On rewatching SG-1 episode 110, "The Torment of Tantalus"
Ok, I gotta say I just *love* the opening of this episode. It's so prosaic, and Jack & Daniel are chatting a bit, and then eeeeeee! Awesome. And horrifying, when you see that guy (Ernest!) walk through the gate and you realize he's not coming back.
-- Oh, Daniel, so not a military guy, just runs right off to talk to Catherine. Blowsoff his meetings and his pages, too. Bad Daniel.
-- Jack's going through the old paperwork and it's nice to see someone did their homework: US Army Air Corps would be correct.
-- Oh, poor Catherine: She's so awesome and so righteously outraged. There's no reason not to have brought her in, really. This Catherine isn't as sharp or hardened as the actress in the movie, but I do like her. In the flashback scene, it's clear she's far better than Ernest deserves, as well.
-- Daniel's breaching security right and left, and then announces he's got the coordinates and they should take a trip! Woot! Oh, Jack is going to be so pleased.
-- ... and, apparently he is. And then he calls Hammond a teddy bear. And Catherine gets to meet Teal'c--and I just realized that other than Daniel, she's probably the first Earth civilian he's met. And I doubt there are many elderly women in the SGC (although there may be some in the technical or medical staffs). He is, however, still dour.
-- Just as an aside, Jack looks pretty hot in a long-sleeved black t-shirt. Looks better with grey hair and a long-sleeved black t-shirt, but still. Pretty hot.
-- I love that Sam knows Catherine, that they worked together at some point pre-series. Sam has so few women colleagues, after all.
-- Okay, I'm sitting here yelling about not sending a MALP through, and then after they go through, I see a MALP. So they sent a MALP and they have a FRED.
-- Jack and Daniel together escorting Catherine up the ramp and through the wormhole? Pretty damned darling.
-- Sam, why so shy? Just an old naked man!
-- Oh, I love the hugging! Jack's all, "no touchy!" and Sam backs off because Naked Man, and Teal'c just looks perturbed. Poor Ernest. Really, I don't see how he's even a little sane anymore: he's been alone for 55 years. And damned lucky he never got appendicitis or something like that.
-- Ernest's little delusion, as comforting as it was, seems a bit less endearing when faced with the reality of Catherine, who had no idea she had a starring role in his fantasies for fifty-something years. I mean, really: that's a bit disturbing. Daniel, naturally, bugs out at that point.
-- Ten episodes in and SG-1 has finally managed to get themselves trapped on the wrong side of a broken DHD. Woot! Though it does provide confirmation that the DHD is the power source for the gate; which itself raises questions which are never answered. What powers the DHD, after all? How is it connected to the Gate? Etc.
-- Asgard runes, Ancient block script, swirly Nox (?), and I didn't spot the fourth one, which is probably Furling, right?
-- I'd forgotten how pretty the effects were here. Nice.
-- Eeee, Daniel with the intellectual passion, waving his arms around--and trying to convince Jack, for reasons that escape me.
-- Of course Jack is rather more interested in getting everyone home alive. I cannot say I disagree with his priorities.
-- And crap, now the DHD is gone. Oh noes! What will they do? Will SG-1 be reduced to eating raw fish and wearing rags for the rest of their natural lives? (Which would really suck for Teal'c, with no access to a new symbiote.)
-- Oh, right, they have to take apart Ernest's holographic display. Which, okay, but why start by shooting it? That makes no sense.
-- Okay, you know what's cute? They haven't named naquadah yet. Sam just keeps saying, "The element the gate is made up of--" like nobody's named it. Which makes me wonder where they got the name--is it from Abydos? I would have to assume so, because the name of the element is so close to the name of the town.
-- What I find interesting about this episode is that Daniel, in his frenzy about the information here, completely forgets about his other obsession. Dude, if you die here you can't save Sha're! And Ernest reminds him that no prize is worth the battle if you can't share it with anyone.
-- Even knowing the end, I still find that last race to the Gate very suspenseful. Oh noes, will they make it, or will they be lost forever in the buffer of a destabilizing wormhole?
-- I do wonder why the gate wouldn't lock again afterwards, though: if it's underwater it should still work, but I guess the collapse of the building is like burying a gate. If there's enough debris on it that the wheel can't turn? But no, the wheel doesn't turn on an incoming wormhole. I guess it's just if there's something in the way? I am baffled by "One Hundred Days", where the wormhole formed even though the gate was buried underground. There's a variable I'm missing.
-- Very much a Jack and Daniel episode, this one. Teal'c got to climb on the roof and hand Sam tools, and Sam got to jury-rig a stargate for the first of many times. Jack got to manhandle Daniel and Daniel got to be all obsessive about information, nearly getting himself killed in the process. This episode really sets out the dynamic for a lot of fanfiction, I see, even if both characters, and their relationship, change a great deal in the future. Hmmm.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.