Reese’s Pieces of Destruction

THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS

When we join SG-1 today, we see them searching the remains of a now-dead civilization that had been wiped off the map by some unknown enemy.  The planet itself looked very cool, as modern ruins often do, but then they find someone laying in a building, giving off a strange energy signature.  So basically, my first thought was “Cassandra 2.0”, though luckily, that was not the case.  She’s just a robot, it’s fine.  And she wants to play…

From the very minute Reese wakes up to the rolling of the end credits, I felt bad for Reese.  This was an episode where I was entirely on Daniel Jackson’s side for every second of every minute.  I think there were certain moments where Daniel could’ve phrased things a little better, perhaps to keep himself from being shoved into a bookshelf between the novels Pain: A Story of Saying the Wrong Thing and Damn, That Looked Like That Hurt (both available where fine books are sold).  But all stitches aside, Dr. Jackson makes a very salient point about having met intelligent forms of life that aren’t necessarily human/biological (Hello Urgo!  Cumtraya!).  And while Harlan was well-meaning though slightly questionable, and Urgo was an irrepressively curious scamp, Reese was genuinely innocent in every sense of the word.  I don’t know about anyone else, but regardless of how much death and destruction the Replicators have caused, I just can’t bring myself to blame someone who is, essentially, a little girl who just wants to play with her toys and have a friend.  Even the entire debacle that was the Russian Stargate program (caused indirectly by the Replicators/Reese) gets a pass from me, because I just don’t believe that Reese had a single malicious thought in her… uh… processor… thingy… yeah.

So my sympathy and concern for Reese resulted in a few outbursts towards the climax of the story.  Number 1.)  Dr. Jackson regains Reese’s trust and says that he just wants to be her friend.  She calms down, smiles, and walks towards him.  I wanted so badly for things to calm down that I had forgotten that it was all a ploy to shut her off.  I understand that it was for security purposes, but for once, I question General Hammond’s orders, and was very perturbed when Jackson made his move for the off switch.  Could they seriously not see how well talking her down worked?  Yeah, she’s more than a little disturbed, but ultimately, she’s a child.  How hard is it to manipulate a child into not being destructive?  Especially when she wants something so simple as to have fun.  As long as they had Daniel babysit (occupy) her, the threat could’ve been nullified until they figured out their next step.  I know that there were Replicators crawling all over at this point, but she could’ve been asked (NICELY) to recall them.  I’m probably just being a massive hippie at this point, but like I said, I didn’t like the attempted betrayal.  And Number 2. outburst)  As you all can probably guess, I was NOT entirely pleased when Colonel O’Neill SHOT HER.  Not much to say about it.  Just felt, like Daniel, that it was entirely unnecessary.  Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking about the Asgard struggle like Dr. Jackson was, but still.

Pretty much this entire post has been made possible by one person: Danielle Nicolet, who played Reese.  I’ve gotta say, the acting on this show is usually just fine, especially with the core characters (SG-1, Hammond, Fraiser, Bra’tac, etc), but the performance by Danielle was absolutely phenomenal, above and beyond your average bad-guy-of-the-week!  As evidenced by everything I’ve just ranted about, she roped me into today’s episode and had me extremely emotionally invested in her character, to the point where I was QUESTIONING GENERAL HAMMOND’S ORDERS!  The closest thing I’ve ever done to that in the past was ask “Does Jack really need to blow this up too?”  And that concern of mine was totally legit!  But seriously, her performance was amazing, it was powerful, it made me love the character in under an hour, and made me look at Jack (my otherwise favorite character) and think to myself “Yeah, you son of a bitch!  What the hell?!”  So, a big thank you to Danielle Nicolet for her performance, I cannot laud her enough it seems.

This marks the end of December, the end of the year, however not the end of, thus far, my favorite season.  Due to how the weekends fall on the calendar (yeah, that’s what I’ll blame today), I’ve gone from 2 episodes behind to 3.  Not sure how I’m gonna catch up, but maybe next week I’ll do some extras.  Either way, thanks for reading, Happy Rewatch, and Happy New Year!

~Bryan

I am The Warrior (Part 2)

Ok, so we’re back to The Warrior and K’tano manipulating the Jaffa in a desperate attempt to gain power.  How desperate is he?  Well, he’s desperate enough to pretend to be a Jaffa when he’s actually a Goa’uld.  So pretty desperate, considering the amount of pride most Goa’uld possess.  It was actually a good plan.  He had me fooled into thinking he was just thought he was a fanatic.  But he broke the cardinal rule of staying alive: Telling Teal’c to bow to him.  I was actually a little confused as to why Yu would even spare Teal’c, in favor of him going back to out K’tano.  But really, it makes sense.  Teal’c goes back, topples the leadership of someone Yu would most certainly see as undeserving of power, and keep everyone distracted while the Ha’tak moves in on them.  And speaking of fighting, I’d just like to mention that the fight scene between K’tano and Teal’c was incredible.  And Rick Worthy actually studied Tae Kwon Do, so that was really him doing his own martial arts.  Very cool indeed.

The summary of the alliance situation at the beginning of the episode is pretty bleak.  The Tollan may very well be dead, the Tok’ra and hurting badly, and while they weren’t mentioned, the Asgard wouldn’t save the Tau’ri from a giant rock hurtling towards them under any circumstances.  But as brutally as Teal’c was beaten up (by both Yu’s forces and K’tano), and how bleak things looked when all the Jaffa were forced to retreat through the Stargate, I think it’s worth mentioning that there IS a Jaffa army still, and they ARE allies with the Tau’ri.  So, there were some costs to this victory, but I think it’s important to not overlook that this was, in fact, a victory.

Finally, I’d just like to make special note of how completely bad-ass Sam was firing that P90.  Even without K’tano, though, I suspect that they will still prefer their staff weapons.  Heritage and all.  Plus K’Tano did bring up a great point about ammunition and concern about sovereignty.

So, today we have an army of Jaffa who serve no false Gods!  Fight and die free!  I really can’t wait to see more of them, and I really hope that comes soon.  Thanks for reading!

~Bryan

I am The Warrior (Part 1)

Ok, let’s just get this part out of the way, because this is getting ridiculous.  Today’s episode, The Warrior, features Rick Worthy as a would-be Jaffa Warlord, K’tano.  Mr. Worthy is also known for playing Simon on (say it with me now!) Battlestar Galactica.  So that’s seven.  Seven BSG actors.  Moving on!

The first thing that struck me after the opening credits was the fact that Christopher Judge came up with the story!  Very very cool.  I think I’ve been pretty clear in the past about my feelings towards rising up against the oppressors, and K’tano’s opening speech hailed the start of something that I’m hoping will grow extremely formidable.  VIVA LA JAFFA RESISTANCE!!!  Or Risistance Jaffa, I think.  I don’t know, I don’t speak Spanish.

When K’tano brought out the weapons acquired from the first raid and talked about the three warriors who gave their lives for the cargo, I started to get suspicious.  Yeah, I would rather see Teal’c or Master Bra’tac lead the Jaffa Nation, but I was really hoping K’tano was the liberator he was pretending to be.  I suppose that’s precisely why so many Jaffa joined him.  The first thing that tipped me off that he was not going to ultimately be a good guy was his mentioning of Keb.  Now, Vikings and Samurai and Spartans and many other warriors throughout history were famous for fighting to the death, so the whole ‘ultimate sacrifice’ thing wasn’t what made me take notice.  It was the fact that he was replacing religion (the Goa’uld as Gods) with religion (the noble warrior will live on Keb, where he will never be oppressed again).  So that was suspicious.  I’m actually expecting the Jaffa Nation to eventually shun all religion altogether.  They obviously are very conscious of their history and heritage, so it would only make sense for the idea of religion to gain a very negative stigma among them.  While they might not outright outlaw religion among their people (aside from false Gods), I predict an Atheism to be widespread.  At least for a time.  Come to think of it, they are also a warrior culture, so some form of afterlife would probably be appealing to them after a generation or so.  But enough speculation for now.

I have more to say on this episode, but am out of time for right now, so the remainder of this post will go up tomorrow at noon, followed by tomorrows post on Menace.

~Bryan

Rock Beats Earth…

But Warp Drive Beats Rock

Today’s episode, Fail Safe, is the classic scenario of a giant rock is hurtling towards the Earth and is pretty much going to wreck the whole damn thing.  So what does SG-1 do?  Attach a bomb to it.  Considering how quickly O’Neill came up with the idea, it never occurred to me that it might be a parody of the movie Armageddon, but really, it probably is.  Personally, though, I was thinking more about an episode of Sliders, where Quinn and co. slide into a world that is about to be destroyed by an asteroid.  Unfortunately, in that version of Earth, the bomb was never made.  So they made one.  I feel that Jack would’ve been proud :D

So my first thought when the guy spotted the asteroid was that it was a ship.  Apparently, I didn’t get a good enough look at it, because it is not a ship.  It is a rock.  A big rock, but still.  You can’t fly a rock.  I thought for a moment that maybe this was Anubis’ big plan to destroy the Tau’ri, but dismissed the hypothesis because I figured Anubis would do something more elaborate.  Nope!  Throwing a rock at it.  I’ll be honest, if it was Anubis, then it was a bit of a let down for a while there, because he could do whatever he wanted, as violently as he wanted, and as directly as he wanted, so long as his newly regained rank of System Lord wasn’t revealed yet.  I mean, he was also the Goa’uld who forced the Tollan to attack Earth.  Technically, the Asgard-System Lord treaty wasn’t violated there either.  However, in the Earth-bender-style plan’s defense, the Naquadah core was more sinister, but by that point, I was too fixated on the idea of “So, big, bad Anubis is just throwing a rock at it?” that I didn’t get all that excited even after the genius part.  But I guess that’s my loss.  What I did really enjoy was the defusing of the bomb.  Having to clip all of them made for a good amount of tension.

The other part that I really liked it just how ineffective the protection treaty has become.  It’s basically a shield made out of red tape, and the System Lords just have to figure out a way around it.  The natural disaster approach seems to be viable, but the Asgard might watch a little more actively now.  What I’m also wondering, is are the Asgard going to really enforce a violation of the treaty now?  Back when it was established in Fair Game, the threat of retribution was nothing but a bluff, due to the Asgard conflict with the Replicators.  I’m wondering how their military situation is currently, and if they’ll be able to slap the collective wrists of the System Lords, should they push too far.

Well, today’s episode was all well and good, and I’ll see you tomorrow!  Thanks for reading

~Bryan

Stay Awhile and Listen

Well, let’s just start at the beginning of Summit.  Like I said yesterday, I had seen most of this episode before, but the opening had eluded me.  However, now I’ve been able to see how Osiris got brought into the situation, and why he serves Anubis.  Haven’t see Zipacna since his loss at Klorel v. Skaara, and I had assumed him dead.  Nope, he’s found himself another excessively powerful, non-System Lord Goa’uld master to mooch off of.  My guess is he just jumped ship before the Ha’tak was destroyed.  Regardless, I enjoyed this scene because it brought back two characters we haven’t seen for a while, both of which are ripe for plot-building, especially with Osiris’ background.  Osiris seems to be a very proud individual, and angry about the death of Isis, so having him have to deal with Zipacna’s arrogance made for some good tension.  I also like the idea of Osiris having a female host.  Granted, this was decided back in Season 4’s The Curse, but still, it’s an interesting choice that forces Daniel to complicate matters.

Proven Underground

You know, I wasn’t sure whether or not we’d actually see Lt. Elliot again, but apparently we do get to see him again, so that he can die.  I kind of wish we could have seen him in at least one more episode first, to be a little more emotionally invested in the character, but with the whole Lantash situation, it was at the very least had some good twists to it.  Furthermore, the end scene in Last Stand was shot perfectly, and it really heightened his sacrifice.  It was pure genius having the slow-panning shot on his weak-looking face, while footsteps of Jaffa get closer and closer and closer.  That intensified things wonderfully.  So, even though we’ve only seen him for two episodes (or three, depending on how you count these), his death scene was done masterfully.

Speaking of Lantash, as much as Carter didn’t like it, I’d have to agree with the Tok’ra in saving Lantash at the loss of Martouf.  I really do think it would’ve been what Marouf had wanted, plus your weighing one life against research that could save many others.  It’s a grim conundrum, but I think Sam ultimately agrees that it was the right choice.

Yu +1

Well, I think we can all agree, the highlight of this two-parter is the summit itself.  The attack on the Tok’ra base was extremely devastating, and it was an horribly desperate situation, but I have to admit, whenever the focus was over there, I would be thinking “I wonder what Daniel is doing right now…”  I really liked Jacob’s ploy to get Yu to believe Daniel is his loyal slave.  At first, I thought the ring plan was a bit ill-conceived, and had no clue how the hell Daniel was supposed to prick him with it.  However, when he just stood there, forcing Yu to approach him, I gotta hand it to Action Jackson, it was a pretty smooth move, catching Yu’s arm like that.  I was more than a little impressed, I must say.  However, there was one part of Daniel’s slave act that I couldn’t really get in to, and that was when Daniel and Yu arrived at the summit and started circling the room, talking about each of the System Lords and military situations of late.  It was all interesting, and Daniel was shown studying up on it, but the conversation itself felt really unrealistic.  And really, Yu’s lines all made sense, but I think it would’ve been better of Daniel had just muttered to himself of why Yu was warning him of this and that, perhaps to remind himself of what is going on, rather than reminding Yu, who already knows all this (which is what it sounded like, and it was strange to me).

I was extremely excited to see all the new System Lords!  Fair Game had me just as fixated due to having three new characters based on Gods, to having six new “Gods” was twice as awesome.  And we finally see Ba’al!  I actually walked right by Cliff Simon at the convention I was at earlier this year, but unfortunately didn’t know anything about Ba’al at the time, so I just kind of kept on walking.  Anyway, getting to see all the System Lords together, functioning and convening as a council was quite the treat.  However, I do have to say that I am particularly disturbed about the circumstances under which Anubis was banished (just too freaking evil), especially in light of the fact the System Lords are, in fact, cannibals.  Did NOT see that coming!  That freaked me out a little bit.  The System Lords just went from ruling body to crazy cult very quickly.

I feel that Dr. Jackson’s exit was very classy!  Starting a knife fight between Osiris and Yu and then launching himself via sarcophagus?  I approve!  Especially because we don’t know what will come of the fight!  And mystery is always appreciated.  I’m predicting that Yu and Osiris will both live, even if one will require their sarcophagus, but I gotta imagine that Osiris will be on thin ice, if not kicked off the ship for the remainder of the summit.  I doubt it’ll nix Anubis’ regained standing with them, but still.  It was her knife.  And she did stab Yu.  She’ll probably be in trouble for that…

Anyway, I’m happy to have finally seen the conclusion of this monster of an episode!  See you tomorrow, and thanks for reading!

~Bryan