Arthur's Mantle (918)

[Skydiver]

Landry would probably give him another medal. Such is the writing this year.
Mitchell can do no wrong, anything that he does do wrong is treated as if it is right and he gets rewarded, thus why should he ever be any different.

yep. mitch is the marty sue of the show. especially in an A&P episode.

alan writes mitch as the irascible flouting authority but is right in the end character and peter does little to tone him down.

now he was better - to me - in this eps than he was in OTG, but it's definitely a pattern that's developing.

someone seems to have the idea that to be a hero one must flout authority, senseless endanger thier lives, go for the long shot, quip off and generally have more than the normal daily requirement of arrogance

it's just be nice if competance and common sense were included more often. it would certainly make him a more rounded character

[Zoser]

Wasn't Sam up all night? Maybe she requested some--it might not have seemed like breakfast to her.

It is what Dr. Lee brought in shortly after Sam and Cam disappeared.

[Skydiver]

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Do you think he has become the Felger replacement?

or maybe they wanted felger for this eps and wrote it that way but couldn't get the actor?????

[contact2918]

I thought Carter would've used the ancient device to communicate to Daniel better (yeah, Daniel had a line that said that they shouldn't mess with the keyboard too much but with just two buttons, one can communicate via Morse code).

I thought the same thing, but then again... How does one type ancient in morris code?

[warmbeachbrat]

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Do you think he has become the Felger replacement?

Say it ain't so!!!

I mean I like Felger, but they only need one of him. Dr. Lee has his own special charm and changing him into Felger would just destroy it!

[warmbeachbrat]

It is what Dr. Lee brought in shortly after Sam and Cam disappeared.

Uh, yeah--that was kind of my point. I thought she might have asked him to bring her some since she had been up all night. I seem to remember reading in several places that Sam liked blue jello, so that's why I was thinking that.

[warmbeachbrat]

or maybe they wanted felger for this eps and wrote it that way but couldn't get the actor?????

That would make me feel quite a bit better--as long as Dr Lee goes back to his normal competent self.

[contact2918]

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Wasn't he explaining things to Teal'c that Teal'c probably knew better the he?

Again - Zats - Why didn't they use a zat against the zombie. It would have brought him down so they could have retrieved the crystal. Blowing the guy up (as well as shooting him filled with holes) while he possessed something vital seemed stupid.

I think the marine was trying to process the risks in his own mind rather than telling Teal'c anything he didn't already know. (not to mention expositioning for those slow on the uptake at home)

Zats probably wouldn't have worked. One of those things they used on the Kull warriors might have, but I don't think that had one of those at the time.

[DEM]

Does anyone else have trouble staying subscribed to episode threads? This is the second time that I've posted in a thread, received notifications and updates in "my controls" and then it quit after a day or two and I have to post another comment to resubscribe.

Yes.

Once again, lassisitude sets in and I use someone else's post as a jumping-off point.

Dr. Lee is my favorite character and I'm always happy to see him in an episode, he's guaranteed to always make me laugh. But I'm a little disturbed at how he's being written these days. He's always seemed a little befuddled to me, but at least he's always been a competent scientist. Now they're just writing him as an incompetent befuddled scientist.

Though I don't dislike him, Dr Lee has never been a fave of mine, really, because he's not believable. The first problem was that he was too multi-function ("Say, what's his specialty going to be THIS week?"). Now he's a goof.

I wonder why they didn't think of purposely sending Daniel to the other dimension to decipher the writing himself? I know there was a possibility of him not getting back, but it would make sense for the solution to be there and be implemented. Perhaps an acceptable risk (if they didn't write Dr. Lee as so bumbling).

Or if McCullough didn't write Carter as so... nothing. Yeah, she shouted ineffectually at the Gate techs, and yeah, she pushed buttons for Daniel -- AFTER Mitchell surrendered the task. Beyond that? A whole lotta nada. No critical thinking, no problem-solving, nothing but standing around and waiting.

Interesting that even though Teal'c had to save his sorry hide, that Mitchell was the one who grabbed the control crystal. When the plan was made to blow up Volnek, I wondered if that would blow up the crystal as well--didn't seem to be totally thought through to me. Good thing Mitchell grabbed it.

Yes, because where would we be without Mitchell to save the day -- by bucking the system and having someone else save his hide. Enough already!

I had the same question about the plan to blow the guy up.

Overall, I'd give the ep just shy of 'fair'. Strong characterisations of Teal'c and Daniel, nice interplay between Carter & Daniel, Landry didn't annoy me, and I'm almost inured to Mitchell's braying and flailing about. OTOH, Carter just sorta faded away partway through, and the transitions between the tone of the Sodan storyline and the out-of-phase storyline were shaky at best. In addition, I didn't experience any drama or tension in the out-of-phase story.

The blue jell-o was for Carter.

[Zoser]

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Dr. Lee needs to stop watching Disney movies.

I thought the same thing - "Honey I shrunk SG-1"

Why were the guys with Teal'c wearing desert camo footwear? I kept thinking they were barefoot, and it was disturbing.

Wasn't that strange?

Mitchell didn't annoy me till the very end. That's a good thing. I thought they dragged the 'Mitchell loves food' gag on way too long, but other than that, he didn't bother me too much.

I did roll my eyes at his insistance on going to 'save' Teal'c when he was out of phase and couldn't do anything to actually help. But it wasn't till the end, when he was running for the claymores and STOPPED to taunt Zombie guy that he really bugged me. That was way too much grandstanding, and "Aren't I just so clever." There was no reason to stop. Valnek(?) was following him. He would have hit the claymores without Mitchell amusing himself.

And Mitchell's amusing himself then put himself in danger, from which Teal'c then had to rescue him.

I did like the interplay between Sam and Daniel about Cam going off on his own again. I'm glad that the other characters seem annoyed by this character trait of Cameron's as well. I also wonder if that was part of the reason Teal'c didn't hesitate to try to slug him. Even if he knew it wouldn't actually hurt him, it seemed to bother Cam, and maybe that was the point.

I wonder if they are as sick of him as I am?

Oh, and I forgot, Colonel Reynolds was there! And he was snarky. Go Reynolds! I rather like him. I worry for him, though, the rate they're killing off recurring characters.

I like Reynolds, ergo, he must be doomed.

[the fifth man]

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Do you think he has become the Felger replacement?

Hopefully not entirely. He can be pretty funny at times, but I agree that there should be limits to it. There should be only one Felger. That's more than enough for the SGC to handle already.

[prion]

I gave up reading this thread due to all the arguing.

Anyway, it was an okay episode. Something I could tape and watch later because the invisibility stuff has been done before, and well, it wasn't exciting. I do still like the characters, but.... please for heaven's sake stop having Teal'c shooting everything with two guns. It's ridiculous macho posturing.

But the end wrapped up too quickly, should have had a small scene back at base.

Need new writers, well, need BETTER new writers, I should say.

[the fifth man]

Need new writers, well, need BETTER new writers, I should say.

Ouch! That stings a little.

[entil2001]

Despite the fact that this is not advertised or officially designated as the first part of a three-part arc ending the season, this is an episode with number of lingering plot threads. The ending is especially annoying, because the episode doesn’t so much end as stop because it was time to stop. Granted, one doesn’t expect a secret weapon that could be used against ascended beings to come into play until the season finale.

Actually, I have to wonder if the writers would take things in a very different direction. After all, the Priors are supposed to be in the Milky Way for the purposes of wiping out the Ancients so the Ori can step in and take control. Finding the weapon that Merlin created to take down the Ancients himself would be useful against the Ori, but it would also be useful to the Priors.

One nice touch is the tie-in to the first few episodes of the season. Previously, the allusions to Arthurian mythology seemed out of place and somewhat gratuitous. It still feels that way, frankly, but at least it’s going somewhere. I didn’t catch any explanation for how Arthurian mythology fit into the story as it stands, but perhaps that will be pulled together before long.

While the “alternate universe” plot thread was mostly a means of slipping in the exposition regarding the Merlin/Arthur’s Mantle concept, I liked that it was interwoven into the Sodan plot thread. Unfortunately, the Sodan plot thread annoyed me to no end. The Sodan were a nice way to riff on the Jaffa while tying them directly into the Ori arc. Now, that’s not possible, because the Sodan are dead. And they were killed by a Sodan warrior turned into an Ori Zombie, which was just a bit lame.

That’s not to say that the episode was lacking in redeeming qualities. The interplay between Mitchell and Teal’c is becoming one of the best features of the show, which will serve as a nice complement, I’m sure, to future Daniel/Vala banter. And though Sam is often the odd one out in such cases, she has a great rapport with Daniel in this episode. I was also amused by Dr. Lee and his usual antics, which could have been a lot more tiresome.

This episode continues to bring the season back in the direction of the arc that dominated the first half of the ninth season, and presumably, the seeds for the tenth season are also being planted. While the producers and writers still talk about loosening the arc structure even more (thus returning to a format that I found tiresome by the fifth season), there’s still enough question about the future of the series to force plot threads to be more prominent and connective.

[Zoser]

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I'm not at all bothered by Teal'c's shirt or double weapon. I guess if you think about it, he's a pretty burly guy and if he's not carrying the staff weapon anymore (which requires two hands), why shouldn't he carry two weapons. Obviously he can handle them, and it seems like a good idea to be able to fire in two directions or spray over a wide area or one after the other in close succession. I don't suppose it would be believeable for a human, but it would for a Jaffa--at least for me.

Since you can only see in one direction at a time firing in two separate direction is at best fool hardy at worst - friendly fire accident.