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campylobacterSo this week I watched 3x08 "Demons" (OMGWTF?) and 3x09 "Rules of Engagement" (OK, LOL) for the first time.
"Demons" spoilers and picspam to follow.
3x08 "Demons" is the episode that I'd made a LOLGate about all planets looking like Vancouver, back in November.
The ep started out rather promising, and RDA did a cute Dr. Evil impersonation.
"They're not buying' it, Danny." Ha ha ha! I love it when Jack calls Daniel "Danny".
The "stone" prop that looks like a gothic music stand says in "Middle English":
"MYN IESUS BE YE SEREWES THOU SUFFERID
IN THY PASSION IN YE GARDYN IN THY SCOURGEING
AND THY CORONYNG WITH THORYNS
IN THY IANGRYNG ON YE CROSSC AND THY DEETHE
SHEWE MERCY TO THOSE WHO ARN ABOUTE TO BE DELIVERED UNTO YE DEVELL"
And look! A cute little Unas in bas-relief! (Click twice to make it bigger.)
Now, if you listen to Joel Goldsmith's incidental music, you'll hear 2 tenors and 2 basses singing Latin (not Middle English) in almost similar chord progressions that occur in Season 9's Ori mytharc. THAT IS SO COOL.
Makes me wonder if this planet started worshipping the Ori when they invaded the galaxy 6 years later. OMG LET'S WRITE FANFIC ABOUT THAT Y'ALL!
Was it a coincidence that they cast a Rush Limbaugh lookalike to play the bad guy? (Alan C. Peterson also guest starred on Stargate Atlantis in 2x05 "Condemned" as the Magistrate.)
The Canon was LARGER THAN LIFE, and I'm not referring to his size. All the actor's choices for this character were over the top; there was nothing likable or human about him to balance the sanctimonious, sneering portrayal.
I can't entirely blame the actor if Peter DeLuise (see the hooded extra below) directed him that way, and certainly a lot of the FAIL goes to Carl Binder's script, which was his ONLY solo script for the entire series.
Heh. Evil villains who are mustache-twirlingly evil are often easy to hate, and move the plot along quickly, but are so predictably evil that the "plot twist" at the end comes as NO SURPRISE.
Oh, lookie! The Canon's Deus Ex Machina ring is the exact same design as Vala's Goa'uld healing device!
(That must've saved some money for episode 8x12 "Prometheus Unbound".)
Jack can identify chicken pox with certainty -- perhaps his son Charlie once had the same disease? That's some Jack fanfic backstory for ya!
I confess to tearing up when I saw Daniel, Sam, & Jack's reactions to Teal'c's drowning...
DANIEL: We'll go back where we came from!
SAM: He's innocent!
JACK: You sons of bitches!
Sons of bitches wearing large codpieces.
If he floats, he's a witch.
It takes a lot to make Sam cry.
From this script, we learn that Teal'c can survive immersion if he can prepare with kel'no'reem so that Junior can convert enough oxygen for him.
Gratuitous screen grab of that lucky extra oiling Chris Judge's arm muscles. NOMNOMNOM
Look! Teal'c's smiling at Jack's joy that he's alive. Ngaaaww. (I 'ship Jack/Teal'c when I see stuff like this.)
After poor Teal'c rose from the dead, the plot holes became big enough for a Unas to walk through. I had to suspend my disbelief that 4 fit, trained, taller-than-average adults couldn't escape overnight from the chains in the public square, especially since the Unas unpinned them with a simple little crowbar. I had to tell myself that when SG-1 so much as rattled a chain, the beefy codpiece guards came out and smacked around Chicken Pox Girl (Mary). MISSING SCENE IS MISSING.
I did enjoy ogling Daniel in chains, though. Mmm.
OK, so if we're chained single-file to 4 other people and we wanna defeat a single Unas, how about we just stop walking and then get into an epic tug-of-war with the bastard?
Oh right! MISSING SCENE: They tried that, and the Unas bitch-slapped the prisoner closest to him: Jack. Peter DeLuise, Y U NO SHOOT THAT SCENE? (BTW, Andy Mikita was Assistant Director on this ep, and officially became a director 8 episodes later with 3x14 "Foothold"! He directed 29 eps total, all the way to 10x17 "Talion".)
So anyway, Smart!Jack has telepathic eye-sex with Teal'c, Sam & Daniel, who tells Chicken Pox Girl that they're gonna roll down the ridge to escape. I have no idea how long it took for the stunt doubles to set up that scene, but OUCH. Now they have the Unas's Magic crowbar! w00t!
But apparently, we have to let it trail on the ground behind Dumb!Jack so that the Unas can catch up with them and step on it to stop them cold. Okay. WhatEV. I hate it when they write Dumb!Jack. He's a trained special ops officer who'd never make a mistake like that. :-p That whole rolling-down-the-ridge becomes pointless in this story once the Unas catches up with them again.
Hanno-- oops,
I mean Simon the Off-Planet Everyman uses Teal'c's staff weapon to blast the Unas, who chases after him, leaving the Team to escape easily AT LAST, and then there follows the Canon's unconvincing conversion after the Unas finally succumbs to the fatal staff blasts. If the Canon had been allowed to play some ambiguous, non-sanctimonious beats earlier in the episode, then he would've fooled the audience. But there's no way anyone could buy his act, and made his relinquishing the deus ex machina ring to Jack totally unmotivated and quite frankly, DUMB. A fake gesture of trust, very poorly played.
Jack's telepathic eye-sex with Sam while she's dialing home alerts him that something's wrong. She senses that (dun-dun-DUUUUUUN!) the Goa'uld is using the Canon as host!!! (Yeah, gee, nobody saw THAT coming.) And Teal'c couldn't also sense that? OMGWTF. Equally dumb is everyone gathering around the dying man with a Goa'uld in his head. Why didn't the Goa'uld jump into another new host? I guess they figured the snake was too weak to jump a second time?
Only Joel Goldsmith's beautiful pre-Ori music and Simon's Prayer for Suffering Souls arouse sympathy for the Canon's death. To give Peter DeLuise credit, this was only the 4th of 69 eps for SG-1 he directed, but still… if he'd never shot the rolling-down-the-ridge stunt and included crucial missing scenes, this would've been a stronger episode.
The final scene where SG-1 dematerializes as they walk through the event horizon SHOT FROM BEHIND THE GATE was money well spent. A very beautiful parting image.
This wasn't a complete failure of an episode, but I can see why Carl Binder was disappointed with the result of his freshman effort and never wrote another complete teleplay.
Anyway, I'd originally intended to pose a simple question to my F-List: Should I watch 3x10 "Forever in a Day" today? Because I know what's coming, and Daniel being my 2nd favorite character next to Vala, well… I had to prepare myself emotionally.
PS: I just got finished watching FIAD. MAI CREYZ! Auuuugh!
"Demons" spoilers and picspam to follow.
3x08 "Demons" is the episode that I'd made a LOLGate about all planets looking like Vancouver, back in November.
The ep started out rather promising, and RDA did a cute Dr. Evil impersonation.
"They're not buying' it, Danny." Ha ha ha! I love it when Jack calls Daniel "Danny".
The "stone" prop that looks like a gothic music stand says in "Middle English":
"MYN IESUS BE YE SEREWES THOU SUFFERID
IN THY PASSION IN YE GARDYN IN THY SCOURGEING
AND THY CORONYNG WITH THORYNS
IN THY IANGRYNG ON YE CROSSC AND THY DEETHE
SHEWE MERCY TO THOSE WHO ARN ABOUTE TO BE DELIVERED UNTO YE DEVELL"
And look! A cute little Unas in bas-relief! (Click twice to make it bigger.)
Now, if you listen to Joel Goldsmith's incidental music, you'll hear 2 tenors and 2 basses singing Latin (not Middle English) in almost similar chord progressions that occur in Season 9's Ori mytharc. THAT IS SO COOL.
Makes me wonder if this planet started worshipping the Ori when they invaded the galaxy 6 years later. OMG LET'S WRITE FANFIC ABOUT THAT Y'ALL!
Was it a coincidence that they cast a Rush Limbaugh lookalike to play the bad guy? (Alan C. Peterson also guest starred on Stargate Atlantis in 2x05 "Condemned" as the Magistrate.)
The Canon was LARGER THAN LIFE, and I'm not referring to his size. All the actor's choices for this character were over the top; there was nothing likable or human about him to balance the sanctimonious, sneering portrayal.
I can't entirely blame the actor if Peter DeLuise (see the hooded extra below) directed him that way, and certainly a lot of the FAIL goes to Carl Binder's script, which was his ONLY solo script for the entire series.
Heh. Evil villains who are mustache-twirlingly evil are often easy to hate, and move the plot along quickly, but are so predictably evil that the "plot twist" at the end comes as NO SURPRISE.
Oh, lookie! The Canon's Deus Ex Machina ring is the exact same design as Vala's Goa'uld healing device!
(That must've saved some money for episode 8x12 "Prometheus Unbound".)
Jack can identify chicken pox with certainty -- perhaps his son Charlie once had the same disease? That's some Jack fanfic backstory for ya!
I confess to tearing up when I saw Daniel, Sam, & Jack's reactions to Teal'c's drowning...
DANIEL: We'll go back where we came from!
SAM: He's innocent!
JACK: You sons of bitches!
Sons of bitches wearing large codpieces.
If he floats, he's a witch.
It takes a lot to make Sam cry.
From this script, we learn that Teal'c can survive immersion if he can prepare with kel'no'reem so that Junior can convert enough oxygen for him.
Gratuitous screen grab of that lucky extra oiling Chris Judge's arm muscles. NOMNOMNOM
Look! Teal'c's smiling at Jack's joy that he's alive. Ngaaaww. (I 'ship Jack/Teal'c when I see stuff like this.)
After poor Teal'c rose from the dead, the plot holes became big enough for a Unas to walk through. I had to suspend my disbelief that 4 fit, trained, taller-than-average adults couldn't escape overnight from the chains in the public square, especially since the Unas unpinned them with a simple little crowbar. I had to tell myself that when SG-1 so much as rattled a chain, the beefy codpiece guards came out and smacked around Chicken Pox Girl (Mary). MISSING SCENE IS MISSING.
I did enjoy ogling Daniel in chains, though. Mmm.
OK, so if we're chained single-file to 4 other people and we wanna defeat a single Unas, how about we just stop walking and then get into an epic tug-of-war with the bastard?
Oh right! MISSING SCENE: They tried that, and the Unas bitch-slapped the prisoner closest to him: Jack. Peter DeLuise, Y U NO SHOOT THAT SCENE? (BTW, Andy Mikita was Assistant Director on this ep, and officially became a director 8 episodes later with 3x14 "Foothold"! He directed 29 eps total, all the way to 10x17 "Talion".)
So anyway, Smart!Jack has telepathic eye-sex with Teal'c, Sam & Daniel, who tells Chicken Pox Girl that they're gonna roll down the ridge to escape. I have no idea how long it took for the stunt doubles to set up that scene, but OUCH. Now they have the Unas's Magic crowbar! w00t!
But apparently, we have to let it trail on the ground behind Dumb!Jack so that the Unas can catch up with them and step on it to stop them cold. Okay. WhatEV. I hate it when they write Dumb!Jack. He's a trained special ops officer who'd never make a mistake like that. :-p That whole rolling-down-the-ridge becomes pointless in this story once the Unas catches up with them again.
Hanno-- oops,
I mean Simon the Off-Planet Everyman uses Teal'c's staff weapon to blast the Unas, who chases after him, leaving the Team to escape easily AT LAST, and then there follows the Canon's unconvincing conversion after the Unas finally succumbs to the fatal staff blasts. If the Canon had been allowed to play some ambiguous, non-sanctimonious beats earlier in the episode, then he would've fooled the audience. But there's no way anyone could buy his act, and made his relinquishing the deus ex machina ring to Jack totally unmotivated and quite frankly, DUMB. A fake gesture of trust, very poorly played.
Jack's telepathic eye-sex with Sam while she's dialing home alerts him that something's wrong. She senses that (dun-dun-DUUUUUUN!) the Goa'uld is using the Canon as host!!! (Yeah, gee, nobody saw THAT coming.) And Teal'c couldn't also sense that? OMGWTF. Equally dumb is everyone gathering around the dying man with a Goa'uld in his head. Why didn't the Goa'uld jump into another new host? I guess they figured the snake was too weak to jump a second time?
Only Joel Goldsmith's beautiful pre-Ori music and Simon's Prayer for Suffering Souls arouse sympathy for the Canon's death. To give Peter DeLuise credit, this was only the 4th of 69 eps for SG-1 he directed, but still… if he'd never shot the rolling-down-the-ridge stunt and included crucial missing scenes, this would've been a stronger episode.
The final scene where SG-1 dematerializes as they walk through the event horizon SHOT FROM BEHIND THE GATE was money well spent. A very beautiful parting image.
This wasn't a complete failure of an episode, but I can see why Carl Binder was disappointed with the result of his freshman effort and never wrote another complete teleplay.
Anyway, I'd originally intended to pose a simple question to my F-List: Should I watch 3x10 "Forever in a Day" today? Because I know what's coming, and Daniel being my 2nd favorite character next to Vala, well… I had to prepare myself emotionally.
PS: I just got finished watching FIAD. MAI CREYZ! Auuuugh!
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Date: 2011-01-22 10:53 pm (UTC)He does have the scar in seasons 9 and 10 as well as Continuum, but you are correct that he doesn't appear to have it in SGU. Maybe he got sick of having his eyebrow shaved, lol.
I watched Return I & II the other night and noticed that he does have it in some scenes, but not in others. I wonder if they simply forgot to shave it in until part way through the shoot? He did have it in The Real World though.