I was talking with my friend Adam a few nights ago, who was gushing about Battlestar Galactica, and one of the things that blew him away in the first part of the miniseries -- how the Cylon, more out of curiosity than anything, snaps an infant's neck while marveling at how small and fragile humans can be.

Adam was blown away because, as he puts it, the show broke one of the Big Three Rules Of Television right there like it was nothing (kids never get killed on TV), and the miniseries itself had barely begun. To him, that moment marked a huge commitment on the part of the storytellers behind Battlestar Galactica, a commitment to creating a world where an action like that would be possible, and believable to us viewers.

And then he said, "Come to think of it, that's why I don't really bother to watch Stargate anymore."

I blinked at him. Here was a guy who, during Season 6, spent most of his time looking at me like I was some kinda wingnut because I was so upset over the character of Daniel Jackson being replaced by Jonas Quinn, and now he'd stopped watching the show?

The short version of our conversation was that, as far as he could tell, the producers of Stargate had come to realize that they had a cash cow on their hands, and had adopted the policy of doing nothing that would endanger a working formula. Since they came to this realization right around the start of Season 4, I speculated that what really happened was that new producers came in and adopted the cash cow, but the result was the same.

The new rule on Stargate became "change nothing." Or, if you wish, "Commit to nothing," because to do so would risk changing the show's success.

The problem is, when you make a decision to halt a story midway through the telling, you lose the potential for any drama to come to the screen through the overall plot. You've made the decision to forever leave your story unfinished, so to create any dramatic tension at all, you have to pursue alternate ideas... but, you can't let any of those ideas go anywhere either, because then you'd be committing to a big change in the story.

Hence, we have Jaffa who are no longer bad guys, and a Jaffa rebellion that is in a permanent holding pattern, neither overthrowing great enemies nor tumbling to defeat.

We have Tok'ra who are inept and untrustworthy, and impotent.

We have Goa'uld who have no personal connection to any of the heroes of the show. The Goa'uld have been rendered "cartoons" by Martin Wood and the writers. The Jaffa have been cardboard-cutout bad guys for a few seasons now.

Osiris took a woman from Earth as host. We never saw the security risk played out, or the personal angle, and anyway Osiris is dead now and the host is back on Earth, free of the goa'uld... and, presumably, living happily ever after since we've never seen her since.

We have replicators who have become a rehash of the Borg. We finally found a way to defeat them, but then that was taken away (through a display of ineptitude that was infuriating for fans of the Heroes As Intelligent People), along with the miniscule bit of personal connection that they once had with the heroes.

Having rendered one enemy useless, the writers introduced a new bad guy in the form of "super soldiers", but did not commit to giving them any depth or dramatic hook for the main characters, and by the end of a two-parter episode we knew how to defeat them - and proceeded to do so regularly.

We have main characters who have halted all personal development. Stories about Jack cannot deal with his marriage, his son's death, or his friendship with the rest of the team, because those would change his character. Instead he is reduced to being the source of one-liner quips, big guns, and dumb looks. By all reports, Jack will be leaving the show in S9, but we will likely never know why, nor what it was like for Jack to serve as General of the SGC, unless those life-changing moments can be played for laughs.

Sam is now the universal source of all things scientific. Stories about Sam now can never touch on her relationship with her best friend's adopted daughter, nor with her father, nor with her friendships with her teammates. They may only revolve around a romance that, itself, can never be resolved. Resolving whether she does or doesn't have feelings for her C.O. would move the character out of stasis. We can have her get engaged to Pete, but never marry him because that would also mean a commitment to permanently changing something about Sam. I predict, if Pete returns in S9, Sam will continue to have an on-again, off-again relationship with him that ultimately goes nowhere.

Teal'c's primary storyline is the interminable Jaffa rebellion. With no clear adversary like Cronus or Apophis, the story lacks dramatic bite and always will. All that remains is to kill off Bra'tac, except that if he died, then we'd have a personal reason for Teal'c to move forward and develop. Instead, his job is to be a big black badass and to say "Indeed" a lot.

Daniel is the only one to have been partially spared this deconstruction -- and only partially. The big reason my friend Adam liked S6 was because having Daniel die, having Jonas replace him, marked a genuine change in the movement of the show! And even then, Adam acknowledged that the writers tried to make Jonas a replacement-Daniel rather than his own character, but fortunately for Jonas, that didn't work. Jonas was a truly different character from Daniel, and Adam appreciated the commitment that was required.

Except now, Daniel is back. And Daniel's character has gone through some changes to fit back into the show as it currently sits (in stasis), but once those changes were made, he hasn't really moved forward either. The consequences and repercussions of his death, ascension, and descent have never been dealt with on the show. Yes, I'm saying it here, god help me but it's true -- even Daniel has become boring, because the writers don't dare move him forward along his arc either. I did say that he's suffered less in the reconstruction department than the other characters, but that's mainly because the writers for this show haven't wanted to mess around with him. Daniel is too much work to write.

Janet Fraiser is dead -- but never mentioned, and no storylines past the first two episodes of S8 have even dealt with a doctor character who might have replaced her. She may as well not really be dead, just off-screen somewhere. Again, no commitment.

This has been the pattern of the past several years: introduce a story idea, a character, an arc, an adversary -- and then kill it as soon as it starts to show dramatic potential. To do otherwise would be to commit to actually moving the show forward, rather than letting the cash cow stand still and produce money. The drama comes from the introduction of something new, not the development of something already present.

The problem is, after four years of this pattern, "introducing something new" no longer generates any dramatic tension. We viewers know that whatever it is, it won't last and it won't go anywhere, so why should we bother to get excited about it? The producers' refusal to make a commitment to Stargate's story has become, itself, a commitment to standing still, one that is now all but etched in stone.

And that's why my friend Adam doesn't watch Stargate anymore. That's also why, as much as I adore Michael Shanks as Daniel, I'm pretty much ready to follow him. The show is going nowhere, which is boring to watch and annoying, as a storyteller myself, to realize. It's worse when you realize that this was a choice that the producers of the series made deliberately.

Incidentally, this is also why I don't watch Stargate: Atlantis. I don't believe that the producers actually have a new story to tell. I think that they will spend two seasons developing the world, creating a new cash cow, and then... sitting still with it. I predict lots of unresolved story arcs and character who do not engage one another or the viewers. It'd be nice if I turn out to be wrong, but then, I'd prefer to be wrong about Stargate and see the writers really turn it around. I believe that they could - but I also believe that they won't.

By Julia Justina

Let me start by saying loudly and clearly that Sam Carter and Amanda Tapping are two separate entities. Amanda Tapping is a real person, an actor, and by all accounts a lovely human being.

Major Samantha Carter PhD. USAF is a fictional character, the product of the writers, producers and directors (The Powers That Be) of Stargate-SG1. From earlier seasons we already know that Sam is a brilliant scientist and a career Air Force officer.

Season 7, is the season of Sam Carter, her turn in the spotlight. The issue I want to address is whether that attention has been helpful or damaging to Sam’s character, what we have been shown about her in season 7.

In the season opener, Fallen, we see Sam briefing the SGC on the mission to trap Anubis. During the briefing, she is constantly heckled by her commanding officer, Jack O’Neill. The implication to the other personnel of the SGC, surely, is that Sam is not highly regarded by her immediate superior.

In Fragile Balance, in the commissary she attempts to joke with Jack about his predicament, calling him ‘kinda cute’ and is curtly reminded to call him ‘Sir’. This happens in front of Teal’c, their team-mate, a public rebuke and another example of Jack’s low regard for her.

Later in the episode, Sam attempts another briefing, this time of pilots who will be flying the X302. They are unhappy about being briefed by Sam, and in spite of being a superior officer, she is unable to control the situation. When a teenaged Jack walks in and demands respect from the assembled group, they suddenly sit up straight and start paying attention. What are we to take from this scene? The only possible interpretation is that a teenage boy is better able to control a room full of junior officers than Major Carter.

Enemy Mine was a Daniel Jackson episode, Sam was only in one scene. But that scene is interesting. Jack is in the infirmary talking with Daniel (who incidentally, we see teasing Jack in a way that Sam is not allowed to). When Sam comes in, Jack asks how her ‘science project’ is coming along. A ‘science project’ is something that school children do. It is another example of Jack talking down to his second in command. Then as soon as Daniel leaves, Jack lies down (on his injured arm!) with his back to Sam, ignoring her totally. I have to say here, that I found Jack’s attitude to Sam in Fallen, Fragile Balance and Enemy Mine incredibly disrespectful and even unprofessional. It’s almost as if he is trying to see how far he can push her, before she calls him on his behaviour. But Sam seems to see nothing wrong with being repeatedly denigrated by her boss.

Space Race was a Sam episode. It also has plot holes the size of the Stargate, but that is another subject. We see Sam manipulate General Hammond into allowing her to take part in a race. Her motive seems to be that she is a dare-devil speed junkie, an aspect of her character that has escaped our notice for the previous six years. After she has bullied and manoeuvred her way into the race and onto the space ship owned by Warrick, she is content to take a secondary role. It is a recurring theme of Sam episodes in season 7; Sam is pushed forward, but is never allowed to be seen in a command role. Here she is the side-kick to Warrick, and Jack, Daniel and Teal’c worry about her, another theme that recurs throughout the season. Whenever Sam is out of sight of the other members of her team, they are worried about her. Is she a child, who is not to be trusted out of the sight of the grown-ups? Space Race shows us a Sam Carter who manipulates other people, including her superior officer, to indulge her new-found speed-freakery, with no concern for anything other than her own wishes.

Avenger 2.0 is my contender for the title of worst episode of the season. It is also an episode that does serious damage to the character of Sam Carter the scientist. Inept scientist Jay Felgar is about to be sacked from the SGC because he has never succeeded in any of his projects. Sam talks General Hammond into giving him another chance, telling the General that she will supervise Felgar personally to ensure that everything will go well. Felgar comes up with the idea of a computer virus to infect the Stargate system. Of course it goes horribly wrong. Teams are stranded off-world as the entire system shuts down. At this point Sam has to go and grovel to the General. She has just shown herself as completely unable to judge the ability of a fellow scientist. A successful leader in any sphere of life has to be able to judge the ability of their subordinates. Sam put her credibility on the line when she begged a second chance for Felgar. We the audience knew he would fail. Sam was set up by the writers to also fail. Later in the episode, Sam and Felgar are at the point of being killed by Jaffa, when Jack and Teal’c appear in the nick of time to save them. The start of another recurring theme in season 7, Sam who is supposed to be a professional soldier, has to be rescued by the big strong men.

Another nice touch in Avenger 2.0 is the scene when Felgar has fled from the SGC and Sam goes to find him. She is supposedly concerned that several SGC teams, including the rest of SG1, are in hazardous situations and time is very tight. But still she finds time to get changed into civilian clothing, even though Colorado Springs is home to several Air Force bases and the sight of air force personnel in uniform is probably common, and even put on pretty dangly earrings. Presumably, she felt it was important to dress up for Felgar, as she knew he was infatuated with her.

The scene at the end of Avenger 2.0 where we see Felgar’s wet dream about Sam getting into a cat fight over him with his assistant Chloe, is too awful to discuss. It would have been embarrassingly clichéd 40 years ago. It is unbelievable that anyone would even consider such a scene in the 21st Century. It is perhaps, worth asking if the scene tells us something about the way TPTB perceive their female characters.

Birthright was a Teal’c episode. It is worth mentioning the scene where Sam is talking to the Jaffa woman Mala. Mala makes some remark about Jack and Sam. Sam denies that there is ‘anything like that’ happening. Unfortunately, we find out later on, that Sam was being a bit economical with the truth. The only reason we see this exchange is to show us that Sam is less than honest.

In Evolution, Sam devises a cunning plan to capture a super soldier using a tranquilliser. But the plan fails miserably. Again Sam the scientist is not doing so well. It is also interesting that in the scene where SG1 (minus Daniel) and the other SG team are being held prisoner, Sam is relegated to the role of first-aider. It would seem logical that all team members would have basic first aid training, and that the injured man would probably prefer to be treated by his team mates. Or did TPTB think that as there was a woman in the shot, of course she should be the ministering angel?

In the second part of Evolution, there is a very strange scene that has become contentious among fans. Jack has been ordered go to rescue Daniel and Dr. Lee from kidnappers who have threatened to kill them. Before setting out, he visits Sam who is working in semi-darkness in her lab. He tells her he is off to find Daniel, Sam looks down and says ‘Good’. How are we to interpret this scene (especially given the dim lighting and shippy music)? Do we see Sam as a caring friend concerned about Daniel being in danger? On the surface, perhaps. But Sam’s body language, looking down as she speaks as if to hide the fact that she is lying, (and the audio commentary on the DVD that tells us the scene is all about the love in Sam’s eyes as she looks at Jack) tell us something else. TPTB are showing us a Sam who is unhappy because the man she is obsessing about is leaving her side. She doesn’t care that he is going into danger. She is not thinking about her friend who we, the viewer, know is being tortured and starved and who is under a sentence of death. She is sulking like a child because Jack is going away from her for a short time. All this scene does is make Sam look childish, spoilt, and heartless.

Sam now goes off on a mission with her father Jacob, Teal’c and Brae’tac. A chance, you would think, for this professional soldier to show her leadership. Actually, though we are told that Sam is in command, she never gives an order or initiates a course of action. Jacob takes control from the start. The writers seem to find it impossible to write Sam as a commander. The high point of this, is when a Jaffa has her at gun point, he does not shoot her, but chooses to slap her face. She falls to the floor, which allows a nice little scene with her father fussing over her. Later on she wears a tasteful sling. It’s a shame it’s on the opposite arm to the one she landed on. Sam is shown as unable to take command, as well as a poor soldier who fires her gun during a covert operation, announcing the team’s presence. In addition, she is in need of comfort from the men in her life.

The next episode Grace, is very much a Sam-centric episode. So what do we learn about Sam? Do we get some insight into her feelings about being a woman in the USAF? Or into the conflict between her work on SG1 and her desire as a scientist to spend time in her lab writing that book on Wormhole Physics?

We start with a scene were Sam walks through the corridors of the Prometheus with Colonel Ronson. It’s a strange scene. If you look away from the picture and listen to the dialogue, the impression is of a little girl sweet talking her indulgent Daddy into buying her an ice cream. Not exactly the way one would expect a career woman to talk to a superior, nor the way that most senior officers would expect to interact with a junior officer. Again, TPTB are showing us an immature, childish Sam, not the independent character we saw in earlier seasons.

Later on, Sam tells a hallucination of Jack that she would throw a way her career and resign in a moment for the chance to date him. This is weird for so many reasons. We have had six and a half years of Sam as a career woman. We have seen Sam deny more than once that there is any inappropriate relationship going on. We have repeatedly, in season 7, seen Jack treat Sam with disdain. Suddenly, out of the blue, we find that she has been lying for years. That she has been nursing inappropriate feelings, knowing that they break at least the spirit of the USAF regulations. Regulations that as a career officer, she has sworn to uphold. Even stranger, this supposedly intelligent woman seems never to have considered the logical course for her to take. If she chose to transfer off SG1 to another post within the SGC, on to another team for example, then she would be free to ask Jack out on a date without breaching regulations, but this doesn’t seem to have ever occurred to her.

Grace paints Sam as dishonest and immature. She has broken the regulations for years, lied to her friends, has failed to figure out a way to have her career and the chance to date Jack, and seems happy to overlook the treatment from Jack that verges on the abusive and be begging for more. Possibly Sam sees herself as Juliet, a star-crossed lover. Has nobody ever pointed out to her that Juliet was fourteen? To see a woman who has to be in her early forties behaving like a love-struck fourteen year old is not romantic. It’s ridiculous.

In Grace, Sam at least is seen to realise that her obsession with Jack is one sided and decides to move on. Finally, what looks like some positive character development for her.

In Chimera we see Sam start to move on. She is dating a policeman friend of her brother. It does, however, seem a little strange that she jokes with him about leaving a trail of dead boyfriends behind her. It’s a little unfeeling about these men, one of whom she was even engaged to, to treat them as a joke. Also, it is really a good idea to make a joke like that to a policeman?

It is obvious that Pete has fallen hard for Sam. He talks about his background and asks about her job. Here again, we get to meet a strangely unprofessional Major Carter. All Sam needs to say is “I can’t tell you anything about my job. It’s classified.” That’s it, one simple sentence that anyone can understand. But Sam is unable to say that. Instead, she blathers on about it being dangerous for her to tell him anything. Why? It helps to fill in a plot hole, but it makes Sam look like an idiot. Later on, when Pete has been injured she promises to tell him everything. Either she is lying to him, and intends to give him a cover story later on, or she is promising to tell him all about the Stargate program, even if it means breaking the law. Again, we see TPTB showing us an emotional, unreliable, unprofessional character.

Of course, the obvious question about Chimera is what has Sam Carter's love affair with a Denver policeman to do with the Stargate?

The next episode, Death Knell, shows us Sam working at the Alpha site. When the site is attacked she is forced to run for her life pursued by a supersoldier. Unfortunately, Sam, who is supposed to be a professional soldier manages to misplace her gun, her radio and her vest. She also abandons her injured father in her haste. I know that he a Tok’ra, but it still seems callous. Luckily for Sam, the supersoldier, who has no trouble hitting a UAV on the wing, is unable to hit her when he catches her out in the open. Sam manages to hot-wire a missile from the UAV to bury the supersoldier. Then, when he digs his way out, Jack and Teal’c arrive in the nick of time to rescue her, again. As she has been running around the planet all day, she needs to rest and receive a hug from big strong Jack.

So much time in this episode is spent allowing everyone to worry about Sam, that anyone would think her colleagues doubt Sam’s ability to look after herself! The worrying also throws into sharp contrast Sam’s previous lack of concern about her team mates. Even when she has been rescued she is too busy getting hugged to ask about her father. Again, we are being shown an unprofessional, selfish character who has no interest in anyone else’s wellbeing.

Heroes Part 1 shows us Sam being reduced to a quivering, babbling wreck when someone points a film camera at her. This for a woman who should be used to being filmed, we know that debriefings are routinely videoed at the SGC. Again, she is being shown as silly and immature and unable to behave professionally when under the slightest pressure.

Heroes Part 2 is a low point for Sam in Season 7. In the middle of a gun battle, we see her desert her position and run across the battle field, in clear view of the enemy and then stand frozen because the man she is still obsessing about is hit. This action should have resulted in a Court Martial. But nobody mentions it; perhaps that is how they expect Sam to behave.

Later Sam dismisses the feelings of Janet’s daughter Cassie with an offhand comment ‘She’s a tough kid!’, and then she bursts into tears and has to be hugged, again, by Jack. So eighteen year old Cassie, who has just lost her adopted mother, having previously lost her whole family, is a tough kid, but Major Carter, who is more than twice her age, needs to be comforted by the big strong man. It is also clear in this scene that Sam is more upset about Jack being slightly injured, than about the death of her close friend. Jack mentions Janet, Sam doesn’t.

In Heroes, TPTB showed us a Sam who, as a soldier, is a danger to her colleagues, as a friend, is more interested in obsessing about Jack, as someone who is, presumably, still seeing Pete while obsessing about Jack, and who is completely unsympathetic about Cassie and her feelings.

In Inauguration we learn that Sam’s behaviour when Jack was missing the previous year ( Paradise Lost ), was sufficiently unprofessional for a civilian to mention it in his report.

In Lost City Part 1 we see Sam going to Jack’s house. It is clear that she has something she wants to get off her chest. Twice Jack stops her talking about personal matters. Then Daniel and Teal’c arrive, it is obvious that Sam will not talk in front of her colleagues In Lost City Part 2, when Jack resigns and insists that Sam take command of the mission her first thought is to return to the subject. She starts by commenting about being interrupted by Daniel and Teal’c, but again Jack cuts her off.

Let’s look at this. Jack has been affected by alien technology, he will shortly lose the ability to communicate. His mind might well be permanently affected and he may even die. Sam has something she is determined to say to him. What could it be? Could she want to apologise for her poor behaviour over the last few months? If so, she could do that in front of Daniel and Teal’c, they too have been affected, if she is to apologise to Jack she should do the same to them. Could she intend to talk about the time she has worked for Jack, perhaps thank him for the times he has helped her and stood up for her? In that case she could certainly speak in front of Daniel and Teal’c.

On the other hand, if she wants to declare her feelings for him, then she would want to keep that very quiet. She knows that by stating her feelings she would also be declaring that she has been breaking the regulations. Of course, she would also be putting Jack in a difficult position. He is also an officer in the USAF, and once he is aware of her feelings, his duty would be to report her for breaking the regulations. It would also reflect badly on him, that his 2IC has been lusting after him for years and either he has known and chosen to ignore it, or he has been blind to her feelings. If Sam speaks out, and she certainly seems determined to do it, then Jack’s last few days will be spent writing a report that will end both their careers. Either that, or he has to lie and deceive, as she has been doing, to keep her little secret. Again, we see a Sam who is unconcerned about the effect that her behaviour has on other people. She wants to declare her love; she isn’t worried about the effect of her declaration on Jack and SG1. But Sam isn’t totally blind to the consquences, she wants to burden Jack with her feelings but is not prepared to stand up and take any consequences on herself. She is behaving like a child, not an adult. An adult might have considered that Jack had enough to deal with already and not tried to add to his burden.

Time and again in Season 7, TPTB have shown us Sam behaving like spoilt brat, not an adult. They have shown us a dishonourable soldier who is a danger to the people she works with and doesn’t care about anyone but herself. They have also shown us a woman who is dating a man who adores her, while she is still obsessing about Jack. Talk about having your cake and eating it!

I have to admit that Sam has never been my favourite character, but in the earlier seasons I enjoyed seeing a strong female character who did her job as one of the team without being typecast as ‘the girl’. I watch Stargate with my children and used to consider Sam a good role model for my daughter, who is now fourteen. After watching Grace, I felt I had to point out to her that Sam was now an example of how a professional woman should not behave in the workplace. Season 7 has reduced Sam from a good role model to a bad example.

So why do TPTB hate Sam so much that they have reduced this strong, independent woman, professional soldier, and brilliant scientist to a Barbie doll?

I don’t think they do. I think that Sam is their favourite character. They give her most of the lines and most of the screen time. In Chimera, her love affair is the main story. It gets more air time and more attention (including the opening and closing shots) than the story of Osiris trying to find the location of the Lost City. But which story is more central to Stargate? They even give Sam lines that would make more sense coming from one of the other characters. In Revisions, for example, she seems to have taken over Daniel’s role as first contact specialist.

But TPTB are just unable to write a strong woman. They seem the whole time to be telling us that Sam is wonderful, but writing her like a cliché of a 1950’s housewife. It would be unfeminine for her to take command on a mission and issue orders to the men. As a woman, of course, she must obsess about the hero, to the point where she is willing to throw away her career for him. As a woman, she is unable to take control of her life and transfer to another team; she has to spend years yearning after a man who is uninterested in her. As a woman, of course, she can’t concentrate on a battle when ‘her man’ is injured. As a woman, she is flattered that Felgar, the comedy geek, is obsessed with her, so she has to dress up for him, never mind that her friends are in danger. As a woman, she needs to be rescued, comforted, and hugged.

You have to feel sorry for Sam, TPTB are her friends and her biggest fans. With friends and fans like these, who needs enemies?

In a thread on the Our Stargate forum the topic of how Daniel Jackson is downplayed on Stargate SG-1 came up in conversation. From what was said on the thread many people do feel Daniel is being downplayed. Despite all the discussion the main question still seems to be "Why"? Why is Daniel Jackson—the central hero of the film upon which the show is based and who was returned to the show after a fan outcry (before my time) made it clear that many fans considered the character an integral part of Stargate and were interested in his journey and his continued role on the SG-1 team—still having his role downplayed? He is given "stuff" to do, but of late it has rarely been anything of true consequence—negotiations that go nowhere or which have no effect on the overall storyline, storylines with little connection to the major arcs of the show, etc.

Daniel's part in plotlines tied to the main arcs of the show have been virtually ignored. His connection with the Ancients and Ascendeds, including the "big bad villain" of last season, Anubis, who is both semi-ascended and Goa'uld, were transferred to other characters, such as Jack O'Neill. Lines which clearly fit his character were put into other characters’ mouths (usually Sam Carter). His reaction to the destruction of an entire planet, Abydos, Earth's first allies from the film, allies that had a deep connection to both Daniel and Jack but especially to Daniel, was totally ignored, supposedly happening "off-screen" as has much of his development.

The repercussions of his return from Ascension to human form because of his involvement in the events that preceded that destruction, including amnesia that left him with no memory of who he had been before, were glossed over. The Kelownans, whose planet Daniel died saving from a catastrophic nuclear explosion and who tried to frame him for it, appeared in two episodes in season 7. One episode had Daniel deeply involved in negotiations to again save their people from possible destruction, with the Kelownans being anything but helpful in trying to save themselves. However, the history between them was completely ignored as though it had never happened. There are other examples from Season 7 as well as previous seasons but this is a taste.

There have been suggestions that somehow it is a "business" decision, but even taking that into account, the downplaying of the character's role in the Stargate universe makes little sense. In fact, in some ways it makes even less sense when looking at it from a business point of view. The push for young characters is made much of in the media and yet with Daniel Jackson we have a relatively young character that, for years now, has been pushed into the background.

Dr. Daniel Jackson is in his 30's and highly accomplished with a brilliant mind, a bona fide visionary (and we won't get into the way the writers have downplayed that mind and vision here). Daniel’s actor, Michael Shanks, is younger than the character and looks it so the character is often assumed to be younger than his "official age"(mentioned only once in an early episode). He's an anthro/archaeologist as well as a prodigiously gifted linguist, a polymath with a deep love of learning and knowledge who had earned two PhD’s before he was 30 years old. Put most plainly, he is a genius with the spirit of a true explorer.

When many people hear archaeologist, the first thing that comes to mind is "Indiana Jones", so it would not be widely expected for him to be held in some stereotype of the inept "geek" nor found unbelievable if he was shown to be otherwise.

This, in fact, was one of the strongest messages of the original film. The first impressions of Jack and Daniel's characters are as almost walking clichés of their "types"(strict military/geeky academic) only to reveal over the course of the film there is much more to them; that those stereotypes are far too limiting for these characters.

This was especially true of Daniel. Yes, in many ways Daniel was a "geek" but he was also very courageous, both intellectually AND physically. Let me rephrase that: what it showed was that being a "geek" did not preclude someone from being as brave as any "soldier", so perhaps its smart to look past the obvious surface. Unfortunately the current crew of the TV series have been determined to do just the opposite of what the film was trying to achieve with regards to not judging a book by it's cover.

This is a theme I think many young people can identify with (though is in no way limited to just young people) because so many of them are trying to find themselves. Trying to find their place in the universe. This has been Daniel's journey as well, not just for knowledge but for his place.

Daniel's areas of interest are both intellectual, particularly his complex linguistics work essentially decoding languages, AND tactile. Archaeology and anthropology can be very tactile vocations including activities that involve digging, climbing, squeezing into very small places, interaction with many types and classes of people in various terrains and climates. Archaeologists get their hands dirty; they are strong as well as scientific.

Besides teaching, Daniel had likely lead digs, including financing and choosing employees, prior to being brought into the organization that would later be known as the Stargate Program (which Daniel named when he corrected a translation of a phrase previously thought to be "doorway to heaven"). It would be quite easy to develop this aspect of his character, of which we have gotten very, very brief glimpses from time to time including a very quick look in Evolution Part 1.

There is nothing that would preclude Dr. Daniel Jackson from playing an active role in an action/adventure show, even given his relatively peaceful nature. Yet if anything, this aspect of his character has been often been pushed to the wayside and in turn used as an excuse for the difficulty of integrating his character into an action/adventure show. This despite the fact that in many ways Daniel is the truest adventurer among them, someone who seems to thrive on the new and unfamiliar (which has interesting psychological implications given his unstable upbringing—could it be he's at ease with change and difference because it is what he's used to? Another question destined to be completely ignored by the writers).

A young, good-looking, athletic man is someone producers and TV execs would want to play up, don't you think? Now if that young, good-looking, athletic man couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, one might understand saying "Okay, now stand over here, look pretty and whatever you do, don't say anything" but as became apparent quite early on, Michael Shanks, Daniel Jackson's actor, could probably act his way out of Fort Knox.

If that young, good-looking athletic man who also happens to be a talented and versatile actor didn't have chemistry with his co-stars because chemistry is a freaky thing and sometimes it just isn't there, again, I could understand somewhat downplaying him. However, as has been shown time and again, this young, good-looking athletic man who happens to be very talented and versatile, ALSO happens to have terrific chemistry with all his co-stars and with pretty much anyone else they throw in a scene with him.

However the makers of Stargate SG-1, which includes the producers, the writers and the marketers, have downplayed this fascinating, well-rounded, complex character and his very talented, good-looking, athletic young actor in their storylines and advertising at every turn and they are still downplaying him, even after a fan outcry proved the popularity of both character and actor despite the best efforts to belittle his contribution to the Stargate universe.

There is no way, shape or form how in any universe that this makes a lick of sense, business or otherwise.

In an unprecedented event that has taken TPTB by surprise at Bridge Studios, the infamous Black Widow Curse of Sam Carter has claimed another victim! Fans’ enthusiasm for Season 8 of Stargate: SG-1 has been dropping off like flies! And, in a related event though TPTB deny it, our sources have uncovered evidence that the Black Widow Curse has mysteriously caused the disappearance of the much prized ‘Jack and Daniel Friendship’!

TPTB are at a loss to explain how their most valued character, Major Sam Carter, has become the center of such controversy and devastation among fandom; she is considered responsible for the loss of enthusiasm and fan interest in the upcoming Season 8, yet they are unavailable for comment on this issue. On the matter of the mysteriously missing ‘Jack and Daniel Friendship’ TPTB claim no official knowledge of this and continue to make reference to it ‘happening off screen’.

This would be the leading story I would write if this were an actual news item, because I firmly believe that the enthusiasm of the fans for Season 8 have fallen victim to the ‘Black Widow Curse of Sam Carter’.

What bothers me is how much I truly dislike feeling that a character I admired and liked a lot for the majority of the run of Stargate: SG-1 has been turned into such a ‘killer’, but the truth for me is that Sam Carter is killing the show. Not Amanda Tapping, who is a talented actress just doing the job she has been given, but Major Sam Carter as she is in her current incarnation presented by writers and the producers who have wrecked havoc on this once fine creation of Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright. I don’t like coming to the realization that, like Narim, Joe Faxson and Martouf, quite a bit of fan affection and enthusiasm, including my own, for the character of Sam Carter and for the upcoming Season 8 of Stargate: SG-1 has fallen victim to the new version of her ‘Black Widow Curse’. What is even more disheartening to me is that this particular version of the infamous curse has caused the disappearance of, in my humble opinion, a very important and valuable part of the foundation of the franchise they are trying to build on, the Jack and Daniel friendship.

The last thing I find so appalling about this new, mutated version of Carter’s Black Widow Curse is that it has claimed another victim as well: the very core of what once made Sam Carter such a unique and amazing character on this show. That her integrity, moral standards and, if you will pardon the use of the term, her saving graces have all fallen silent victim to it.

So it makes me wonder why the writers and producers continue to extol the virtues of something that has become a ‘killer’ of viewer and fan interest in not just the character of Sam Carter, but the final season of the series as well. Why allow this mutation of Sam Carter’s ‘Black Widow Curse’ to continue to undermine the very thing they wish to build a successful franchise on? Doesn’t it occur to them that we as the viewing audience have had our faith and confidence in them to recognize and create good stories and characters ‘killed off’ by the ‘Black Widow Curse’? Maybe they want that to happen. Maybe they want to start from scratch with a new audience without all the baggage they have with those who have been with Stargate: SG1 for so long. Of course that doesn’t make sense to me; how do you build a franchise without some part of your existing foundation there as support? I’m not sure of what their game plan is, but at the rate that Carter’s ‘Black Widow Curse’ is killing off fan interest, I think they might be in for an unsettling surprise for Stargate: Atlantis.

I first saw "Stargate: The Movie" in a packed theater sitting shoulder to elbow to knee with fellow Science Fiction fans. My friends and I had been waiting with bated breath for the movie to come out; it seemed to be made especially for us, filled with Egyptology, fantasy, mythology, outer-space exploration and James Spader.

Before Monday morning rolled around, I'd seen it six times. Did I mention James Spader?

The instant Jack stepped back home through the wormhole I wanted a sequel. There was simply no possible way it could be left like that; Jack and Daniel were now friends, what happened next? Daniel had not only physically saved Jack's life by stepping in front of that staff weapon blast, but he'd done it literally, convincing him that living was more important than dying.

As far as I was concerned then, and now, Stargate is All About Daniel's Journey. It's about the great friendship between Jack and Daniel that started in the movie and moved on. It's about exploration, mythology, and hope. There simply had to be more than just one movie. How could Devlin and Emmerich not make a sequel?

Three years later Showtime announced a new TV series based on the movie Stargate. It would be called "Stargate: SG-1" and would star Richard Dean Anderson in the Kurt Russell part of Col. Jack O'Neill. MacGyver as Jack? Okaaaaaay. I could wait and see on that one. The question for me was: who was going to play Daniel Jackson?

I couldn't believe my eyes when the first team photos came out; who was that boy in the glasses and blonde hair looking like he was supposed to be Dr. Jackson? He didn't look old enough to shave yet, and he was the one chosen to fill James Spader's boots?

My hopes plummeted.

Watching the first episode, "Children of the Gods," was an eye-opener. The new Jack was going to take some getting used to since the attitude change between characters was so large. Captain Carter had to improve; will anyone ever forget the infamous line about her reproductive organs being on the inside rather than the outside?

And then we went to Abydos and met the new Daniel. I perked up in the cartouche room when Daniel and MajorDoctor Carter started in on their science talk. Okay, this kid I'd never heard of seemed to know how to be James Spader being Daniel, but I wasn't sure he could carry it off week after week.

The final scene between Daniel and the Abydonians; remember it? They've surrounded Daniel, he's telling them he has to leave; they're confused, scared, grieving, and Daniel is barely able to force the words out, trying to be strong as the tears fall from his eyes. I realized then that not only would young Michael Shanks have no problem filling James Spader's boots, he would be outgrowing them before anyone realized it.

However, I still had doubts about his ability to grow facial hair.

~~~~

In those first couple of years, the show kept the themes from the movie alive: mythology, exploration, the growing friendship between Jack and Daniel. Adding to the feast were the new characters: Teal'c of Chulak, Captain Carter, General Hammond, Dr. Janet Frasier and the others who appeared semi-regularly.

Very soon, they were as well known as family. I was there without fail every Friday night, excited beyond belief to find out what was happening to the team this week. The friendship between Jack and Daniel, their quick back-and-forth bantering and teasing, even their disagreements were wonderful to watch. The two actors both had a remarkable sense of timing and a chemistry together that almost made speech unnecessary. It was ... magic.

So what happened? Sometime between the third and fourth season something... changed. The President of MGM Television Entertainment went to a different job and his position was taken over by Hank Cohen. Jonathon Glassner, one of the two men who created the series left the show, leaving Brad Wright in sole charge. Two new writers came on board, Joe Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, and the producers stopped taking scripts from outside the studio writing team.

All of a sudden—no, it was not a slow change—the characters began acting out of character (The Other Side, Scorched Earth for example). Major Carter developed a crush on her commanding officer, and suddenly had the answers to every problem that the SGC and SG-1 ran into. Nothing was too difficult for the character who became known in fandom as Super!Sam. Colonel O'Neill, who in turn began to appear bored with life—and Carter—took great satisfaction in seeing how many inappropriate one-liners he could spew per episode, gradually losing that credibility as the military leader of the team upon which the more fantastic elements of the show were grounded. Teal'c became quieter and more invisible.

And Daniel? It seemed the writers had forgotten exactly who he was, what he represented and how important he was to the show. From being an important, integral, member of the team and Jack's best friend, he starting backsliding into "geekhood," and was shoved further and further away from the rest of SG-1. The dialogue between Jack and Daniel, once so much of a joy to see and hear, became painful as their conversations degenerated into bitter confrontation.

Recurring characters began to die-unsatisfactorily. Robert Rothman, fellow archaeologist and friend to Daniel, was killed in "The First Ones" because Brad Wright, according to an interview, wanted to "shock people." Martouf, a very popular character, was destroyed in the unpopular "Divide and Conquer," presumably to make way for the Big Romance between O'Neill and Carter. The Goa'uld, once strong and scary, almost overnight developed weaknesses that hadn't been apparent before and were easily destroyed. Gradually, every recurring character that had been introduced in the first three seasons was either killed off or simply disappeared.

As Major Carter was being pushed to the forefront next to O'Neill, Daniel was fast disappearing into the background, until eventually he was left helping Teal'c hang curtains as they propped up the walls. A show that began with a movie about Daniel Jackson and Jack O'Neill had suddenly become the Jack and Sam Hour.

The mythology was barely there by the end of season five, exploration had pretty much gone by the wayside, and the four members of SG-1 appeared to no longer know who they were, what they were doing or even what planet they were on. The episodes, once so full of character development, strong plots and thought-provoking themes, changed to stories filled with plot holes, big explosions, and no character development at all. In fact, many weeks saw episodes that could be filled with Any Four Actors, rather than the ones who'd been there up till then.

One of the new writers mentioned how they'd written their episodes without ever seeing the show itself, and seemed to take pride in that fact.

Michael Shanks, wanting to keep the integrity of Daniel Jackson intact, left the series.

Daniel Jackson, after what has to be the most painful, hideous death any writer could concoct for a character, "ascended" to a higher plane of existence, leaving behind a supposed best friend who, after all those years, could only tell the dying man "I think... I might... have grown to admire you a little."

There was a sixth season with a new character that couldn't fill anyone's slippers, let alone the boots Michael Shanks left in Daniel's locker.

Fan outcry brought Shanks and Daniel back.

I had high hopes. I believed the writers, producers, SciFi and MGM when they said the show would once again be about mythology, exploration, the stuff we enjoyed in the first three years. Even after all the nastiness and accusations that flew back and forth during the Save Daniel Jackson campaign, I believed that these people would do what they said they would.

Fast forward to April, 2004, and we've reached the end of Season 7.

Yes, Daniel is back. But contrary to the promise made by Sci-Fi and Bridge Studios, the show has not gone back to its roots. Mythology is still pretty much invisible. There's little exploration, less team interaction than ever before, and Jack seems to have a terminal case of "Daniel who?"

The Jack and Sam "Ship" agenda reared its illegal, ugly head in episode after episode after episode, causing scenes that would normally seem perfectly innocent to take on a sluttish slant. The more Sam and Jack were pushed together, the more the team grew apart.

Episodes became more and more military and hackneyed, with episodes and characters being created in "homage" to Star Trek and Star Wars, but only succeeding in looking old, tired and boring.

With a few exceptions, the writing reached a new low; production values took a dip. Mistakes that would never have appeared on screen in the early years suddenly began popping up in episode after episode. The speed with which these 22 episodes went rushing through production turned what could have been good episodes into mediocrities.

The new big, bad Goa'uld came bouncing on to the show, his mouth filled with the most ridiculous, clichéd words imaginable. He wouldn't scare a kitten, let alone a human. How could he? He had no face for us to connect to. He was a ludicrous copy of-at least to this Star Wars fan-the original Emperor with his black robes and chilling demeanor. Now that was a true Bad Guy!

Major Carter has developed into a character that is so over-the-top unbelievable that some fans have actually stopped watching the show entirely. Colonel O'Neill has gone from a tactically smart leader to a man who appears bored with life and only opens his eyes in order to spit out silly one-liners that are meant to be funny. Teal'c appears regularly only in episodes penned by his actor, Christopher Judge, or Peter de Luise.

And Daniel? He seems to spend most of his time with original guest characters of the week or else alone, separated from his team. Once again, as in seasons four and five, most of the writers don't seem to know what to do with him.

I'm expecting Season 8 to run along the same lines as Season 7. I've given up on ever seeing the great Jack and Daniel friendship scenes I so loved in the past and that hooked me in the beginning. I'm resigned to the fact that a show I loved so much for it's uniqueness and inventiveness has degenerated into a clichéd science fiction show with spaceships and explosions and complete lack of character development.

And then you have "Stargate: Atlantis," the highly touted spinoff, that reads like a badly penned horror flick, complete with Blue Meanies that suck out your brains. The creators of this "new" show, while trading heavily on the already well-known "Stargate" name and using the popularity of the original show to sell their spin-off, are busily and very obviously showing most of the Original Fan Base that they neither care about what we like or even want us around anymore.

I'm extremely disappointed that something I fell in love with ten years ago is now in the process of divorcing me.

1) USE THE STARGATE. The show is called Stargate: SG-1. The audience is choosing to watch this show, the one that is clearly labeled as containing both a Stargate and SG-1, so I think we can take it as a given that both the writers and the viewers should be okay with the use of the Stargate. It's a doorway that can take the story and our team anywhere, so I have to ask: Why are there now so many Earth based stories? I actually had a strong pang of fond nostalgia when SG-13 was shown exiting the Stargate in Heroes Part 1, and I thought, "Ohhhh! I remember when SG-1 used to do that! That was so fun!"

2) THE SHOW DOESN'T WORK WITHOUT DANIEL JACKSON. Why do I bring this up now that he's back? Because, as a rule, Hollywood is contemptuous of their audience, feeling that they only deed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, the not-too-brights. There was a ground swell of support to bring back Daniel because this audience, the one that watches your show, knew Daniel was important.

Now, after Season Six has been seen, most folks agree that Daniel really does need to be on SG: SG-1 for it to work. And those that can't bring themselves to actually say that, will mutter something about, "The show seemed to be missing something." I bring all this up to prove the point that you should listen to what your viewers are saying...even if their opinions don't concur with your own.

3) VILLAINS NEED TO BE PERSONAL TO BE GOOD. Apophis worked as a villain because both Teal'c and Daniel had personal issues and a history with him. Kinsey is great because he is a very real threat to what the audience loves about your show (the Stargate and SG-1.) Other excellent villains were Hathor, Tanith and Ba'al. Currently, you have Anubis who is robed and faceless; you might as well just hang a sign on him that says, "Insert generic villain here." His dialogue is also generic and clichéd. I forget he's in the show until you have a character remind me. Your Super Soldiers are also generic and faceless. Remember, Bill Murray in Caddyshack? Was he fighting a gopher with a personality or a hill of ants? Conflict without characterizations is pretty bland and easily forgettable.

4) DR. JANET AND GENERAL HAMMOND. The Stargate storyline is delightful because it's epic and mythic, fitting with ease into the monomyth of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with the Thousand Faces. Janet and Hammond are archetypes of the Mother and Father. Janet protects and nurtures our heroes. Hammond is the most wonderful father figure one could have: brave, wise, protective, compassionate, hard when he needs to be, and shown to be loving of his "children." Between the two of them, they made the SGC a safe haven for both SG-1 and the viewers.

Apparently, Season 8 will be minus them. I have to ask, have the writers considered the vacuum these two will have left? And are they working to restore some balance to the equation now that two of their major supporting characters have been removed? And I'll add that as a viewer, I will very much miss both Janet and Hammond.

5) THE SYSTEMATIC DESTRUCTION OF THE SHOW'S MYTHOS. Every other show out there collects guest characters as time goes by. SF shows will also collect new worlds and civilizations. These things add richness and depth to the storylines and frankly, the viewers like the return of a good character. I have never seen a show so determined to destroy all the wealth of their background. Pretty near everyone SG-1 have ever met or worked with are dead or long forgotten. These were your riches, not loose ends to be tied up and killed off.

6) TEAL'C IS UNDERUSED. Teal'c is a wonderful character and Christopher Judge is an excellent actor. You would think the writers would love to explore the character of Teal'c and let Judge strut his stuff. It's a major crime that the only time this happens any more is when Judge gets to write the scripts himself. That is so sad and such a waste. Thankfully, Judge is getting to be quite an accomplished writer. The viewers got lucky there.

7) THE LACK OF JACK. It's noticeable and it affects the quality of the stories. I understand that this situation can't be helped and we'll all just have to deal with it as best we can. I will say that some episodes have managed to use his limited time much more effectively, so hopefully this unevenness was just a learning curve of a difficult situation and Season 8 with be smoother yet. Remember, Jack is most enjoyable when he shares his scenes with the other team members, not transient guest stars.

8) TALKING DIRECTLY TO YOUR AUDIENCE. This is intrusive and irritating. It does no good if you have to have multiple characters stating that Jonas is a good man and a part of the team, but you never show it. You keep telling us that Anubis is big and bad and scary, but you've never shown it. I don't mind when exposition is used to cover stuff that would be boring to film, but for the big stuff? Show, not tell.

9) SAM AND JACK. This has become the smelliest of albatrosses to have ever hung around someone's neck. The scenes lately have been painfully awkward to watch. There are so many reasons to not go there, but it's obvious that someone high up thinks it's just great, despite the monstrous inertia against it. Society has multiple laws against sexual relationships between a superior and subordinate for good reason. Jack would be no "officer and gentleman" if he engaged in a relationship with Carter and he'd be court-martialed. Sam would never again be taken seriously by the USAF and her career would be at an end. I was horrified to see in "Inauguration," that during an investigation of the SGC, the President and Vice President were discussing the Sam and Jack Relationship, because in Real Life, what would've followed, would've been highly unpleasant and destroyed them both.

10) SAM. I used to like Sam Carter. She was a bit over the top in the first few episodes, but then she settled down to be an interesting character. She was bright and an over-achiever, but Amanda Tapping played her in such a way that she was believable. She was a cool, dynamic female character that wasn't just on the show for her T&A. Season 4 hinted that she had a thing for her commanding officer, and that lessened her, pushing her towards the stereotype where the woman's main value comes from her being the leading man's girl. Sam deserved better than that. Season 5 and 6 made her expert at everything, exposition girl and 99% infallible. Again, she lost believability and Sam deserved better than that.

In the current season, she did some self-searching about her fixation on her boss and decided, in a whole episode dedicated to this epiphany, to move on. She got herself a handsome and fun boyfriend, Pete, who managed to bring back some vitality to her character. She actually looked ten years younger than she does when she is mooning after O'Neill. Strangely, in the episodes since Pete, she seems to still be hovering around O'Neill, and in the season ender, The Lost City, Part 2, she behaved in such a way that my Needs-a-Therapist-Badly meter just hit the peg.

I think Sam has serious control issues when it comes to intimate relationships. Think back to when Sam shows the most interest and emotion for her romantic interests. She's grief-stricken when Martouf dies in Divide and Conquer, Orlin dies in Ascension, and Narim is killed in Between Two Fires. When Daniel dies in Meridian, she sobs regretfully that she never told him how she really felt. And when does she really show her intense feelings for O'Neill? When he is presumed lost on both 100 Days and Paradise Lost. When he's shot and unconscious in Heroes Part 2. When he's dying of a fatal disease and being put in stasis in both Frozen and The Lost City Part 2. All of these moments have one thing in common: she's safe to emote because the object of her feelings is either dying or being put in a situation where she won't have to deal with the flesh and blood man anymore.

The Lost City was the final straw and made me immediately think of those women that like to marry men locked away in prison for life. Sam has a boyfriend, but seeing O'Neill being put away in stasis was like a heroin to a junky; she just couldn't resist. He's now the perfect man, completely safe to love as she will never have to deal with the strong, sometimes difficult, sarcastic Jack in real life, the fine officer that would never break regulations and destroy both of their careers. And apparently Pete is forgotten like he didn't exist, or discarded as a casual one-night stand.

In The First Commandment, it was hinted that Sam's ex-fiancé was abusive towards her; maybe she needs to find a good therapist to deal with some lingering issues. And maybe the writers need to rehab Sam back into the interesting character she was in the earlier seasons, instead of the sad, unsettling character she is now.

by Phoenix Emrys

Good morning, campers! Season 7 has officially ended. The last episode of what has been undeniably the most anticipated and promoted season of the entire series has finally aired. It's all over but the weeping. And I know there's been a fair amount of that, alas. Which is a damned shame, considering how euphoric and optimistic we were going in. After what for many of us was a year-long hiatus, a year's dry spell abstaining from watching Stargate because without Daniel, it just wasn't Stargate we had high hopes and expectations for the upcoming season we joyfully dubbed 'Seventh Heaven,' because it heralded the return of our beloved Daniel to his team and to us. We had much to celebrate. Daniel was back! Our Original Team was back! Stargate was back! So much was possible now!

Most of us avidly anticipated Season 7 because we could see the possibilities and we were promised much. What could have been and SHOULD have been now that Daniel had returned.

What we SHOULD have seen in Season 7, which should have been DANIEL'S year...

Daniel was back, therefore a dominant theme in this season should have been his return and how it affected both him and the friends he'd left behind. He'd been gone a whole year, existing as an energy being, and now he'd returned without any memory, not only of his past but of his entire time as a member of Oma's glowy collective, therefore what had happened to him, why he had been cast out, how he regained his memory and coped with remembering what he'd been and done and why he'd been de-glowed' - how he and his friends dealt with all of this should have been one of the major story arcs of the season. Logically, you would think. The actors and the writers waxed eloquently, and again, you would think logically, RDA's reduced availability for the season would create more story opportunities for the other main cast members to be featured front and centre and we could expect to see much more quality interaction between them in the upcoming Season 7 than was possible in the past. The actors were all happily looking forward to this. So were we. At last, the team was back! Daniel was back. Jack and Daniel would be back! And we were going to get more Daniel and Teal'c, Daniel and Sam - and gasp! Dare we even hope it - some actual SAM AND TEAL'C!!

Whee!!

Yes, if logic was indeed something which prevailed in the writer's room at Bridge Studios that is what we would have seen in Season 7. However, we all know what happened.

Daniel was returned to us in the season opener, however aside from a few poignant scenes after he returned to the SGC any further in-depth exploration of his predicament and his adjustment was tabled in favour of a Star Wars rip-off 'we must stop the Emperor - I mean the non-scary pile of animated, bad cliché-spouting Goa'uld laundry from taking over the universe' story during which much of the episode was wasted on a last ditch attempt to rehabilitate the sixth season speed-bump before he was thankfully, finally, permanently shuffled on back to Kelowna except for the blip that was Fallout..

Those promised and much anticipated 'moments' for the other three members of the cast to shine? Episodes showcasing characters equally divided between all three? Further exploration into previously neglected dynamics and relationships between certain characters? Team episodes? Jack and Daniel? Daniel and Teal'c? Sam and Teal'c?

Admittedly early on a few crumbs were tossed to the literally starving. Mighty tasty they were, and we gobbled them greedily. However, such early season gems adhering to the promised program such as Orpheus, Enemy Mine, Lifeboat, Birthright, and Fragile Balance soon gave way to the depressingly familiar formula of 'One Member of SG-1 interacting with the whizzy new OC of the week.' Or 'SG-1 plays guest star to the whizzy new OC of the week'. Been there, seen this, hated it, had really been hoping we'd left it behind with the speed-bump on Kelowna. Especially as, contrary to what we had been led to expect, the 'One Member of SG-1' front and centre doing all that interacting was not all of them, but only one of them. The same one.

Sam.

Again.

So much for the remaining three being featured equally now that RDA was stepping back and making more on screen time for everyone else. As we wearily watched the season wear on all our hopes for the wonderful and varied character interaction we'd been anticipating between all our favourites was ground into dust by the relentless rolling of 'Samgate'. Jack and Daniel? Daniel and Teal'c? Sam and Teal'c? Didn't happen, did it, campers? While that in itself wasn't enough of a bitter disappointment, it got oh, so much worse.

Season 7 did have a theme, and a major story arc, and we're not talking about the barely there, on again, off again lame-o not so big and bad Nuby nonsense/Lost City folderol. Nor was it about Daniel, or anything having to do with his return or the loss of Abydos (we still have no idea not only how he feels about it but if he even KNOWS what happened to his adopted planet and his family. We assume someone told him, but we don't know for sure). Other than his time as a card carrying Ancient (a fact that was strangely forgotten, not even mentioned in the Lost City, you would think something like that would merit some acknowledgement, even in passing) being briefly touched on in Orpheus (for which we profusely thank Mr Deluise) and a mention in Resurrection his memory had mostly returned (for which we profusely thank Mr Shanks) that was all the time the writers devoted to the ramifications of Daniel's return and his existence for a year as an Ascended Being. These important, glaringly obvious character exposition issues crying out for further exploration we were crying out to see were evidently not a part of the writers' season 7 agenda. They had bigger fish to fry.

Can you say 'ship?' Say it or we will whack you repeatedly between the eyes with it until you do!

Forget possibilities, rich and varied character interaction – ANY sort of logical and positive character development. Toss it all right down the window - the only burning issue the writers felt worthy of exploration and amplification in Season 7 was Sam's love life. And the only relationship that got the spotlight cast on it was the illicit, illogical, absurd, nauseating, dishonourable and downright degrading to both characters but especially Sam - supposed 'attraction' between the major and her commanding officer.

Sam and Jack. Ugh. Once they'd sucked us in with a few token 'team' episodes, a showcase ep for Daniel here, one for Teal'c there - (one of which Christopher Judge had to write himself!) and lulled us into a sense of false complacency with a little taste of the Jack/Daniel interaction we really wanted, the writers grabbed that ship hammer and proceeded to bang us over the head with it, mercilessly, without ceasing until most of us were not only crawling away whimpering to be put out of our misery but were also vowing, by the end of the final, dire, shippy frame of the Lost City to walk away from the show and tell them what they could do with their Season 8.

How to keep your audience begging for more, guys!

Yep, here we are at the end of the Seventh Season.

Boned again.

This shouldn't come as any great shock, actually, because if we've learned anything over the past four years we've learned we can 'trust TPTB'…to screw us over and do exactly what they please - if they think they can get away with it. If they believe they can continue to shovel an unending pile of Samage down our throats with an overflowing order of 'ship' on the side and we'll just sit there and swallow it - then that's exactly what they'll do.

However, they seem to have forgotten, or maybe they're hoping we have - they tried this once before and it didn't fly. When Michael Shanks left Stargate at the end of Season Five TPTB issued numerous proclamations from their ivory PTB towers declaring we WOULD love their 'fresh new perspective' and we WOULD embrace their raggedy stand-in. Daniel was gone. Jonas was in. Get over it. So there. Neener neener.

Well, a few of us said, 'I don't think so!' A whole bunch more joined in. Lots and lots more... And before the Boys at Bridge could say 'Oh Crap' after the airing of Meridian in the UK our complacent creators found themselves the focus of a huge, furious outpouring of extremely inconvenient displeasure with the product they were pedalling. So massive was the reaction and the protest they had to hire a special PR company to deal with it. We buried them with letters and jammed the switchboard at MGM for weeks. And that was just the first wave. Meridian aired in the US and it started all over again.

We wuz pissed. They knew it. We roared, they ran…straight to Mr Shanks. They brought Daniel back. Bye Bye Jonas. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

We made them quake in their boots, kiddies. WE made them tuck their tales between their legs and go running to Mr Shanks to ask him to return. We. Us. The fans. Their audience. The consumers of their product. The same people they want not only to keep coming back for season 8 but to keep on watching and float their new little enterprise, Atlantis for them. We did this. We did so. Oh yes, oh my. And don't you let them try and tell you any different.

They NEED us. They don't want us to know it, and they also don't want us to realise WE'RE the ones with the power, not them. Why do you suppose practically every PTB that did an interview after it was announced Michael Shanks was returning to the show followed up the admission with a curt 'but the fans had nothing to do with it'. Yeah, right. And if you just keep ignoring that elephant in the middle of your living room he won't really be there.

If we didn't have anything to do with it then why would they all have gone out of their way to deny our power and influence and to try and convince us we didn't have any?

Why indeed?

A friend who entered the fandom about the time Daniel left and observed the course of the campaign from the periphery offered me a startling perspective to that time and an important key to our success I want to share with you here, by way of encouragement. Basically, the Save Daniel Jackson campaign was hardly the first fan effort ever mounted to attempt to bring back a beloved character or get a show renewed, nor will it be the last - and good luck to Angel fans. However, what made us different, what got us so much media attention, and what scared the crap out of TPTB was that we took it that one step further.

We didn't just say we were unhappy and wanted Daniel back, we hurt them where they lived. We were 'different' and newsworthy because we dared to criticise and vehemently and vocally rejected their entire 'fresh new perspective'. We told them what they were pedalling was a PRODUCT for which we were the consumers and as such we had the right not only to not only say their 'improvements' stunk, but to demand they CHANGE it back to what we wanted if they expected us to buy it. We told them we WEREN'T going to passively sit there and take whatever they chose to give us or allow them to tell US what we would accept. We weren't just going to 'get over it' – as we were frequently, mockingly admonished, we had the right to protest and by God, did we or what! We realised we had the option of exercising that TV remote and it didn't stop there, our displeasure would and could have further, serious financial repercussions. We could and would vote not only with the TV remote, but with our pocketbooks as well. We told them we simply would NOT accept Jonas or any version of Stargate that did not include all of the members of the Original Team. They may have tried to tell us what we would buy - but we said strongly, clearly and by the thousands...

NO SALE.

We told them. We didn't back down, didn't shut up and didn't go away. And, what do you know, all of a sudden, new season on the horizon, Jonas is out and Daniel is in? And they would have us believe we had nothing to do with this? You bet they're gonna say that, and they're gonna try to convince us we were not a significant factor in bringing about Daniel's return to Stargate because they are absolutely terrified once we understand how much POWER we really have and start using it they'll be forced to produce the show WE want to see, not the half assed, self serving crap they hope to coast by with for the last 20 episodes of OUR show while they're got their eyes and their hopes pinned on their new cash cow, Atlantis. Which they're also hoping they can suck us in – I mean convince us to watch.

Yeah, right.

This is OUR show. OUR STARGATE. We're paying for it with our time and our money, we DESERVE to get our money's worth - and we have a right to demand customer satisfaction and the product please us, not them. TPTB work for US. They want us to forget that little, all-important fact, all the better to keep us passive and dis-empowered. But the truth is they wouldn't have squat if it weren't for us. They wouldn't have JOBS without us - they won't have a franchise without us, those yuztes have made a pile of money over the past seven years because of us and you know what, I think it's just about time they started earning it. They get paid to please YOU and ME and they're not doing it. I didn't sit still for their 'fresh new perspective' and you know what, I'm not going to roll over and take their 'Season Eight - Samgate/shipfest' either. That goes double for Atlantis. I'm a consumer and I'm NOT happy. I plan to let them know about it. A lot. You should too.

We have the power, people. We can make them listen to us. We did it before, we can do it again. Yes, I know we're unhappy, bitterly disappointed and depressed, but if we walk away, they've won. Don't let them! Don't be sad, get damned mad. Be heard! Fans of the Team and the Real Stargate Unite! If you're sick to death of the 'shippy new perspective', if you've had it to here with Samage and tawdry romance, if the only 'ship' on Stargate you want to see is 'FRIENDship', if you want more Daniel, more Teal'c, more Jack and Daniel then TELL them! PHONE! WRITE! Atlantis? Cha-right! Fix the show you've broken, first, and then we might consider it. Maybe…

Be loud, be proud, be persistent. It's the last thing they want, all the more reason to just do it! Be heard. It matters, you matter, every single voice is important, and we CAN make a difference. We got Daniel back. We can get OUR show back.

You deserve it, you have a RIGHT to demand it. Go for it.

We did it before, we can do it again!

Believe it!

On Tuesday 9th march 2004 at 8:00 pm precisely I sat down to watch the second half of the final episode of Stargate SG1 Season 7. This time last year, I wrote a fairly scathing review about the Season 6 ender, Full Circle, and I was really hoping that this year would be different. But in reality it has been a good three years now since I sat down to watch a brand new episode with a sense of excitement and hope; a confidence that I would be entertained, stimulated, even intellectually challenged. In the last three years, more often than not, I have come away from a new episode with a creeping sense of disappointment, of let down – with the feeling that this could have been so much more but failed in some respect.

I’ve watched beautiful images on the screen, images that are often almost cinematic in quality – and remained unmoved by them. Because, as has been said many times before, in some cases by people more intimately connected with the production of this show than I will ever be…

"You can only fool an audience for a few minutes with special effects. It's the stories that make them stick around: Richard Dean Anderson, TV Guide July 26 2003

…and an earlier conversation recorded during the 4th season for a feature – ‘Stargate SG1 – Timeline to the future’ (a DVD special):

BW – ‘So it’s fair to ask, what is it about Stargate SG1 that makes it so popular and unique?

RDA – ‘well for one it feeds upon our fascination to explore the unknown and seek out life in other parts of the universe.’

BW – ‘What I love is, we’re not using spaceships to get there, we’re using the stargate’

RDA – ‘The human element is what’s important. It’s a great way to study ourselves, our society, all under the guise of science fiction’.

The more I think about it, the more I realise how very unsatisfied I am with this episode.

Let me count the ways…..

Villains.

Anubis was far far too easy to kill. And having gone to some pains to build him up as the big bad over the course of two years, they finish him off with a few glowing amoebas and an 'Oh Shit' moment... Even if certain rumours are to be believed that this episode does not in fact spell the end of Anubis, it was still anticlimactic. In short, a letdown. But then, I never really got the sense that he was a tremendous menace anyway. All season, the writers have been telling me about the terrible things he’s been doing out there among the system lords but have I actually seen any of it? Have the characters I care about personally experienced any of it? Nope. What happened to one of the most fundamental writers’ tenets of show, don’t tell?

Was ANYBODY actually surprised at the betrayal of the Jaffa? That was set up so clumsily and obviously I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It would have been MORE of a plot twist if he hadn't betrayed them. What real benefit did that entire five minute sequence bring to the plot? How did it further the story that was being told? Without this fight – excellent though it was for Bratac (one character that has remained consistent and a pleasure to watch) they would have had more time for other parts of the episode that felt rushed and too abrupt, and they wouldn't have had to use that ridiculous deus ex machina about Jack getting healing abilities. Didn't the programme makers learn their lesson with Super Sam and Super Jonas - now we've got to have Super Jack too? And what kind of sense does it make? We have been told that Jack’s brain is being overwritten by the data in the Ancient’s download – no mention has ever been made of his physiology adjusting to an Ancient’s pattern. Why would Jack have the healing abilities displayed by Iyana [Frozen, S6]. I hate to say it, but it actually makes more sense for Daniel to start manifesting physical abilities of this sort because he, at least, has a reason. He’s recently been poured into a brand new body by the Ancients themselves. They could have done anything with his physiology that they wanted – they could have put him back into an Ancient’s body, since that is the pattern they know best… but to suggest that Jack should suddenly manifest the healing abilities which as far as we know are peculiar to the Ancients’ physiology is frankly daft.

Wow, it was easy to dispatch those two supersoldiers wasn't it! It took, how long for them to stop being an insurmountable menace and become pointless cannon-fodder? They were introduced precisely half a season ago as the worst thing ever—just as five or six years ago the Jaffa were the worst thing ever. At least it took several years to diminish the threat of the Jaffa – we managed to find a way of rendering the new ‘supersoldiers’ impotent in six months. Guess they weren’t so super after all, huh?

Kinsey. One of the reasons he was so hateable was that he was a believable menace. Of course all self-serving, manipulating, power hungry baddies are craven cowards underneath. What else would they be? Well, let’s try intelligent. In this episode Kinsey was written as a fool and a buffoon who could not understand the realities of the situation he found himself in. Anyone who had managed to avoid a follow up assassination by the rogue NID and who had manipulated himself into the position of Vice President is NOT going to be so stupid as to throw a temper tantrum all over the SGC when the gate is activated and there is no prospect of dialling out. He is going to understand what is happening, not whine and bitch that he isn’t getting what he wants. No person who has managed to remain a threat to the members of SG1 for nearly the entire span of time that the team has been established is going to mouth off to the President in the middle of a crisis, simply out of spite because he hates the people who are the best prospect for saving the planet yet again! Of course not! Kinsey is smart enough to know that if Earth goes down, he will go down with it. He is smart enough to know that SG1 have saved the planet countless times before and that if they have a last minute plan it is entirely better to let them carry it out, remove the immediate threat and then go back to quietly removing their power later. Kinsey isn’t so stupid that his desire to remove SG1 blinds him to the bigger picture. He wants power. He has a sense of divine entitlement to power. He can’t achieve power if he gets enslaved or barbecued. In ‘normal’ situations SG1 may well stand in the way of him achieving such power, but in these special circumstances surely he is intelligent enough to know darn well that they are probably his only realistic prospect of long term survival. So what does he do? Loses his head, mouths off to the president of the United States, threatens the new leader of the SGC and flounces off. And in portraying him in this way, the writers have turned Kinsey from a credible threat into a cartoon who represents no menace or danger at all. He is just a buffoon who is easily discounted. He didn't advance the plot, he didn't do anything except distract from what was really going on. A waste of a good baddie, and a massive cliché…. Why did he need to be in the episode at all?

The ‘Cool’ effects.

Let’s examine the aerial battles. Beautiful special effects – beautiful. Pity the first clash between the two sides looked ‘exactly’ like the first clash between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. What was it that Martin Wood and Michael Shanks said about homages during their audio commentary for the ‘Homecoming and Fallen’ DVDs?

Michael Shanks : - “One of the best things that our show does sometimes is it – instead of trying to mask the clichés and the rip offs and what not, it actually hangs a lantern on them and says we know, which is actually in a way, if you’re an audience member – don’t try and fool me, don’t insult my intelligence, actually point it out and then just get on with it.”

Uhuh, sorry guys. It works a couple of times. But so far in the last two seasons I have lost count of the number of ‘homages’ that have cropped up. It’s gone too far, way, way too far. It now looks like a creative team desperately searching around for inspiration because they can’t come up with anything original of their own.

The Prometheus and the move towards a ‘Star Trek’ Universe.

I’m not the only one who thinks this…

Michael Shanks: - “The other thing with space battles too – and someone will roast me for saying this – it’s so not really our show… it kind of becomes a little bit too almost Star Trek or even Star Wars. It’s not really where our strength lies.”

Martin Wood:- “Season 7 has spent a lot of time in space.”

Hammond is great, but he ain't no Jim Kirk and the Prometheus ain't no Enterprise! [for a start, it has got to be THE ugliest ship in space!] I find that in comparison with Star Trek shows (which do space battles really well) when Stargate tries to do space battles, it really isn't all that convincing. It really isn't their strong point, and its nothing to do with the special effects which they produce, some of which are eye popping - but after a lifetime of watching amazing effects that just isn't enough for me anymore. Looking at the really effective space battles in both film and television over the years, it seems to me that what tends to be missing in the Stargate SG1 renditions is a sense of personal jeopardy for the participants. An illustration of this would be the final few moments of FailSafe where one got no sense at all that anything momentous or dangerous was happening inside the cargo ship. One got no sense that the engines were in imminent danger of overloading, there was no sense of movement, no physical suggestion of mortal peril at all. It may be a terrible cliché to have tilting sets and exploding consoles the way that Star Trek and Star Wars do – but they are there for a reason, and that reason is dramatic and it makes sense because without it the scene is sterile and unexciting.

Even if these scenes were executed as well as in other series more geared towards them, the special effects alone are not enough because it is not what Stargate SG1 was ever about for me. It is not what attracted me to the show, and it is not what will keep me watching in the future – if anything does.
Here is a comment made by a chap called J Michael Straczynski. You might remember him; wrote a little thing called Babylon 5.

…it seems very clear that the element most emblematic of science fiction at its very best… is the sense of wonder. Ancient monuments that tower thousands of feet above you, mysterious secrets revealed at terrible price; great fleets of starships riding fire, passing overhead en route to distant suns; aliens whose thoughts are as akin to our own as the spider.

The sense of wonder. That is precisely the thing that attracted me to the once-unique format of Stargate SG1. In its early days, it possessed this in abundance. It was this sense of wonder about the show that set it apart from most other science fiction shows – just like Babylon 5, which at its best was a stunning distillation of the elements of mythology and legend which are capable of speaking to some instinct deep inside us.

In his article, written for a Babylon 5 companion book, Straczynski goes on to say…

Every day it becomes more apparent that the American culture is slowly dying. Not the American corporations, or the economy, or the institutions per se… the culture. The myths that form the underpinnings of our society. Every generation is like the street beggar in the Aladdin stories, calling out ‘New lamps for old.’ For centuries we have regularly traded in our old myths for new ones, reinvented and reinterpreted them. We listen for the voice that is ancient in us, and recast our core myths in more contemporary clothing, to better understand them and ourselves. Providing these myths is the responsibility and the obligation of the storyteller…… The myth-maker points to the past but speaks in the voice of future history; it is the collective voice of our ancestors, speaking through us, giving us a sense of continuity and destiny; it makes connections between those who have preceded us and those who will follow us. If those myths are absent, we are cut adrift in a sea of pointless entertainments intended primarily to divert us from our own lives.
The proliferation of soap operas and mindless reality TV shows over the last few decades really proves his point, I feel. The last thing I want to see Stargate SG1 become is another clone, another action-adventure show more about the guns and the battles and the cool explosions than this sense of wonder; this sense of something bigger and grander than ourselves, something we can connect into.

The uneven use of the characters.

The first twenty minutes of the second part was superb in may ways. Everyone had something to do which suited their various fields of expertise, everyone contributed to the momentum of the plotline, everyone interacted with everyone else and for those few minutes – it felt like Stargate all over again. So, what went wrong?

The fact that Jack did everything in the latter half of this episode while the others just stood around gawping at him, and occasionally making what they presumably hoped was an intelligent remark was just annoying - he didn't need them, any of them. He needed a taxi service and that was about it. Maybe it's great if you're the star of the show and you can suddenly develop encyclopaedic knowledge AND the ancient's healing ability like magic while everyone else just hovers in the back ground, and occasionally steps in to emote, but frankly, it makes for a poor story. It makes for chronic under-use of your other characters while the star of the show gets to be heroic and save the world again.

And yet again, I have to mention the fact, which the writers of the show seem determined to forget... that Daniel just got back from being an ascended Ancient! They were looking for a lost city of the Ancients...... surely the writers could have found a way for him to be more proactive and more, well, useful. Frankly, apart from translating a few words, most of which we already knew from Fifth Race, Daniel might as well not have been there at all. He demonstrated his usual ability to make intuitive leaps no one else can make when he worked out the significance of the crossword but really it wasn't that much of a contribution for an entire episode about the Ancients - to which he has more of a connection than anyone else! My wish that he had simply stayed ascended and kept out of all this grows stronger and stronger with every episode like this. If they can't build on one of the strongest character backgrounds they've developed over seven years, why bother at all? We have a character who spent a year as a cosmically powerful energy being in the company of other energy beings some of whom are millions of years old. Why is he back? Is it part of some grander scheme? Are these beings really as aloof and uncaring as they seem to simple human perspectives or are they actually concerned for the long term destiny of human-kind but have such a different point of view that humans simply perceive them as uncaring?
Now we are back to the ‘sense of wonder’ versus the ‘manifest destiny of humankind’. In the early seasons we had the sense of wonder, and the sense that humans were very small and very insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Then we found out that the Ancients were just very old humans who all got done by a plague virus. We found out the Asgaard used to be like humans and humanity might be their one chance of survival as a race. Fortunately we haven’t found out anything more about the Nox or the Furlings to diminish their status as older and wiser races – but our sense of wonder has been diminished – we’re just like them. We’ll be equal to them once we get big enough guns. Yeah, sure.

I think that's the problem. It's all just too darn easy these days. There is no real suspense, no real jeopardy. This show isn't prepared to take real chances with their ongoing storylines and because of that, there is no real tension, because you KNOW the good guys are going to find the lost city in time. They didn't in the end reveal the stargate to the people of earth and change the whole nature of the show - it was just another, oh, it's a meteor shower, and we dealt with it. You can take incredulity too far, methinks. No risk taking. No real changes. Keep the status quo.

The absolute worst thing about ‘Lost City’

There has recently been a thread on Our Stargate entitled ‘can one moment ruin an entire show?’. The almost unanimous consensus appears to be a resounding ‘yes’. For me, I know this to be true, and I find it tragic that, looking back on this double episode, this culmination of seven years of work by this cast and crew, what I will remember most is not the visual treat, the adventure or any of the other good points in this hour and a half of television, but the final fifteen seconds. A final fifteen seconds which managed to ruin an entire double episode for me to the point where I am seriously thinking of not bothering to tune in for the next season. Those final few moments which resurrected the Jack/Sam ‘ship’ which should have been killed off for good and all half a season ago (should in fact never have been allowed to become such an issue at all) and rammed it down our throats with all the subtlety of a rabid wolf. Those final few moments when a heart-broken Sam steps up and places her hand against the barrier separating her and Jack, who appears to be staring back at her. Those final few moments when Daniel and Teal’c faded away into the background yet again, relegated to the two sidekicks of the brave Colonel and his ‘girl’; the ‘all important’ relationship which has turned a team of four into a pairing of two plus two hangers on.

It could have been Teal'c, returning an earlier gesture of friendship and loyalty… but it wasn't.

It could have been Daniel, saying a goodbye or making a silent promise to find a way to get Jack out of this… but it wasn't.

Both of them were standing nearer to the booth than Sam was… before she stepped in front of them.

It could have been all three of them, together, demonstrating their solidarity as a team, but it wasn't. Yes, yet again we had to end on close up shots of Sammie's Doe eyes. In the same way that in Evolution, Daniel's storyline is eclipsed by Sam's storyline, and she gets the 'bonding moment' at the end and he doesn’t. And in Heroes, Sam gets the 'bonding moment' with Jack and Daniel doesn't. And in Chimera, Sam's romance completely overshadows what is supposed to be the main plot of Osiris looking for the Lost City in Daniel's head. For the last six months watching these shows I have been seeing Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam.

Worse, I have been watching Sam (a woman I once admired as a modern role model) almost completely defined by her femininity and her various relationships. And I must admit that after so much exposure to them this year I am getting heartily sick of the loving, lingering close-ups on those big blue eyes looking variously astounded, amazed, and sad. It's always the same expression for a start and the camera always stays on it for long enough to make it obvious that, as Peter DeLouise has said in more than one commentary, the directors think that 'she's the one to go to for the reaction shots'.

I really do think they've overplayed their hand this year, and it's been at the expense of the other characters – to an even greater extent than it was before. Potential storylines that I personally would have found far more interesting and stimulating have been rejected in favour of yet more space opera fare. Chris Judge normally has to write himself a decent part in an episode. Janet, the only other strong female role on the show, was summarily killed off. General Hammond will shortly be leaving the show. The guest stars, playing characters that aren’t even likely to return for more episodes, have had more airtime than ever before at the expense of the established characters (except for Sam). Daniel's character really has not developed at all since he came back. He's a placeholder now. They go to him for the exposition that they can't give Sam and they keep Michael Shanks (presumably) happy with the occasional 'big acting scene'. But I've learned absolutely nothing more about him this year than I knew at the moment he descended. I don't know what happened, if it was by choice, if it was a punishment, how he's been dealing with not knowing, how he might deal with finding out..... I don't know anything. And Teal'c. If you discount the episode he wrote himself, and a few excellent lines in Chimera, 50% of his entire dialogue has consisted of the word 'Indeed'. It's gone beyond a joke into serious self-parody.

A couple of other comments from ‘Timeline to the future’, recorded three years ago now….

Brad Wright: - Clearly a huge part of the appeal of Stargate SG1 is the action and the special effects of the show but I think all of that would be meaningless if it wasn’t for the strong ensemble cast that we have.

Amanda Tapping: - … So I talked to the writers about it……. Why can’t she just be a member of this team without constantly raising the flag that she’s a woman?

Brad Wright:- (on Sam Carter) When Jonathan and I were first conceiving her character, I was concerned, and arguably so, that we were creating a superwoman…. She was perfect. She had a lot of those attributes that make a character ring false if it’s not portrayed correctly.

My, how time does change things…

I think that some of the choices that the writers and other show runners have made, dramatically, this year have been execrable, and I must admit that it has caused me to move more and more towards the 'anti-ship' side of things. Since Grace, there has been a big purple elephant in the room and I can't ignore it. I wish I could, but it's there and I see it and every now and then it waves its trunk and flaps its ears at me.

In the last fifteen seconds of Lost City Part II it was rearing up on its hind legs and trumpeting loudly.

Over-reaction? Possibly. It may be a reaction to the shows increasing tendency to intercut two barely related plotlines – something that very rarely happened in those early seasons which I remember so fondly. Perhaps it is just this change in presentational style which has coloured my perceptions of the quality of the show. Perhaps I just don’t get on with it as well as I did a single linear narrative.

I watched Maternal Instinct again this morning. I must have seen it fifty times in the last five years. I still sat entranced, was emotionally moved by it, loved the characterisations and the flow of the plot and the feel of the story. Nothing - NOTHING I have seen in the last two seasons (with the possible exceptions of Changeling, Orpheus and oddly, Inauguration) have stood up to comparison with an episode like this one. Which is why I continue to be negative about the present show. I don't see why we should accept less when we know just what sheer quality they can produce or could produce if only they had the motivation.

I was an SG1 fan first and foremost. I bought into the team as family concept and the ideal that four diverse people, one of whom happened to be a woman, could be fast and loyal friends without any other encumbrances. I believed that, I wrote over 100 stories about it, I loved it.

Until they killed the team I knew, showing bare shadows of what I once believed the team was all about. Until they decided having the team member who just happened to be a woman fall in love with one of our family members who was also her boss was a good idea. Until they drove the wedge of sexual love into the mix of comraderie and devotion that once defined the team. Until that wedge became a sledgehammer that divided the team into the haves (special love not on the same level as the others) and the have nots (the other members of the team who clearly still feel the same way, but are diminished for the sake of the 'special' relationship). Until that wedge became a dirty little secret that can never be spoken aloud but lingers like the odor of ten day old mastadge dung, causing our once nearly perfect heroes to reek of dishonesty and indiscretion.

They can't put the secret back in the box. They did it once after D&C, but they let it back out again too many times. The team is dead, long live Daniel Jackson.

I am a Daniel fan. That's all I am, thanks to PTB. I am the embodiment of that self-fulfilling appelation uttered by Brad Wright a few years ago. I am the Daniel fan you made me, PTB. And, except for the deepening regret for the team we've lost, I'm not one bit sorry to say so.

Are you a Daniel Jackson fan without guilt? Join us on Our Stargate and sound off.

The following are just my thoughts on Meridian and the journey of Daniel's ascension. These are just my opinions, of course, but as I look around at various discussions I find my thoughts very similar to other fans in some respects, and completely different in others. Major ER spoilers concerning Mark Green, Luca, and Carter also included here.
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Never in the history of Stargate has there been an episode more controversial than Meridian. Setting aside the politics of whether or not the episode should have ever happened, or whether or not SG-1 is whole without Daniel Jackson, many of us still feel the need to examine our young hero’s farewell, time as an ascended being, and his return to his corporeal form. How did such an adventurous, somewhat successful journey become such a controversial, unsatisfying disappointment to those who love him most?

It nearly goes without saying that most fans would feel that Daniel should have never left in the first place. A farewell scene for Daniel Jackson should have never been written. But it did happen, and that part of Daniel’s journey seemed to be quite successful in hindsight. As viewers we know that Daniel had been through a lot in his fairly short life, and it is conceivable that he reached a point where he just really didn’t understand his purpose anymore. He felt like a failure, which is incredibly devastating for someone who has such an enormous capacity for empathy and a need to help mankind.

When Daniel is fatally injured Oma DeSala offers him a chance to survive and do something more with his life. He’s reluctant because he’s not sure he deserves ascension. He truly does not see what he has done to gain this opportunity. Oma allows him to ascend regardless as a means of saving him. We learn in Abyss that he is really enjoying his ethereal life style. He is still fascinated by the discovery of this new existence and by the universe itself. But it is also in Abyss that Daniel begins to learn the downside of his ascension. He can no longer help people. From this point on, he questions what kind of a higher being could stand by and allow these things to happen. Each time he is not allowed to intercede as his friends are suffering he becomes more uncertain that this new path is right for him. Finally, as a result of his effort to save Abydos he is cast out of his higher existence as an Ascended or Ancient, his memories erased, and eventually is returned to his friends, where he learns there really is no place like home. His life is important, and what he was doing on earth did matter on both a personal and a universal scale. One would assume that if the Ancients—Oma DeSala in particular—felt Daniel was this vital to the universe that they would invest this time in such a valuable lesson—we can expect greater deeds from Daniel in the future.

Quite a grand adventure indeed—an amazing journey of self-discovery and universal exploration—the stage of the classic hero’s journey, in which a supernatural guide shows him his potential. So what happened? For me the problem has always been in the execution. To begin with if Daniel needed this sort of life lesson, and apparently it was very beneficial, then why did he have to leave the series to learn this? Daniel’s journey has always been one of discovery and learning and this could have been just another stage in that journey. The ideas were all there; they just weren’t fully realized. What could have served as a potential storyline to boost Daniel’s moral, may have done the same for Michael Shanks, who was feeling a bit too much like wallpaper by the end of season five.

But Daniel did leave and examining the execution even closer there is a huge problem in Meridian from the beginning. There was no need to introduce a new character and take away from valuable story time for the departing character. The Stargate writers would have been far better off following the example of another top rated series ER. The night before Meridian aired for the first time in the US we were given Dr. Mark Green’s final performance. The entire episode was dedicated exclusively to the character, centering only on he, his wife and daughters, and the quality of his life. No additional cast members were present, and his death was poignant. I was reminded of this after watching recent episode of the medical drama that once again dealt with a cast member leaving.

We were told Luca was dead, and we are given a beautiful episode dedicated to his last days, and his commitment to his work, his God, and how he, a very scarred and tortured character, finds himself and his faith in a higher being, before he was to die. We see his friend—and for those who watch the show we know it's been an up and down friendship—also find himself, as Carter who has quite nearly grown up on the show, seeks the truth of Luca's death and goes on a mission to bring his body home. Then there is a complete turnaround with a surprising twist, as the farewell is actually Carter's and Luca survives. But we see two characters, who were often at odds, heal themselves, renew their commitment to life, and their dedication to their friendship. We get a farewell hug, and even a platonic kiss. And they were the only ER characters in the entire episode.

Their friendship had never been as intense as that between Jack and Daniel. And darn if I wasn't left wanting to see them together again.

Meridian should have been dedicated to Daniel’s life. And though I myself would have liked to see a more emotional scene between Jack and Daniel, I accept that they really didn’t need to talk about their true feelings for each other. They did say what needed to be said, though I could think of plenty of things we as an audience would like to hear from them for ourselves. Comparing Jack and Daniel’s final scenes to those of Luca and Carter, we actually have the actors together far more, and say much more to each other in Stargate than the ER doctors did, yet “The Lost” seemed even more poignant than “Meridian.”

The key was again in the execution. ER chose to concentrate on Luca and Carter’s journey of self-discovery, while torturing us with which character is actually going to leave the series. Luca reaffirms his devastating life so he can return to the states, Carter finds himself in the Congo—the spoiled rich kid decides to devote his life to the needs of others. An incredibly defining episode for both men. Several months later, Carter returns in another brilliant episode demonstrating his experiences. His character is now a transformed man who's released his burdens, fallen in love and is expecting a child.

Meridian tried too hard to sell us a new character, when we should have been given more of Daniel and a celebration of what he had done with his life. Flashbacks could have been utilized complementing some of the more emotional aspects. We are tempted with an absolutely beautiful scene where Jack sits with Daniel as he lay dying; the devastation and the loss clear on his face. But rather than hear Jack’s thoughts, use flashbacks, or possibly even see “flashbacks” filmed specifically for this episode, as in Threshold, the poignant moment is interrupted by Jonas and Hammond. I’ll indulge myself and say that had I written Meridian, Jack’s defense of Daniel’s reputation, as wonderful as that was, would have waited until the next episode. Anything to deal with anyone else but Jack and Daniel, and possibly Sam and Teal’c would have waited.

One of the more touching scenes for me was the almost childlike manner Daniel used to share all the bad things that were going to happen to him with Jack. The horrible truth tumbled out as though he wanted to explain something exciting. Usually we only see Daniel breakdown or worry over others. He remains almost stoic in regards to himself, yet he desperately needed to voice his fear, and he knew that telling Jack was going to help in some small way. Daniel is an incredibly strong character, but he and Jack have a way of sharing and supporting each other because they are secure in their belief of each other's empathy and love. Throughout this episode Jack offers Daniel his strength by not falling apart. He knows Daniel’s fear and pain. Daniel knows he understands and knows that Jack would do anything possible for him, and even tries to convince Jack that he shouldn’t, because he believes he is no different than anyone else. The look on Jack’s face speaks volumes, and Daniel hears him loud and clear. He is more important to Jack, and if Jack gets the opportunity he will use whatever alien technology he can to save Daniel.

When Jack tells Daniel he’s been a tremendous pain in the ass, there’s an unspoken understanding, a long-term affection, behind that statement. Daniel knows and enjoys the fact that he’s a pain in Jack’s life. Because despite what a pain he has been, Jack continued to accept, love, and protect Daniel unconditionally—as Daniel has Jack—because he was worth it. Their feelings for each other have always been strong, and have never needed to be voiced. Their relationship is both tacit and tactile, the spoken word having little meaning between two men who communicated almost telepathically. Jack did want to make sure that Daniel knew he admired and respected him, but his love was never in question.

The scene at the end where Daniel leaves is very difficult. Jack is a bit taken off guard. He’s not sure that Daniel standing there looking so desperate could possibly be real. He tests the waters with his quiet, almost fatherly, “Daniel, did you want something?” He questions whether Daniel is giving up, he sees the desperation and the need Daniel has to move on, and he bravely lets him go. And again, in an almost fatherly manner, he watches Daniel as he leaves, his eyes misty, a brave smile—until Daniel is gone—and then his heart breaks, and Jack O’Neill closes himself off for good. All the fear, all the worry, the pain he tried to hide from overwhelms him. Everything Daniel saved him from in the past is thrown back in his face. He just shuts down, and Daniel will be the last person he ever lets into his life.

Revelations gives us Jack O’Neill who is very closed off from everyone and alone in his grief. He refuses to talk to Carter because he could not bear to. It would not take much to completely undo his sanity and stoicism, and right now he is quite content in his grief because that is all he had left. There is no Daniel and no Skaara to bring him around again. And even if there were they would not have stood a chance. Daniel and Skaara were able to get through to Jack the first time because they had no idea they were doing it. They caught Jack off guard as they innocently stumbled into his path and then dared to care about him. They got to Jack through the gaping hole in his heart because they needed his help and his protection as much as he needed to give it and prove to himself that he was still capable of offering it. This time Jack would not make that mistake. Jack’s grief, his withdrawal into himself through season six, was truly in character with Jack O'Neil of the orginal movie, but unfortunately for some it made him appear too callous and unconcerned. I would not have accepted a Jack who acted any other way.

With Abyss we finally see Jack come around a bit. Once he meets Daniel again, and he can accept that his friend is all right and not just an illusion, he is able to get his act together somewhat. There is still a big hole in his heart, but at least he knows Daniel is okay; he is just continuing on his own path and finding out who he is and what he can do for mankind. Jack may not agree with Daniel’s career choice, but the important thing is, Daniel is happy for the moment. They clash again over Daniel’s chosen path when they meet in Full Circle. Jack pushes Daniel to interfere, because he knows Daniel better than anyone else, and he knows Daniel won’t be able to live with himself if he doesn’t help. He was right, but I wanted to see a Jack that worried over what happened to Daniel after Full Circle. I as a viewer really needed to see how the loss of both Daniel and Skaara affected the man who saves our universe on a regular basis. It wasn’t enough for me to remember the anguish Jack felt four years earlier when he was forced to choose between Daniel and Skaara, only to turn around and sacrifice Daniel. I wanted to see him actually deal with the buried grief of continually losing someone so close to him.

Again, execution problems are coming into play throughout Daniel’s ascension. We as the audience should have been able to witness more of his conflict and dilemma as well. We should have seen what happened to him when the Ancients intervened. We should have seen discussions between he and Oma. It would have been wonderful to see Daniel come to the realization that he wanted to return to his life and do what he could. It may have played out like It’s a Wonderful Life, but since Stargate is in the business of homage….

Even though none of this happened it would have still been nice to have had Fallen as a two hour special in it’s own right. Once again the ball is dropped on Daniel’s journey. And actually it would have been even more appropriate to see them help him remember and come to the conclusion that he belonged with Jack and his team, saving the universe. All of this could have been handled with a series of clips from earlier shows and a few heart to heart conversations. I wanted to see Jack convince Daniel that his life had been worth returning to and that he was a decent human being he was proud to call his friend.

Daniel went through the most phenomenal period of growth and exploration in his entire life. An absolutely incredible journey—and we only saw tiny glimpses. Time that could have been spent showing us what he did, how he felt, and how his friends helped him reclaim his life—time that should have been devoted to the character whose journey has driven the Stargate saga—was used to blow things up, chase after the single worst villain in sci-fi history, and give a fonder farewell to the controversial character whose introduction robbed the audience of a more appropriate departure for Daniel a year earlier.

Stargate started as a high quality, character driven show that captured our imaginations with its stories of our tragically scarred heroes’ journeys and the magnificent universe we live in. It was full of possibilities and wonder. It dealt with levels of human emotion and story lines that were Emmy quality. The actors weren’t afraid to really show they could act, and certainly had no fear of physical contact and overt platonic love for each other. Somewhere between the third and fourth season, things started to change. The characters grew more distant; there was less physical contact and obvious caring, that quite honestly made it hard to always remember these people were friends. Oh, it would show up occasionally, but it has never regained the level it once did. Sometimes the series is just left lacking and the audience going—hey, a hug wouldn’t have been inappropriate there.

There have been a variety of suggestions thrown about as to what happened particularly between the characters of Jack and Daniel. Some blame the forced relationship between Jack and Sam for driving a wedge between