Endgame (810)

[Indiana]

This was a kinf of an interesting episode, but like Atlantis I thought it could have ended so much better. Why did SG-1 have to get the gate. I kept saying, please steal the gate! Steal the gate! Why? because I wanted excitement. Plus it would have been a great cliffhanger to an episode even though it wasn't a "To Be Continued" type of episode. At the start of the episode when the gate is stolen, you're all thinking, of they're gonna get the gate back at the end of the episode, but when it gets away at the end, uh-oh! Thats when you starting going, ok, so now they're screwed!

When the ship went into Hyperspeed I was like, OMG! She got away with the gate, but then nope a radio communication from Prometheus...We hae SG-1 and the gate. *bummer* When is something REALLY exciting gonna happen on this show.

[Skydiver]

Just a thought. Won't the Jaffa blame Earth for millions of deaths? And wouldn't any System Lord worth his salt as a would be god, rally the Jaffa around these mass deaths? Also, don't you think that this human attack on the Jaffa, might cause Teal'c to at least reassess his alliance with humanity? Finally, might not the Tokra also view the actions of the Trust as a threat and plot some actions, at least some retalitory actions against Earth.

If the writers take this episode seriously, and follow up on it, there could be a number of interesting plot twists.

oOh yes they can, which could be very interesting. As far as the Jaffa are concerned, a tau'ri is mass murdering thier brothers. they don't give a fig as to his/her political connections, all they know or care about is that an earther is killing folks.

if it's not ignored, the stinky brown stuff can hit the fan and all sorts of nasty stuff can happen

[Skydiver]

Having read the rest of this thread I'm gonna preface this with a IN MY OPINION!: having watched Endgame and then Atlantis, I really feel like SG-1 is getting the short end of the stick With the time of the production crew being split between the series I can't help feel SG-1 is losing out. I hope if season 9 eventuates they make some effort to remedy this. JMHO.
____

this i can agree with. It's very obvious that Atlantis is getting much of thier focus. and it shows on Stargate. I seem to recall the same thing happening on the Treks. TNG suffered while DS9 was launched. DS9 suffered while Voyager was launched.

It does make sense. STargate is on its last legs, Atlantis (best case scenario) has almost a decade of life left to it. Atlantis is a cash cow while all Stargate has is to be milked as long as they can.

But, while i understand why, it doesn't make me feel sad to see a good show so ignored and neglected.

[Skydiver]

My main issue with both daniel taking the statement and interrogating is that he is a civilian. Now in the statement case, he was a civilian, and not a civilian in a clear role pertaining to the control room, taking a statement from a military officer.

Now, if artifacts had been beamed out, then that would be within daniel's purvue. But taking that statement was a job for the base's security chief or even jack, not just a civilian who seems to be the boss of the archaeology/linguisitc section.

Other than going through the gate, daniel really had to reason to be conducting the interview.

As to interrogating doctor icky....Daniel's not an interrogator. Again, this should have been someone like Reynolds. someone with the authority to make deals.

Both of those scenes seemed to me to be like 'rda couldn't work that day, so let's have MS do them' or 'we can't afford to pay another actor, so we'll use the one we have'

Back in lockdown, i didn't have an issue with sam interviewing the nurse because sam is an officer and a team leader. and she was interviewing another military officer. And she was doing so while under observation from the base commander....just like we've seen jack doing in the past

I think daniel interrogating was just the result of sloppy writing or actor issues...unfortunately it is a plot hole that stuck out....just like no one considering that the stargate could survive getting blown up and promie could just go get it

[NightGloom]

OK, for me this episode wasn't bad, but it wasn't too great. I was waiting for some kind of big climax thing, since stories are supposed to be rising action, climax and then falling action, but I didn't really see it. It's getting too predictable though. At the beginning of the show, the team could be in a potentially life-threatening situation and you weren't positive that they were going to get out of it. Now, you know that they're going to get out of it and you know how most of the time.

[Indiana]

OK, for me this episode wasn't bad, but it wasn't too great. I was waiting for some kind of big climax thing, since stories are supposed to be rising action, climax and then falling action, but I didn't really see it. It's getting too predictable though. At the beginning of the show, the team could be in a potentially life-threatening situation and you weren't positive that they were going to get out of it. Now, you know that they're going to get out of it and you know how most of the time.

When you say it's getting too predictable I agree. Thats why I would have loved it if the Stargate was lost to them by the end of the episode. No one would really have expected such a thing.

[NightGloom]

Yeah, it could have definitely been made into a 2 parter, or they could have actually lost the gate! Since, in the past they've "lost" the gate- they seem to have an endless supply. And "The Trust" is definitely the most predictable part.

[Indiana]

It didn't even have to be a two parter at all. The next half of the season could have been really interesting. The government would have to deal with the fact they no longer had a gate. What would the future of the Stargate be? it could take a couple of episode to wrap up the storyline. I wouldn't like them to get the gate back too early. I know it's Stargate, but with the ammount of time we seem to be spending on earth of lately, why not give a reason for it. I think the writers need to take some more risks and do something a bit more interesting. The ending of that episode should have been exciting, and should have had some heroic build up to SG-1 rescuing the gate, but It wasn't. The way it was done, I expected the gate to be gone, but it wasn't.

[Wyrminarrd]

This was the best episode of the season so far, it had a good story line and keept up the suspence all the way through.

My only gripe about the episode is why the heck the NID/Trust people needed to take the SGC stargate. Why didn´t they just go to some uninhabited planet with the ship and use that stargate? That would have made them impossible to stop and never have alerted the SGC.

[jyh]

And, I honestly don't see what the big deal is with Daniel interrogating people. It doesn't seem to be something that requires any especial military skill. Jack must have appointed him to be the person to do the job. I would think he has a very high civilian rank (no need for Walter and friend to call him "sir" if he didn't have some authority.

Civilians don't have "rank." Walter & the other guy called Daniel "sirt" because a lot of military personnel refer to men as "sirs" and women as "ma'ams," regardless of whether they're in the military or not. At least, that's been my observtion.

[epiphany]

I could see Daniel making a report about the missing Stargate, but I felt it was out of place for him to be interrogating the British prisoner. Daniel does not carry the authority to bargain. Especially to say they would ignore the $2 million. That role would have been more for the General. In Smoke and Mirrors, it was General Hammond that negotiated with the spy. It would have been more appropriate for Jack to deal with the prisoner and not Daniel.

How do you know Daniel doesn't carry the authority to bargain, though? It certainly seemed like he did to me. Daniel has definitely seemed like he got a promotion as well this year. Last season we know the president seemed to approve of more "civilian influence and control" on the SGC. Weir seemed to have Daniel acting as her second in command. Ultimately why would we believe that Jack sort of demoted him when he became commander?

In fact I'd say the whole $2 million thing was probably pre-cleared already. They needed the information in a hurry, they didn't have time to waste.

Interrogating, especially a relatively "soft" interrogation like this is another form of negoatiation. Daniel's been negotiating for years now. It's a relatively small step from doing that to doing this.

[Skydiver]

Civilians don't have "rank." Walter & the other guy called Daniel "sirt" because a lot of military personnel refer to men as "sirs" and women as "ma'ams," regardless of whether they're in the military or not. At least, that's been my observtion.

yep. in the military it's like 'sir' and 'ma'am' have been permnantly hardwired into thier brains. They will err on the side of caution and address everyone (that isn't thier direct inferior) as sir or maam, just to be safe

[Skydiver]

Weir seemed to have Daniel acting as her second in command. Ultimately why would we believe that Jack sort of demoted him when he became commander?

Well, it hasn't been said that he's been promoted and another way to look at it could be that Weir was gravitating toward Daniel simply because he was the most influential civilian there. She and Sam had a rather adversarial relationship. Teal'c was an alien that we never saw her interact with. Jack was...indisposed. So that left Daniel as the only person on the base who could advise her.

It is possible that she saw him as a second, it's also just as possible that Daniel was there and a resource to be plumbed. I seem to recall that she pretty much, well not quite bullied, but she did rather push him into assisting her when it seemed, to me, that he was rather reluctant to get involved.

[DarkQuee1]

=Dani347Okay, I'm not saying this is good negotiating skills, but I do wonder if Daniel was telling the truth about that. He told the guy they were going to let him keep the money, but it seems Brit guy gave up the info before finding out if Daniel was on the level. Again, I don't know if this was correct procedure, but it's possible that Daniel didn't actually let him off the hook.

Anything (or everything!) is possible, but it's not what we saw or heard. Only what is on screen, in actions, set-up shots or dialogue, is canon. At this point, what TPTB have given us is that Daniel gave away the store.

Handling weapons isn't remotely within Daniel's area of expertise? Daniel has used weapons since the movie. Daniel's been on a front line team since the beginning of the show. He would have to stay earthbound if he didn't learn any battle skills.

I'm not saying that Daniel hasn't learned to shoot. Of course he has improved in eight years, which is a good thing, because he would be a liability (and probably removed from the team) if he was still unable to help defend the team in a firefight or if he had to be guarded all the time. Has he learned a few skills about staying alive in a firefight? He must have; he's still breathing!

However, being a foot soldier who shoots back only when he's shot at in the field, is very different from being part of an ops. This requires different training and skills--and we have seen neither Sam nor Daniel receive that training. OTOH, I agree with you that the demands of TV means that they will always want to put their main characters (and the actors they are paying the most!) front and center and so there will be things done that aren't always realistic.

That said, there is *less* unrealistic and *more* unrealistic. I have less trouble with Sam and Daniel going on the ops--esp as Jack/RDA won't be doing that stuff anymore--than I do with his taking on the interrogation duties. In the case of Sam and the Lt (Lockdown), Sam is still a Lt. Col questioning a subordinate officer about her actions and what she saw, knew and did (remember also that at this time, they knew that they were dealing with some*thing* that was moving around, so the Lt was not *personally* suspect of doing anything wrong).

Also, your statement about guns being within Daniel's expertise: I do take exception to that. Has he learned how to shoot a gun or rifle with some skill? Yes, of course. However, what else does he know about guns? Could he walk to a table with a variety of weapons on it and identify them? Doubt it. Could he take one apart and/or put one together? Doubt it. Does he know the capabilities, pros and cons of various weapons? Doubt it. Would he know which would be the right weapon--the right *tool*--in a particular situation? Doubt it.

Daniel can defend himself and his teammates in a fight, but there is no way that he is a weapons expert.

As far as skills that go outside just archeology and lingustics, Daniel was responsible for revisions to a treaty with the Tok'ra and earth. D&C. An inspired document. He had to have some skills to do that.

Again, I think this needs to be qualified. My impression of what happened there was that it was Daniel's *linguistic* skills that were impressive. I seriously doubt that he made the content decisions on what was wanted in the treaty or what wasn't liked--those would be made at a *much* higher lever even than Hammond. I think, however, that Daniel was responsible for taking the changes that the Pres and the Pentagon wanted and wording them in such a way that they would be acceptable to both sides.

There is no question that this *is* an important skill and is part of Daniel's overall usefulness (and contributions) to the SGC. It is not, however, the same as doing the negotiating. Notice that, at the beginning, when we saw the negotiations themselves going on, it was Jack and a member of the SGC's diplomatic team doing the negotiations for Earth; Daniel was not there.

As far as Rambo Jackson, I just don't see him using weapons any more than he had done before. Or being any more willing, since he's never been unwilling if it was the best option.

I do, to be honest. I see him using them more readily and, even more, being more willing to acknowledge the position that talk was not appropriate any longer or that it was too late to keep talking or that it would not work, than I did earlier in the series. (BTW, I've seen a lot of Daniel fans lately talking about "Action Jackson" themselves.)

eta: One last thing, then I promise I'm shutting up. I still find it funny that it appears that Daniel being an archeologist is the sticking point. Probably people don't mean it this way, but it's reading to me like him being an archeologist is a bigger strike than him being a civilian or not having the training. Like if he were military and an archeologist, he wouldn't be able to conduct an interrogation, or if he were a civillian but a historian, there'd be no problem with him doing it. Again, probably not what you all intend, but it reads like that (to me) when things like "and he's an archeologist, too!" come into the argument. Why not, "And, he's a linguist!"

There is no difference to me between being an archaeologist, historian or linguist, it's just that being an archaeologist has always appeared to be Daniel's primary interest (he seems more a linguist in order to promote his archaeological interests, rather than being a linguist first), so that's the term I used. Being a civilian and an archaeologist/historian/linguist, with no training or experience in doing things like interrogation is what is the problem for me, not just being an archaeologist.

OTOH, a military officer, who has been trained to do stuff like that and who is also an archaeologist--well, I probably wouldn't have a problem with that at all.


J.

[DarkQuee1]

Yet another problem I had with Endgame: Why the heck didn't Sam, Daniel and Teal'c stay on board? There was only one Trust member left. Why didn't they take her out and capture the ship? Then turn it around and head home, with the gate, a living Trust member to interrogate (*not* by Daniel!<<g>>) and with the gas.

I really can't believe they got off and left the ship in the bad guys hands!


J.