if the ptb just happen to want to make a show about sam being the commander of a space vessel, i, out of the kindness of my heart, would give it a shot.





sally

[Giantevilhead]

I no longer feel as though I am watching Stargate.
It had the feel of reading a comic book - I've not seen anime and maybe that's what I mean.
For a comic book it was okay but a lot of whys.
Why was Carter on the ship?

They were expecting to find a supergate. Who knows more about the supergate than Sam?

Why was Daniel in the command seat? Surely there was some officer left on the ship who was more appropriate for that position.

All working to repair the ship.

Why do 'aliens' use American slang?

Why do they even speak English? Shouldn't they be speaking Goa'uld or Jaffa? Even if they are speaking English, their accent, grammar, and volcabulary should be completely different. A guy from Australia, a guy from 18th century America, and a guy from 16th century England all speak English but they'll still have trouble understanding each other, even if they are speaking English in Stargate they still shouldn't understand each other. It's called suspension of disbelief.

Why did Netan fall so readily for Mitchell disguise? When Daniel used the ring Lord Yu looked on him as a servant and mostly ignored him - here you would thing a persons actions, speach, body language would give him away.

The team never even met the Reole in "The Fifth Man" but thought that he was a team member due to the chemical. The Reole's mannerizes weren't even human. His legs bent backwards. I think he was also naked.

[Dani347]

Why do they even speak English? Shouldn't they be speaking Goa'uld or Jaffa? Even if they are speaking English, their accent, grammar, and volcabulary should be completely different. A guy from Australia, a guy from 18th century America, and a guy from 16th century England all speak English but they'll still have trouble understanding each other, even if they are speaking English in Stargate they still shouldn't understand each other. It's called suspension of disbelief.

Well, I think some aliens should speak something other than English, at least once in awhile -or why else have a freaking linguist on the team? But, if they're not going to do that, then they should speak English at least a little differently. There's suspension of disbelief and then there's laziness.

[Dani347]

or the fact that he didn't wear his glasses again (he wears contacts?).

And, drawing glasses on the screen with a marker doesn't work, since he keeps moving. joke.

[golfbooy]

A more engaging opening to this post escapes me at the moment; this will have to do. I certainly thought Company of Thieves could have been worse. On the whole I expected something far worse than actually came about. So, diving right in:

Company of Thieves had been touted as being a Mitchell episode, but that didn't really pan out. No, this one really was about the Lucien Alliance. And from one perspective that's good. Among season nine's lengthy list of failures is the total failure on the part of the writers to give the Lucien Alliance anything even remotely resembling structure, logic, believability, or significance. In season nine they were the cheapest of plot devices, an organization whose only purpose was to look weak and pathetic next to the sparkling ingenuity of the SGC. That is unless of course it suited the story to have them be menacing and puissant. In which case they were--at least for a couple of scenes. The crappy characterization of the Alliance continued in Flesh and Blood, albeit as a carryover from season nine. Here, in Company of Thieves, the writers do make a noticable effort to solidify and add depth to this would-be villainous bunch. The Lucien Alliance's basic structure is outlined, numerous players are at least touched upon, and Netan is given a bit more character than simply "Bad Guy". So from the perspective of continued growth and future storylines, Company of Thieves does make strides forward. The writers may even be trying to give the Mitchell character something he can take an active interest in, even if the Lucien Alliance storyline can never really be "his" proprietarily.

The problem for Company of Thieves comes from the other perspective. That is, all this work really is pointless. Given Scifi's non-renewal of SG-1, the likelyhood that we will ever see another episode where the Lucien Alliance plays any kind of signifcant role is almost nil. I suppose that they may come into play in [spoilersold]Bounty[/spoilersold], but still, they're pretty much a dead storyline. In any future incarnations of SG-1 it has to be believed that the Ori and the Goa'uld will be taking center stage as the main villain. Even if that's not the case, the Replicators and even the Wraith make far more attractive villains for any kind "big" story. No, given the recent developments in the franchise, I'm betting that the Lucien Alliance will find its way down into the depths of Stargate Plot Limbo where it can take up residence with the also now-unecessary NID/Trust and apparently uninteresting (does anyone besides the writers really feel this way?) Tok'ra. Maybe the Alliance can turn up in Atlantis; EVERYTHING else from SG-1 seems to.

Anyway, the start of the episode was really good. I'm not a fan of "ship shows", and honestly Company of Thieves is a bit too Trekish for my blood, but the opening where the Odyssey is ambushed was well executed and believable. The use of a minefield to trap the ship worked for me, and even gave those who love CGI sequences a plausible, in-story reason to go gaga for graphics. And, frankly, I love it when Earth's ships get thoroughly trounced. The crew's reactions to Anateo and his men were nicely played, and I (like others have mentioned) was relieved to see Sam and the crew save themselves. Surprisingly enough, I felt more for Sam than I did for Emerson. I think this a directorial problem. Amanda Tapping plays Emerson's death as seminal and dramatic, but the actual execution was ho-hum. And I never took Emerson to be that great of a character, always finding him ordinary and without personality--even in death. I'd have rather it had been Marks who bought it, which would have touched nicely on Sam's scenes with him in Ethon and made her reaction fit better with the story.

The bit with the transponder was a little wonky from my perspective, and came across as a bit thoughtless on the part of the writers. The one thing the audience carries with it from last week's Memento Mori, and is reminded of again with the new opening credit sequence, is that Vala has been accepted as part of the SG-1 team. Why the writers then choose to play up her unscrupulous side and the team's (dissipated?) mistrust of her I don't get. And I don't know why the cargo ship had to be faulty, save for a few jokes. They also went for funny on the planet with Borzin, which I thought an odd change of tone for the otherwise more serious episode. With the Odyssey and her crew at stake, and especially with Sam in danger I would expect the team to be less glib and more determined--especially Daniel. I suppose the point of this portion of the episode was to let SGC know that the Lucien Alliance was responsible, and to get Vala out of the way so that Mitchell could be the one to "infiltrate" the Alliance, but it just seemed out of place to me.

Well, on to the infiltration. Let me start by saying that Mitchell himself didn't do anything wrong. This paragraph is not meant bag on Cam. But dear God, some of the things that pass for dialogue these days are just astounding. The "I'm seeing a therapist" line just jarred me right out of the scene. And am I really supposed to believe that Mitchell could just act all nefarious and thugish and perfectly nail Kefflin's character? Maybe with some of the others, but with Netan, to whom he's supposedly close? It's my understanding that the Reolle chemical makes you "look" like someone else, not make others stupid. "This man knows nothing of torture". Kill me now. It was just written as too easy. I never got the feeling that Mitchell was in a tight spot, that he was risking anything. Teal'c seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation from his broom closet, but that tension didn't spill over into the scenes with Cameron and Netan. Most of this part of the story was told from Netan's perspective, not Mitchell's. I suppose that worked to flesh out the Alliance, but also marginalized the danger Cameron and Teal'c were in. Oh, and why was Teal'c captured in the first place? Mitchell, posing as Kefflin, contacted the Lucien Alliance from that ship. Surely it's existence isn't a mystery.

Still, those parts of the episode weren't bad. Now Tenat, on the other hand, he was bad. The whole story took a nosedive the minute that goofball showed up. There is nothing cool, entertaining, original, or realistic about Tenat. He's a stupid, funny looking alien that should never have seen the light of day. Even following New Stargate's busted logic, there is no way that he has now worked his way up to captaining a ha'tak following the buffoonery that is The Ties That Bind. And I would have muched preferred Mitchell and Teal'c actually storming the bridge and taking over Tenat's ship at the end, rather than be subjected to the confusingly shot, muddled ruse. It would have nicely mirrored SG-1 retaking the Odyssey. The way the final escape was presented was choppy and unbelievable. "Damn you Cam Mitchell!"? Damn you Alan McCollough!

The resolution of the intrigue aboard the Odyssey was good, despite the use of crap-ass beaming technology. Couldn't Sam and Vala have pushed Anateo out of an airlock or something? Still, if I have one complaint it's that Vala and Daniel get to dispatch Anateo and not Carter. Yes, it was all Carter's plan, but what's the point of building a personal animosity between her and Anateo if there's no personal resolution? Surely it would have been nice for Sam to get some revenge for Emerson's death.

Character-wise Company of Thieves is annoying in that the characters are once again split into the writers pet groupings. Daniel and Vala are again inseperably tied to each other. At this point they might as well stop with the charade, find some nifty device to fuse the two characters together, and start letting the team interact with Danala. At least then there would be a reason for them to be so conjoined. Mitchell and Teal'c once again reprise their Little Man, Big Man dynamic to moderate success. Poor Sam is still stuck all by her lonesome, but her character probably faired much better than anyone else's in Company of Thieves because of her isolation from her team. I know that the writers are pimping The Quest as a big "the team is together the whole time" episode, but it's annoying to think that such an occurance is a special occasion.

Babe Henry continues to be all bluster, no substance. His comments just irk me. Did I hear him rightly when he said to "Tell all the Jaffa, I want to talk to the head of the Lucien Alliance!"? What? Someone explain this to me. Really, I'm asking. Tell me why Hank wants to talk to Netan or what he hopes to accomplish. I'm reminded of Aris Boch's, "Oh well, I'll alert the galaxy," crack. "This sounds like a rerun." Oh, does it Hank? Putz.

This episode should have been bigger for Mitchell than it turned out. I wish he "owned" his part of the story as much as Sam, Daniel, and Vala owned theirs. As I said above, I felt like Netan was the character getting developed, not Cam. That aside, I liked the whole infiltration idea. SG-1 is always proactive, so I didn't expect Teal'c and Cam to do nothing, even if they wound up rescuing no one. Mitchell still seems so uncomfortable around the team, though. Both in the briefing room scene and especially in the cargo ship I felt like Mitchell was just tagging along. It just still feels to me like it's SG-1 plus Mitchell, not that he's part of SG-1. Vala's easy inclusion into the team dynamic has only made Cam's clunky interactions more obvious.

Teal'c rocks. Chris Judge just does so much with so little. I feel like he completely stole the show here. Aside from the torture, the two bits where he yells at Cameron to follow through with the mission and where he goes on a rampage were awesome. Teal'c wailing on the downed guard was cathartic, both for him and us. Still, there has to be more for Teal'c to do than stand around all tied up. Do better.

As I said above, Daniel could have been more serious throughout the episode. And I absolutley hate his interactions with Vala in this episode. Please, don't go back to Three Stooges Daniel. But I liked the "stalling" bit at the end. I thought it was a nice throwback to the similar scene in Tangent, if not nearly as amusing. That's it. Not too much for Danny in this one.

Vala didn't really contribute much either. She did procure the cargo ship, and yes, I appreciate the writers trying to illustrate her use, but there was never a shortage of cargo ships in the past. The Jaffa and Tok'ra have always been rather forthcoming in that regard. And how many more times do we have to see Vala's "connections" not pan out? The SGC comes across as a bunch of dupes everytime they follow her into trouble. Again, her interaction with Daniel was painful. Vala's best scene in the episode? The add on to the credits.

That just leaves Sam. Left to her own devices for much of the episode again, the writers continue to use Amanda Tapping (along with Chris Judge) to inject some emotional meaning and resonance into an othewise dry outing. Sam's reaction to Emerson's death, both on the bridge and in the cargo hold, gave that moment some gravity, even if the script didn't. Also, her reunion and ensuing machinations with Daniel and Vala felt very natural. Competent and self-reliant, Carter is too often used these days to balance out the other, sillier parts to episodes. As I said with Teal'c, do better.

In the end, Company of Thieves is a decent episode that probably amounts to very little in the grand scheme of things. Enjoyable as it is, I'm looking for more substance and importance out of these (now) final episodes.

[chazevelt]

Some folks here liked the jokes, some felt they were out of place, others say they were corny.
I love the funny moments in SG1. But since RDA left, it's seemed more scripted than natural. I think RDA's sense of humor and penchant for brilliant ad-libs set a precedent for the show's humorous side that the writers are trying to recreate...with questionable success. Don't get me wrong- I love the tongue-in-cheek stuff. It's just different now. If Mitchell and Vala were given the chance to play off Jack's quirky sense of humor and relentless ability to think outside the box, the characters might have evolved a bit differently. Teal'c, Sam, and Daniel were melded into the cohesive team they now are from having been exposed to many years of Jack's leadership and example. Jack insisted on the 'never say die' philosophy, and he kept his team together by lightening the darkest of moments. Cam and Vala have yet to get a real taste of that legacy thru the rest of SG1. If the series is given enough time, I anticipate the humor becoming more spontaneous and responsive, rather than contrived as it seems now. But they are still feeling their way around being a team.
Just like Sam showing more emotion since Jack left. Seems to me she made an extra effort to be tough and without emotion when he was there, perhaps in a constant effort to prove herself to him. If you remember, it was always Jack encouraging her to vent, rest, or let go and cry and she did her best not to give in. Maybe she doesn't feel the need to prove anything to this new team, and so we're seeing yet another side of her. Personally, I don't care for it as IMO it makes her come off as less tough and less battle-hardened than Vala. I can buy that Vala is more 'universe-wise' than Sam, and that she wouldn't hesitate to make use of tactics to which Sam would never stoop, but tougher? Nah.

[underduck]

I was in "Company of Thieves"! Woo!

Read all about it.. ((Spoiler Images within.. be warned))

http://forum.gateworld.net/showthread.php?t=35388

[MasySyma]

I found this episode ok but not great. Then again, Season 10 was overdue for an average episode. Mostly, I'm liking the season. I find the Lucian Alliance an annoying but realistic side effect of destorying the Goa'uld.

Pros:

1. Angry Teal'c. We should see more angry Teal'c. He needs something to do more often.

2. Vala was wonderful, and I loved when she beamed the villain into space.

Cons:

1. The episode was ok, but it took forever. When Teal'c screamed that he was tired of the torture, I felt his pain. As viewers, we were tortured a bit this week.

2. Lusty villains hitting on Sam get old. I'm not saying that I want Sam to be ignored, but could she just be appreciated for her brain?

3. I have to agree that the "Damn you Cam Mitchell" line was just bad. It would have been far funnier if the alien had yelled Stella at this point.

Overall, it wasn't my favorite, but the trailer for next week looked cool. I'll give it a 7/10.

[Kracker]

then why not pair her up with teal'c or sam????

Because she doesnt have any where near as much chemistry with either of those than she does with the guy playing Daniel?

Didnt think I was gonig to overlly like this episode at the beginning, but enjoyed it more as it went on. Shame that wierd alien guy at the end had to die though.

[JohnDuh]

aliens speak proper english, not slang. they're not from earth, thus can't know earth slang. you can't have the 'comedy' of vala not getting slang, then having aliens - especially aliens she's run across - knowing said slang

The aliens are not speaking english, its the universal translator.