Prometheus Unbound (812)

[Hatcheter]

This was a pretty entertaining episode. Not the best, but far from the worst. Some good looks at some of the characters; if not development, at least an examination of where they are now.

Daniel: He's come a long way from the geek who first went through the Stargate. He's spent eight years on an elite special forces combat team (save a year long sabatical to a higher plane ). It's only reasonable that he's picked up weapon and hand-to-hand combat skills. He's had Teal'c available to train him.

Hammond: Nice to see him get out "into the field". I hope all his appearances in the future are as good as this one. And we finally got to see his third star, it's now confirmed that he's a lieutenant general.

Walter: He's gotten more lines this season than seasons 1-7, I think. Hopefully that continues into season 9.

Reynolds: I like the character. It's about time that they had another SG team that appeared with some regularity. Maybe we'll find out that his team has saved the world too. Just once, though. Question: Is he Air Force ot a Marine?

Vala: Not really what I expected, but I think that's a good thing. With the terms she left on, it will be interesting to see how she'll reappear next season. Forget about a place on SG-1, the woman is essentially a space pirate. I'm thinking she'll become Daniel's Maybourne: he doesn't like her, but will be forced to work with her to accomplish some goal. Then try to stab her in the back before she can do it to him.

And a question about the Prometheus: We saw Vala studying a rack full of clear control crystals in the engine room, unlike the Goa'uld color coded ones. Has the earth begun to manufacture it's own crystal technology?

[Ace]

I still say that Teal'c taught him a thing or two

Ace

[po134]

BeWaRe Of SpOiLeR for This episode and for the news about S9 about that we'll see this ladie aigain.
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I read five minutes ago that the actress who stole the prometheus during this episode will return during 5 other episode in S9 [perhaps more ].
I didn't really catch her real motivation, was there really people to save ? Did she change de destination ? Did she just want to get some naquada for his 0wn ship ?

Who/what do you think will be the new ennemy ? Will we meet these crazy aliens we saw aigain ? we could trade with them [If they are treader, it must mean there is a lot of people we didn't met yet !!! (I know we don't know where they come from, but the ladie know and we'll saw her aigain)]

Why didn't they beam the naqua onboard ? [They must have fix their asgard beaming technology]
What will the ladie will do in the S9 episode ? will we save her people ? will we fight with her people ? (They also have a ship armada, with both armade we should be able to defend a planet). Was she entirely lying ? And if she was, why would she come back ?

So many questions, and the episode gives almost no answer

[JackDaniels]

Well. after watching the episode last night, i've watched it another 3 times now. I know this makes me sad to many, but i really enjoyed it, it was funny, a little camp, made up for the complete lack of MS in Gemini (they set up the episode at the start of Gemini, but did it take him a whole week to talk to Jack?), and gave us some Walter/Hammond action that indicates that they has actually become friends while all the teams were off world!

Still really likiing reynolds and sg-3 though they should be ashamed for letting her beat them so quickly *having said this though, you have to say that its dubious Daniel could've taken her when all of sg-3 couldn't.

I know people have been questioning the chemistry between CB and MS but i think it was there and although he looked initially confused i think he kinda liked it in the end (also couldn't help noticing that he had his glasses off in all his scenes with her, but put them back on when he was away from her)

He looked hot in the super soldier outfit BTW.

And finally, issues about the ship. I think the shields failed so easily because of all the hull damage done when they were on the ground. I also think the Asquard shields would be quite weak given the size of the ship, As for weapons, maybe they were all used up because Daniel is suck a suck shot (he may be buff no how to handle a P-90 and be able to fight, but a weapons expert he ain't.

Also, really love that fight because of its cheesiness, though the more i watch it the more i become convinced that Daniel and Vala's fight has been based upon Hugh Grant and Colin Firth's characters in Bridget Jones. (esp the part where they're pullong each others ears!)

[keshou]

Seems like people either loved this episode or hated it. I guess I fall in the "loved parts of it / hated parts of it" category.

Great beginning. Classic Jack & Daniel banter, Hammond taking back his chair and wandering off on the Prometheus with Daniel and Walter.

Novak. hmm....might have been kind of an amusing character but the hiccups got old very fast for me.

Enter Claudia Black in a scene reminiscent of the Crichton/Aeryn introduction on Farscape. Pretty funny and I was happy that once Vala took off the helmet I really wasn't reminded of Aeryn anymore.

The sexual innuendo / cat fight stuff was overdone. Worst part of the episode for me. Might have been better if it hadn't gone on so long. That part kind of made me think I was watching Andromeda or something. I don't expect that on Stargate.

After that I actually thought things got interesting again once we heard Vala's story. I think Daniel fell for it a little bit and it made for a nice twist when the Naquada scam was revealed. I'm thinking Vala's the one like Hans Solo. At least the Hans Solo from the first Star Wars movie.

And Yay - Hammond and Walter saved the day. Vala finds a plot hole and escapes to return in S9.

I found Vala intriguing. I like that we still don't know what her story is - how much was lies and how much was truth. I think there could be some interesting layers to explore in S9 and if they tone down some of the sex-kitten stuff (which I think was mostly bravado anyway) i think I could like this character a lot.

I also like that Daniel never fell for her in the romantic sense although I suspect he really wanted to believe her story about helping her people. Too bad she was lying. hehe. I liked their last interaction - Daniel zatting her before she could finish her sentence.

So this didn't feel like Stargate at times (kind of like Space Race) but it was fun. A few changes and it could have been great. Daniel didn't really seem like Daniel all the time either although I do like it when he's snarky.

"You're a fruitcake".

[Albion]

I really don't understand why people say Daniel couldn't do this or that. Just because we don't see something on screen, doesn't mean it never happened. You do have to fill in a few blanks here and there between times.

Like some other posters, it seems utterly implausible to me that Daniel wouldn't have gotten as much defensive training as possible over the years, in between missions. It's not just a question of Jack being able to trust that Daniel can look after himself in a fight (mostly), so he doesn't have to spend time saving his hide and being distracted in a firefight or hostile situation by looking out for him. But having a team member who can't at least halfway defend himself to the best that training can give him also puts the whole team at risk. Jack would do everything he could to train up Daniel in weapons and hand to hand over the years. It's a simple as being a good commanding officer and caring about Daniel's safety, as well as the team's.

As others have also pointed out, we've often seen Daniel in the gym and I'm sure that there must have been a few sparring sessions here and there with Teal'c. Why waste all that knowledge?

So I really don't have any problems with Daniel being a little more proficient with a gun these days (besides <shallow mode> he's pretty darn hot when he's running around blasting things ) or being a little more proactive in fighting. I think if he hadn't taken advantage of all that training on offer, given the dangerous situations he's faced over the years, he'd have to be a complete moron.

Logically, I can't think of a single reason why Daniel wouldn't have learned these skills over the years. And since we see the result of that training on screen these days - it must have taken place. QED.

Like I said in an earlier post, I did find the fight scene a little clumsy - but I realise it was intended to be and not to be really taken seriously. So it didn't bother me too much. Like the mouth to mouth hesitation - also made me frown because in the normal run of things I'd expect Reynolds and the others to be far too professional to act that way, as someone said, like schoolkids, but when you're doing a comedic episode like this you often get little details like these being stretched to the limits of credibility through poetic license. So, for me, these are all part and parcel of that style of episode. Not exactly perfectly correct for the characters, but not that way out of whack either.

And LOL re the fire extinguisher. Right on. I did find it slightly surprising that Daniel was still on his feet after being whacked between the legs with one.

Also agree about that manic grin from Vala - wonderfully funny.

Albion

[Madeleine]

...the sex-kitten stuff (which I think was mostly bravado anyway) ...

I think you're right, I think she was trying to use Feminine Wiles to get Daniel to lower his guard or help her steal the ship. And I don't think she's very practiced at Wiles - she might have observed her symbiote doing the 'have that boy washed and brought to my tent' thing - I'm sure symbiotes don't flirt - and consequently only know the most direct and unsubtle type of seduction. So her attempt at flirting was as subtle as a big unsubtle green elephant trying to do flower arranging.

[keshou]

I really don't understand why people say Daniel couldn't do this or that. Just because we don't see something on screen, doesn't mean it never happened. You do have to fill in a few blanks here and there between times.

I don't have any problem with Daniel being able to hold his own in a fight or being proficient with weapons. I think that's a logical development for the character. He's been in fights with all kinds of enemies and military tactics are bound to have rubbed off on him. And he's smart and a survivor. Well except all those times he's died.

My main reason for saying Daniel didn't seem very "Daniely" was because at times his mannerisms and facial expressions and vocal tones seemed off. More like MS's perhaps? Maybe when I see it in January I'll have a different opinion. I admit the sound being out of synch with the mouth was throwing me off.

I enjoyed it. It was fun. Just didn't always seem like I was always watching Daniel.

[Chevron_nine]

It seems to me a lot of people are taking this episode way too seriously, and that's why you can't enjoy it. I'm guessing those people have never watched Avenger 2.0, The Other Guys, Wormhole X-treme, Window of Opportunity or Urgo. This was just Season 8's comedic episode, and I must say that I loved it. I found hiccup lady to be hilarious. I don't know about you but when I get hiccups they annoy me like hell, so I can see how she's feeling. There are people who have chronic hiccup problems, so it's not so unbelievable.

There were soooo many scenes that had me LOLing, and most of them had already been listed so there's not point in me going through them.

"I am Olo, Hans Olo". That had me cracking up. It reminded me of Daniel's classic "Lo Tak Meka Satak Oz" line

It's not so hard to believe Prometheus was taken over by one person. After all she was wearing Super Soldier armor which is pretty much unstoppable, And she only had to disable about 15 people who were caught completely off guard.

The Prometheus wasn't attacked only by a few gliders, there were at least two Alkeshes, which can do some serious damage. Asgard technology isn't THAT much superior to goa'uld tech, as we saw in Revelations. With numbers the Goa'uld could probably take on the Asgard.

At this point TPTB had no idea there would be a season 9, and the episode probably wasn't written to introduce Vala as a recurring character, she was probably just intended as a one episode character and was written as such.
I had no problems with her. In season nine her character will probably be more than a sex-obsessed smuggler.
This got me thinking , what ever happened to Sarah Gardner? They could have used her for a few eps in season nine to fill the sam-gap.

And to those people who think stargate should go back to using the planet-of-the-week formula, I personally think "been there, done that." SG-1 has evolved and I'm loving the new changes. I would probably be getting bored if they stayed with the old formula. I prefer the long evolving story arcs, rather than the one-off episodes where SG-1 goes to a planet, solves some problem then goes home with very little story progression.

[Jarnin]

The Asgard hyper drive is installed, but it seems too slow.
When they get the distress call, Walter says the source of the signal is 50 lightyears off their designated route, and they can get there in 20 minutes. Considering that it's a distress call, they'd probably use their highest possible speed to get to the destination. Doing the math, that gives Prometheus a estimated top speed of ~150 lightyears an hour.

At that speed, it'd take them about 3 years to get to Pegasus.

Then again, traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, or so I've heard. It's possible that they're forced to travel at slower speeds within a galaxy due to all the stuff they could fly into. At this speed, it'd take them ~27 days to cross the galaxy, which is still pretty fast.
Once they got to the edge of the galaxy, they could ramp up the speed to whatever their top intergalactic speed is.


Overall, a very fun episode.

[njsutorius]

it really is pissin me off how so many of you people are accepting this crap they are feeding us.. teaser episodes that have no plots, and are missing half the cast and crew every other episode.. What happened to the real sg1 where we would go off world and explore and find cool stuff out, it makes me sad to say but i think they need to tie this off quick or drastic measures need to be taken to get this show back on track(been fine up until this season) THe worst thing that could happen to my favorite show period is pushing it farther then it can reach and in turn ruining all the goodness it has produced thus far.. on the up side at least atlantis is doign good..

[Buzz Lightyear]

well he's not just an archaeologist though, i mean he travels around with a military unit, we've seen him in the gym, have you seen how ripped he is? he's far from scrawny, i'd say he could definitely take RDA in a real life fight (by real life i mean, not SG1 universe because Jack's military experience could easily turn the tide of the fight). let's not even go into amanda tapping, as far as christopher judge goes... i dunno...

Being physically fit doesn't automatically make you a good fighter/brawler.

Of course anything is possible but within the context of the series, there has been nothing to support the hypothesis that Daniel can actually prevail against anyone who might actually have fighting credentials. Just because he travels within a military unit doesn't mean he has physical combatant skills. Have you seen all the scientists that go offworld on SG missions?

[Buzz Lightyear]

*Cough* Male writers almost never write about hitting males in the crotch, mostly because most fights are male vs male, and males never hit other males in the crotch, if you'd been hit in the crotch you'd know why

Hmm, you obviously haven't watched any Jean-Claude Van Damme movies.

[Buzz Lightyear]

I assume that Daniel could take Vala for two reasons:

First, I can't credit that Jack would allow Daniel offworld without him being trained. He'd have got some basic military training in s1 and would be expected to maintain his fitness and improve his combat skills over the years.

That's a faulty assumption. Fitness yes, though that's obviously an individual thing. There are numerous other scientists who go on offworld missions who quite clearly are not all that buff (the "Other Guys" come to mind but there are other examples). Daniel got basic *weapons" training, like the P90, the handgun and the zat, not hand-to-hand combat, which would clearly be a waste of time. Not to mention that Daniel isn't military, just a civilian scientist working within the military. But even military non-combatant personnel only have rudimentary self-defense training.

Secondly, I am a female somewhat sturdier than CB and almost certainly stronger. I have met MS and he's the same size as a couple of my judo partners. I can take them, cos I'm more skilled and experienced, but only if they play by the rules; judo grips and judo throws only. If they were to abandon the rules and start punching and taking whatever grip suited them I'd lose. It's the other way around when I fight the little teenage England Internationals, they beat me even though if it was a no-rule fight my strength and weight would win for me. What I was seeing was Daniel playing by rules and Vala not. Everything he did (other than the retaliatory and restrained punch in the face) was defensive until he was able to win without damaging her, and it put me in mind of how I fight against some of the nippy lithe chaps, letting them come at me and attackattackattack me, and then... sit on them

What does size have to do with physical combat skills? Daniel Jackson clearly isn't a brawler and he doesn't like hitting women. That's really all I infer from his actions. Vala, OTOH, does look like she's toying with him. Anyone who can take out Jaffa squads and SG teams with ease isn't likely to have problems with Daniel. People who fight regularly, as seems likely with her character, can size up the skills of the opponent in short order. I'm sure she quickly determined that Daniel wasn't a threat and thought she would be able to charm any information out of him.

[Hatcheter]

That's a faulty assumption. Fitness yes, though that's obviously an individual thing. There are numerous other scientists who go on offworld missions who quite clearly are not all that buff (the "Other Guys" come to mind but there are other examples). Daniel got basic *weapons" training, like the P90, the handgun and the zat, not hand-to-hand combat, which would clearly be a waste of time. Not to mention that Daniel isn't military, just a civilian scientist working within the military. But even military non-combatant personnel only have rudimentary self-defense training.

He's a civilian scientist working in the most elite of elite units. The scientists in 'The Other Guys' were researches taken to a relatively safe location to conduct some research. Daniel goes right to were the action is the hottest. Maybe in the first few seasons he was "poorly trained", but by this point, he's become a warrior-scholar.

What does size have to do with physical combat skills? Daniel Jackson clearly isn't a brawler and he doesn't like hitting women. That's really all I infer from his actions. Vala, OTOH, does look like she's toying with him. Anyone who can take out Jaffa squads and SG teams with ease isn't likely to have problems with Daniel. People who fight regularly, as seems likely with her character, can size up the skills of the opponent in short order. I'm sure she quickly determined that Daniel wasn't a threat and thought she would be able to charm any information out of him.

I gotta agree. I do think Vala had control, more or less, throughout the fight. And, she didn't hesitate to fight dirty. I guess it was only fair that Daniel zatted her to end the fight.