Thought of the Day for TPTB
Abyss Review by Rosalita
A few weeks ago I expressed the wish that Abyss would give us back Jack and Daniel's friendship as it existed prior to Season 4. I never dreamed I'd actually get my wish. But I did and in spades.
In "Abyss," Brad Wright presented us with the Jack and Daniel we knew from Seasons 1-3. With his witty, sharp dialogue, he gave us back the interaction we have been craving. Beyond the banter, we were given the non-verbal communication that has been such a hallmark of this relationship. These two people know each other so well that they don't have to speak. We could see the pain that his inability to help Jack caused Daniel. We knew what Jack meant when he said, "You know what it's like coming back from the dead" just as we knew what Daniel was talking about when he was describing the effects of prolonged sarcophagus use. We could see the instant when Daniel realized that Jack was asking him to kill him and the effect the request had on him.
We were also shown what many of us knew from the subtext: That Daniel has more faith in Jack than Jack does in himself, and that Jack would have torn down the walls of that fortress in order to get Daniel out. We've seen these things in fanfiction often enough. It was nice to see them in canon as well.
The performances by Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks were top notch. These two actors bring out the best in each other and their chemistry is undeniable. But Anderson quite literally stunned me. I never knew he had that in him. We saw Jack's typical bravado slowly erode into desperation and then despair. His quiet, tired "You were gone" and his pleas for Daniel during his torture were nothing short of heart rending.
There was such sparkage in those scenes that it unfortunately made the rest of the episode rather dull in comparison. Other than Teal'c's threats to Toran, I didn't get the feeling that the folks back at the SGC were particularly frantic to find Jack. And that was disappointing. I find the lack of the emotion that used to permeate this show to be one of the worst aspects of this season.
Then there's the matter of the snaking of Jack. The entire premise of this episode falls apart when you realize that Jack would never, ever agree to being implanted with a symbiote no matter how sick he was or what kind of information the snake had. Jack said what many fans have been saying: "I can't believe I agreed to let them put a snake in my head."
It just isn't believable. Why couldn't Jack remember anything? And more importantly, is he going to be as annoying with Kenan as Sam was with Jolinar? I have a feeling we'll go to the other extreme and hear little or nothing about Kenan ever again. It would have been interesting to have seen Jack having to deal with having a "snake in his head."
Speaking of characters doing something they would never do: Daniel's refusal to help Jack on the grounds that he's not allowed to interfere. It goes against everything we know about Daniel. In "Meridian," he says he can do more as an ascended being. More how? If he's not allowed to interfere, how does being ascended do anything to help destroy the Goa'uld which is what I assume was his motivation for ascending in the first place?
So Daniel says he can't interfere yet turns around and does so by planting the idea of how to rescue Jack in Teal'c's mind. I believe he helped Sam and Jonas come to their conclusions as well. Are there levels of interference that are acceptable and others that are not?
I wish I could say these were minor problems, but they're not. I will say that they did not get in my way of enjoying this episode. It was by far the best episode in a very long time. It was well written and well acted. The gravity cell and web were different and quite clever.
I have to thank Brad Wright even though I believe he did it because he thought it would shut the Daniel fans up. I hate to tell you this, Brad, but we want Daniel back more than ever now. You may have created a monster.
By Rosalita
21st July 2002
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