Possibly I'm overthinking things a bit.
Aug. 27th, 2006 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auntiemeeshWell, I have finally seen both Counterstrike and Common Ground.
Common Ground - Okay, well, I liked this better than Counterstrike, that's certain. There were a lot of things about this that I like a lot, actually, most of it revolving around the Wraith.
The writers finally got around to letting us see that there's more to Wraith civilization than hibernating for hundreds of years, waking up, eating a lot of people and then hibernating for a couple hundred years again.
This unnamed Wraith that Sheppard deals with gives us a new perspective. He's been held prisoner for untold years by the Genii and he's distilled down to his basic essence. But he has not become an unthinking animal, all rational thought driven away by hunger. In fact, just the opposite, he has become somewhat philosophical. 'Who do you blame?' he asks, 'the Wraith or the Master?' He's not attempting to rationalize, he's just setting it out there - he's been starved for years, of course he's going to feed when he gets the chance. But he's not a willing tool of the Genii, he's able to think for himself and when he sees an opportunity to escape, he takes it, even if it means not draining the only food source he's got.
He displays humor and honor. There was no need for him to save Sheppard at the end. He fed well on the Genii and certainly had enough strength the brave the gate alone, but he and Sheppard had a deal, they both go through the 'gate alive, and he keeps that bargain even though it puts him in more jeopardy.
I also approved of the way the moral/political dilemma of dealing with terrorists was dealt with. Of course they couldn't give in to Kolya's demands. They know that even if he kept his word it would leave them vulnerable to continued attacks of that sort. A hard line must be kept. But it was tempting, none the less. They had the means at their disposal to end the situation and bring Sheppard home and instead they had to sit back and watch as their friend was horribly tortured. And not just once, but over and over again, each time having to refuse to save him. Sheppard isn't the only one that's going to have nightmares about this for a long time to come.
What I didn't like was the typical 'no consequences' approach that the writers take with this show. After the first feeding I thought, this is something they can't take back. They're going to have to deal, at least in some limited form, with this in future episodes, even if it just means sprinkling a little grey in Shep's hair. By the time the third feeding had come around I knew they were going to undo it all. I didn't know how - maybe it was all some sort of mind game someone was playing (I didn't guess the Gift of Life thing until right before it happened), but they weren't going to kill Sheppard and they weren't going to leave him as old and decrepit as he was. This was only cemented after the Wraith drained him after their escape. As I said earlier, I really liked what we learned about the Wraith with his willingness to save Sheppard, but I just can't have a lot of respect for TPTB for giving themselves such an easy out. 'Oh, we want to torture Shep and make things look as bad as bad can be, but we want to end the show with the status quo in place.'
I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is the season of fanfic on SGA. Which in some ways is very entertaining, because we're getting moments that I would completely not have expected to get, but it's also frustrating because the writers are picking some of the very worst aspects of fic to emulate. They're putting their protagonists in situations that seemingly have no way out - Sheppard being sucked dry by a Wraith - and then coming along with a miracle rescue - the Wraith restoring Sheppard. This is a technique that I will sometimes accept from a fanfic writer, if the story is entertaining enough and well-written otherwise, but only because fanfic writers are, in most cases, not professional writers of science fiction and I don't hold them to the same standards as professional writers. When I see the same thing in published authors, I stop buying their books. I had to give up on Terry Goodkind altogether because it was the only trick in his bag - giving his protagonist a series of unbeatable situations which the protagonist then proceded to beat, only to be given an even harder unbeatable situation.
I love seeing how much the team has bonded and how much like family they have all become, but some of the episodes this season have really beat us over the head with it (that being the mandate of the season, they're determined to get the point across with extreme prejudice). I'm sorry but Carson and Rodney arguing over who loved Ronon more (in Sateda) was just plain disturbing. It wasn't quite so bad in this episode. Other than Ronon nearly killing Ladon with the pure emotional power of his fury that his friend had been taken, no one really engaged in "OMG our friend's been stolen from us and tortured before our eyes" histrionics. The concern that everyone feels is clearly written in their action and body language and was, thankfully, left mostly unexpressed. And I liked that Sheppard was so confident that his friends were coming for him. He didn't go all soppy about it, just calmly insisted that they would be coming for him. I've seen some people make comparisons to his lack of faith in the team in Epiphany, but I don't see it that way. He hung out in the cave for days waiting for Rodney to come get him and only gave up when he ran out of food and water and had to make a choice between going out and finding supplies, or waiting and possibly dying of thirst in the meantime. And he made the right choice there. And yeah, maybe he began to doubt that they were coming, but who wouldn't in that situation. In Common Ground, however, we have to remember that for as much as happened, he was only a prisoner for about one day, maybe even less. As the military commander of the expedition, he knows what's involved in finding a missing person who's been taken through a 'gate. He knows they're working on it, and they're not late, so his faith in them isn't tested the way it was in Epiphany.
So, to sum up, I'm a sucker for woobie-whumping and there was plenty of that to make me happy, and for that I liked the episode in a purely shallow manner. I loved the treatment of the Wraith issue in this episode as well. I just wish the writers would allow for a little more subtlety in the way they tell their stories and give us the credit of knowing we're intelligent enough to get the message they're trying to send without leaving us feeling bruised and battered by it. Although judging by most of the comments I've seen on the season so far, I'm not in the majority with my dissatisfaction.
Counterstrike - I was utterly underwhelmed with this one. Mainly because the Jaffa are just the dumbest things ever. Sorry, Bra'tac and Teal'c but your people are just dumber than dirt. I laughed out loud when Thug One declared that the Jaffa would have earned their freedom without the Tau'ri. It took the SGC proving that the Goa'uld were defeatable before more than one or two isolated Jaffa were willing to join the cause and even then it was a hard, uphill battle.
Also, apparently honor means nothing to them, now that they've been freed from their false Gods. Se'tak feels himself to be under no obligation to honor an alliance created by his predecessors and is entirely willing to believe that SGC would send the Ori ship to destroy the weapon on Dakara just because they are unhappy with their allies.
For once I have to be grateful for the Ori, because the SGC would never have authorized blowing up their allies, but Se'tac was not budging on his position and the weapon would have been used again and again, killing countless millions of people who were, in effect, given no choices at all. Bow to the Ori and the Jaffa would use their superweapon to kill every single person on the planet. Resist the Ori and they would use one of the many tricks at their ascended disposal to kill all life on the planet. Talk about a rock and a hard place. I suppose the Jaffa justify it by saying if the people resist the Ori, then at least they will die with honor (kinda ironic, considering just how much the Jaffa leadership has at its disposal these days). So Adria used her ship to destroy Dakara. No more Jaffa superweapon, and no more Se'tac. One can only hope that next time around, the Jaffa choose a little more wisely in their choice of leadership.
I wonder if anyone has kept track of the number of times the Odyssey has swooped in and beamed SG-1 up at the very last second before utter destruction. It happened twice in this episode. I can think of a couple of other times off hand and I'm sure if I went back and checked there'd be even more. The writers have really just fallen down on the job if that's the only way they can save their heroes. I'll be making the same argument down below in the Common Ground discussion as well.
Common Ground - Okay, well, I liked this better than Counterstrike, that's certain. There were a lot of things about this that I like a lot, actually, most of it revolving around the Wraith.
The writers finally got around to letting us see that there's more to Wraith civilization than hibernating for hundreds of years, waking up, eating a lot of people and then hibernating for a couple hundred years again.
This unnamed Wraith that Sheppard deals with gives us a new perspective. He's been held prisoner for untold years by the Genii and he's distilled down to his basic essence. But he has not become an unthinking animal, all rational thought driven away by hunger. In fact, just the opposite, he has become somewhat philosophical. 'Who do you blame?' he asks, 'the Wraith or the Master?' He's not attempting to rationalize, he's just setting it out there - he's been starved for years, of course he's going to feed when he gets the chance. But he's not a willing tool of the Genii, he's able to think for himself and when he sees an opportunity to escape, he takes it, even if it means not draining the only food source he's got.
He displays humor and honor. There was no need for him to save Sheppard at the end. He fed well on the Genii and certainly had enough strength the brave the gate alone, but he and Sheppard had a deal, they both go through the 'gate alive, and he keeps that bargain even though it puts him in more jeopardy.
I also approved of the way the moral/political dilemma of dealing with terrorists was dealt with. Of course they couldn't give in to Kolya's demands. They know that even if he kept his word it would leave them vulnerable to continued attacks of that sort. A hard line must be kept. But it was tempting, none the less. They had the means at their disposal to end the situation and bring Sheppard home and instead they had to sit back and watch as their friend was horribly tortured. And not just once, but over and over again, each time having to refuse to save him. Sheppard isn't the only one that's going to have nightmares about this for a long time to come.
What I didn't like was the typical 'no consequences' approach that the writers take with this show. After the first feeding I thought, this is something they can't take back. They're going to have to deal, at least in some limited form, with this in future episodes, even if it just means sprinkling a little grey in Shep's hair. By the time the third feeding had come around I knew they were going to undo it all. I didn't know how - maybe it was all some sort of mind game someone was playing (I didn't guess the Gift of Life thing until right before it happened), but they weren't going to kill Sheppard and they weren't going to leave him as old and decrepit as he was. This was only cemented after the Wraith drained him after their escape. As I said earlier, I really liked what we learned about the Wraith with his willingness to save Sheppard, but I just can't have a lot of respect for TPTB for giving themselves such an easy out. 'Oh, we want to torture Shep and make things look as bad as bad can be, but we want to end the show with the status quo in place.'
I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is the season of fanfic on SGA. Which in some ways is very entertaining, because we're getting moments that I would completely not have expected to get, but it's also frustrating because the writers are picking some of the very worst aspects of fic to emulate. They're putting their protagonists in situations that seemingly have no way out - Sheppard being sucked dry by a Wraith - and then coming along with a miracle rescue - the Wraith restoring Sheppard. This is a technique that I will sometimes accept from a fanfic writer, if the story is entertaining enough and well-written otherwise, but only because fanfic writers are, in most cases, not professional writers of science fiction and I don't hold them to the same standards as professional writers. When I see the same thing in published authors, I stop buying their books. I had to give up on Terry Goodkind altogether because it was the only trick in his bag - giving his protagonist a series of unbeatable situations which the protagonist then proceded to beat, only to be given an even harder unbeatable situation.
I love seeing how much the team has bonded and how much like family they have all become, but some of the episodes this season have really beat us over the head with it (that being the mandate of the season, they're determined to get the point across with extreme prejudice). I'm sorry but Carson and Rodney arguing over who loved Ronon more (in Sateda) was just plain disturbing. It wasn't quite so bad in this episode. Other than Ronon nearly killing Ladon with the pure emotional power of his fury that his friend had been taken, no one really engaged in "OMG our friend's been stolen from us and tortured before our eyes" histrionics. The concern that everyone feels is clearly written in their action and body language and was, thankfully, left mostly unexpressed. And I liked that Sheppard was so confident that his friends were coming for him. He didn't go all soppy about it, just calmly insisted that they would be coming for him. I've seen some people make comparisons to his lack of faith in the team in Epiphany, but I don't see it that way. He hung out in the cave for days waiting for Rodney to come get him and only gave up when he ran out of food and water and had to make a choice between going out and finding supplies, or waiting and possibly dying of thirst in the meantime. And he made the right choice there. And yeah, maybe he began to doubt that they were coming, but who wouldn't in that situation. In Common Ground, however, we have to remember that for as much as happened, he was only a prisoner for about one day, maybe even less. As the military commander of the expedition, he knows what's involved in finding a missing person who's been taken through a 'gate. He knows they're working on it, and they're not late, so his faith in them isn't tested the way it was in Epiphany.
So, to sum up, I'm a sucker for woobie-whumping and there was plenty of that to make me happy, and for that I liked the episode in a purely shallow manner. I loved the treatment of the Wraith issue in this episode as well. I just wish the writers would allow for a little more subtlety in the way they tell their stories and give us the credit of knowing we're intelligent enough to get the message they're trying to send without leaving us feeling bruised and battered by it. Although judging by most of the comments I've seen on the season so far, I'm not in the majority with my dissatisfaction.
Counterstrike - I was utterly underwhelmed with this one. Mainly because the Jaffa are just the dumbest things ever. Sorry, Bra'tac and Teal'c but your people are just dumber than dirt. I laughed out loud when Thug One declared that the Jaffa would have earned their freedom without the Tau'ri. It took the SGC proving that the Goa'uld were defeatable before more than one or two isolated Jaffa were willing to join the cause and even then it was a hard, uphill battle.
Also, apparently honor means nothing to them, now that they've been freed from their false Gods. Se'tak feels himself to be under no obligation to honor an alliance created by his predecessors and is entirely willing to believe that SGC would send the Ori ship to destroy the weapon on Dakara just because they are unhappy with their allies.
For once I have to be grateful for the Ori, because the SGC would never have authorized blowing up their allies, but Se'tac was not budging on his position and the weapon would have been used again and again, killing countless millions of people who were, in effect, given no choices at all. Bow to the Ori and the Jaffa would use their superweapon to kill every single person on the planet. Resist the Ori and they would use one of the many tricks at their ascended disposal to kill all life on the planet. Talk about a rock and a hard place. I suppose the Jaffa justify it by saying if the people resist the Ori, then at least they will die with honor (kinda ironic, considering just how much the Jaffa leadership has at its disposal these days). So Adria used her ship to destroy Dakara. No more Jaffa superweapon, and no more Se'tac. One can only hope that next time around, the Jaffa choose a little more wisely in their choice of leadership.
I wonder if anyone has kept track of the number of times the Odyssey has swooped in and beamed SG-1 up at the very last second before utter destruction. It happened twice in this episode. I can think of a couple of other times off hand and I'm sure if I went back and checked there'd be even more. The writers have really just fallen down on the job if that's the only way they can save their heroes. I'll be making the same argument down below in the Common Ground discussion as well.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 03:32 am (UTC)And yes, the Jaffa have become progressively more tiresome as free people. How sad that they forfeited the noble-warrior thing in favor of the power-mad politician thing.
As for being beaten over the head, well, when I think 'subtlety,' my first thought isn't Stargate. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 04:41 pm (UTC)From the standpoint of marketing the show and allowing for syndication, that makes complete sense, but it really puts a lot of constraints on what writers are able to do and how much of a consequence any one episode can have for the series as a whole.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-29 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-29 03:02 am (UTC)That would be very nice, and doesn't seem too unreasonable. I kinda see John as just getting a little bit angrier and unpredictable than he has been (he already seems to me to be angrier and more unpredictable this season and I can see that getting continuing to grow).
And my post ep tag sort of explored the other end of things too.
I really liked your tag. The idea of John having a little bit of Wraith in him now is just cool, and I loved the end, with John placing his hand on Rodney's chest and freaking out for a minute before relaxing and knowing he's safe. :)
I have a few ideas of my own for a tag, that I can't get out of my head, but I'm finding it difficult to get them down in anything near what I want.