On rewatching SG-1 episode 113, "Hathor"
Okay, okay, "Hathor". But I retain the right to whinge.
-- Okay that whole opening sequence is awkward. These archaeologists are doing an INSANE amount of As-you-know-Bob right there. Frankly, if I were a Mesoamerican archaeologist faced with an Egyptian sarcophagus, there would be a hell of a lot of swearing, and then I'd be looking for evidence that the whole thing had been salted as part of some elaborate prank. I certainly wouldn't be talking about some guy who'd as much as said that aliens built the pyramids and wondering if he was right. Archaeologists aren't stupid, and Occam's razor still applies: the answer that doesn't conflict with most existing theories is the one they're going to go for, instinctively.
-- Nice to see that the Goa'uld like a nice manicure as much as anyone else.
-- The sequence of events by which the sarcophagus is shipped to Daniel and ends up in the gateroom is beyond ridiculous. ::rolls eyes forever::
-- OMG this is stupid. Hathor mentions the chapa'ai, and Jack says, "That's what your monk-buddies on Chulak called the Stargate," and then Hammond wants to know why she thinks the chapa'ai is there. WTF people! You just confirmed to her that there is a Stargate and you know what it is and have used the frigging thing! OMG dumb!
-- Not to mention, dumb to allow Daniel to release her. Not that she couldn't get someone else to do that in short order, but dude! They're so innocent.
-- Oooh, Hathor was Ra's daughter/wife. How... Benderish.
-- "You, with the crown of marble." Hah! Ok, that's funny.
-- And, oh dear, Daniel. This would be the funny rape part of the episode.
-- Well, at least the truth about Hathor being a Goa'uld comes out relatively quickly. Of course Daniel then starts giving them Hathor's revisionist history about how she's actually a good Goa'uld (since they don't know yet that there basically aren't any other than the Tok'ra). Oy. And Teal'c even makes that explicit: "I have served the Goa'uld; I have yet to meet a good one."
-- Jack calls Daniel "Danny" here, which I don't recall hearing him do at all to this point (although I admit I might have missed it).
-- Oh, god, it's so PAINFUL watching this.
-- And Jack gets to fondle her boobs while she thanks him. Do Goa'uld do that with all their potential First Primes?
-- Teal'c is very uncomfortable and quite suspicious. Go Teal'c!
-- Oh, poor Sam, having to argue with Hammond and not be supported by Jack and get shut down. And really, it's the ultimate nightmare about men being in service to their dicks. (Just done really really badly.)
-- Which makes me wonder what would happen if Hathor tried her shtick on someone who was gay or intersex or trans. Huh.
-- I do like the way Hammond and Jack do try to comply with military protocol, and Hathor has to up the dosage to get her way. Still, EW.
-- Daniel gets to be the Chosen One! I somehow suspect this doesn't mean he gets Buffy's wicked cool axe and leather pants of righteousness.
-- Sam is excellent here: frustrated, but she keeps poking at the problem, not willing to just let her superiors overrule her. Go talk to Teal'c, Sam!
-- Why the hell is the sarcophagus still in the gateroom?
-- "We are the queen of the gods; we are the mother of all gods." I suppose it's possible that many or most of the System Lords are descended from Hathor. She's not too old for the job, given that she was frozen for two or three thousand years. (Although I do wonder how she ended up in MesoAmerica.)
-- And Daniel finally gets it, that she's not just a queen, she's a larva-producer. (I do wish they'd left the mechanism undefined, though, since it makes NO SENSE AT ALL.)
-- Janet and Sam aren't best friends yet: when Janet finds Sam in her office, she calls her "Captain Carter."
-- So Sam's poking about on the Internet for information to save the planet (AS ONE DOES), and you know what's totally darling? That website OMG it's like totally perfect for a mid-90s graduate student's geekery. It's got the serif font and faux-parchment background and the oversized font on the links. So CUTE.
-- Sam's all "Let's neutralize her!" Which, great in theory!
-- Okay, I have to just LAUGH because why on Earth would Hathor take Daniel's glasses off? That's so culturally-specific. Ridonkulous!
-- Oh, look, more happy fun rape. The music here is odd: it's not romantic, but it's not entirely unsettling, either, as though they couldn't quite decide what to say about the fact that Daniel was being raped--assuming the writers & producers even recognized that's what it was.
-- Daniel at least sees the problem with this program--he doesn't want to help create Goa'uld larvae. However she gives him another whammy and off they go.
-- Sam handing out weapons to the female airmen and other staff is awesome. Also, woman of color in the SGC yay!
-- Teal'c, yay, signing up to help them out. "We cannot permit this to happen." Go Teal'c and Sam!
-- Oooh, I love Sam's bitter remark about "When was the last time you saw a new woman get assigned here?" That's the most realistic and believable comment anyone on the cast says about the demographics of the SGC for the entire run of the show. Both shows, really.
-- Oh, Jesus, Daniel. Looking, at best, disippated. Or stoned.
-- Janet with a gun half as big as she is? Totally hot. IJS.
-- Sam does the hand-signals and Janet knows what they mean! Very impressive.
-- Yay! Except not so much, because Hathor surrounds herself with all the men and Sam can't bring herself to shoot any of them. Now would be a good time to have zats. Crap.
-- Oh, lordie. "I always feel like I'm The Girl," says Sam. Which OMG people. This is the single biggest complaint about Sam's characterization for a lot of the female viewers and the writers knew it from the very first season. Dear sweet jebuslug on a pogo stick, this makes me even angrier.
-- So basically all the men are extra horny as a result of the drug? Oh, that's not just icky, it's ew.
-- Jack does keep trying to fight her off. Unsuccessfully, of course, and then she gives him a symbiote pouch, as a lovely souvenir to take home with him. (Seriously, it's no wonder Jack becomes increasingly irrational on the subject of symbiotes as the show progresses: he gets physically violated by Goa'uld more than anyone else on the show. And yes, Kanan was a violation too.) Although she doesn't give him one yet, which I guess is okay because he still has an immune system.
-- I love Janet's practicality despite Sam's reluctance to use a seduction technique. But that's Janet for you.
-- "Gentlemen, there are five women in here, Very ALone." I love Janet's voice here: she can't even take it seriously. I have to admit, this is funnier than I remember, because it's just so ludicrous. (Gender-essentialism for the win?)
-- I do like the sequence of ambushes and head-thumping in the hallway, culminating with Sam taking Hammond down. "Yeah, my career is over." Heh.
-- So back into the locker room (which I sincerely hope they convert to other use after this is over because honest to god neither Jack nor Daniel is going to want to see it again), and is that Daniel slumped on the floor next to the larval tank? Nope, it's Jack.
--EW handful of symbiotes! Ew!
-- And apparently I was wrong--making Jack a Jaffa by definition means he has no immune system. (Which, you know, ignore the biology there.)
-- Oh, Jack: your first time in the sarcophagus, but far from your last, more's the pity.
-- ACK Janet got shot! Noooo!
-- But Jack is back, which is good. And now the sarcophagus is all blowed up, thus allowing the show to kill off people without having to explain why they couldn't just use the sarcophagus to revive them.
-- "Wow, it's a miracle." "Crunches." Okay, bwah.
-- Now can someone please give Janet some first aid? She's bleeding!
-- Off to the locker room for a third time, and Jack freezes up for no reason that I can discern, and it's Sam who actually shoots Hathor. No real explanation for why the hot tub catches on fire, though.
-- And Daniel's totally fixated on the burning tub of Hathor and larvae. except she actually manages to slip out without being scene and runs for the gate.
-- We must assume Hammond showed her how the dialing computers worked, otherwise there is NO WAY she would have been able to dial the gate in that short amount of time. Major handwave there.
-- And both Jack and Daniel are all, "what's going on?" thus conveniently forgetting the Many Ways in which they were both violated and thus avoiding the psychological consequences (except in fic).
-- I gotta say, those Atta Girls from Jack and Daniel are distinctly uncomfortable. If I were Sam, I dunno as I'd be so pleased: she's gotta be at least a little resentful.
-- Well, that was painful, but there were a few fun bits in it. And we learned some about Goa'uld biology. If you skip past the happy fun rape and so forth. Ergh.
I have to say, though, that if this is the show's attempt to Deal with Gender Issues, I'm just as glad they gave up trying. Because honest to god. Ew.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.
-- Okay that whole opening sequence is awkward. These archaeologists are doing an INSANE amount of As-you-know-Bob right there. Frankly, if I were a Mesoamerican archaeologist faced with an Egyptian sarcophagus, there would be a hell of a lot of swearing, and then I'd be looking for evidence that the whole thing had been salted as part of some elaborate prank. I certainly wouldn't be talking about some guy who'd as much as said that aliens built the pyramids and wondering if he was right. Archaeologists aren't stupid, and Occam's razor still applies: the answer that doesn't conflict with most existing theories is the one they're going to go for, instinctively.
-- Nice to see that the Goa'uld like a nice manicure as much as anyone else.
-- The sequence of events by which the sarcophagus is shipped to Daniel and ends up in the gateroom is beyond ridiculous. ::rolls eyes forever::
-- OMG this is stupid. Hathor mentions the chapa'ai, and Jack says, "That's what your monk-buddies on Chulak called the Stargate," and then Hammond wants to know why she thinks the chapa'ai is there. WTF people! You just confirmed to her that there is a Stargate and you know what it is and have used the frigging thing! OMG dumb!
-- Not to mention, dumb to allow Daniel to release her. Not that she couldn't get someone else to do that in short order, but dude! They're so innocent.
-- Oooh, Hathor was Ra's daughter/wife. How... Benderish.
-- "You, with the crown of marble." Hah! Ok, that's funny.
-- And, oh dear, Daniel. This would be the funny rape part of the episode.
-- Well, at least the truth about Hathor being a Goa'uld comes out relatively quickly. Of course Daniel then starts giving them Hathor's revisionist history about how she's actually a good Goa'uld (since they don't know yet that there basically aren't any other than the Tok'ra). Oy. And Teal'c even makes that explicit: "I have served the Goa'uld; I have yet to meet a good one."
-- Jack calls Daniel "Danny" here, which I don't recall hearing him do at all to this point (although I admit I might have missed it).
-- Oh, god, it's so PAINFUL watching this.
-- And Jack gets to fondle her boobs while she thanks him. Do Goa'uld do that with all their potential First Primes?
-- Teal'c is very uncomfortable and quite suspicious. Go Teal'c!
-- Oh, poor Sam, having to argue with Hammond and not be supported by Jack and get shut down. And really, it's the ultimate nightmare about men being in service to their dicks. (Just done really really badly.)
-- Which makes me wonder what would happen if Hathor tried her shtick on someone who was gay or intersex or trans. Huh.
-- I do like the way Hammond and Jack do try to comply with military protocol, and Hathor has to up the dosage to get her way. Still, EW.
-- Daniel gets to be the Chosen One! I somehow suspect this doesn't mean he gets Buffy's wicked cool axe and leather pants of righteousness.
-- Sam is excellent here: frustrated, but she keeps poking at the problem, not willing to just let her superiors overrule her. Go talk to Teal'c, Sam!
-- Why the hell is the sarcophagus still in the gateroom?
-- "We are the queen of the gods; we are the mother of all gods." I suppose it's possible that many or most of the System Lords are descended from Hathor. She's not too old for the job, given that she was frozen for two or three thousand years. (Although I do wonder how she ended up in MesoAmerica.)
-- And Daniel finally gets it, that she's not just a queen, she's a larva-producer. (I do wish they'd left the mechanism undefined, though, since it makes NO SENSE AT ALL.)
-- Janet and Sam aren't best friends yet: when Janet finds Sam in her office, she calls her "Captain Carter."
-- So Sam's poking about on the Internet for information to save the planet (AS ONE DOES), and you know what's totally darling? That website OMG it's like totally perfect for a mid-90s graduate student's geekery. It's got the serif font and faux-parchment background and the oversized font on the links. So CUTE.
-- Sam's all "Let's neutralize her!" Which, great in theory!
-- Okay, I have to just LAUGH because why on Earth would Hathor take Daniel's glasses off? That's so culturally-specific. Ridonkulous!
-- Oh, look, more happy fun rape. The music here is odd: it's not romantic, but it's not entirely unsettling, either, as though they couldn't quite decide what to say about the fact that Daniel was being raped--assuming the writers & producers even recognized that's what it was.
-- Daniel at least sees the problem with this program--he doesn't want to help create Goa'uld larvae. However she gives him another whammy and off they go.
-- Sam handing out weapons to the female airmen and other staff is awesome. Also, woman of color in the SGC yay!
-- Teal'c, yay, signing up to help them out. "We cannot permit this to happen." Go Teal'c and Sam!
-- Oooh, I love Sam's bitter remark about "When was the last time you saw a new woman get assigned here?" That's the most realistic and believable comment anyone on the cast says about the demographics of the SGC for the entire run of the show. Both shows, really.
-- Oh, Jesus, Daniel. Looking, at best, disippated. Or stoned.
-- Janet with a gun half as big as she is? Totally hot. IJS.
-- Sam does the hand-signals and Janet knows what they mean! Very impressive.
-- Yay! Except not so much, because Hathor surrounds herself with all the men and Sam can't bring herself to shoot any of them. Now would be a good time to have zats. Crap.
-- Oh, lordie. "I always feel like I'm The Girl," says Sam. Which OMG people. This is the single biggest complaint about Sam's characterization for a lot of the female viewers and the writers knew it from the very first season. Dear sweet jebuslug on a pogo stick, this makes me even angrier.
-- So basically all the men are extra horny as a result of the drug? Oh, that's not just icky, it's ew.
-- Jack does keep trying to fight her off. Unsuccessfully, of course, and then she gives him a symbiote pouch, as a lovely souvenir to take home with him. (Seriously, it's no wonder Jack becomes increasingly irrational on the subject of symbiotes as the show progresses: he gets physically violated by Goa'uld more than anyone else on the show. And yes, Kanan was a violation too.) Although she doesn't give him one yet, which I guess is okay because he still has an immune system.
-- I love Janet's practicality despite Sam's reluctance to use a seduction technique. But that's Janet for you.
-- "Gentlemen, there are five women in here, Very ALone." I love Janet's voice here: she can't even take it seriously. I have to admit, this is funnier than I remember, because it's just so ludicrous. (Gender-essentialism for the win?)
-- I do like the sequence of ambushes and head-thumping in the hallway, culminating with Sam taking Hammond down. "Yeah, my career is over." Heh.
-- So back into the locker room (which I sincerely hope they convert to other use after this is over because honest to god neither Jack nor Daniel is going to want to see it again), and is that Daniel slumped on the floor next to the larval tank? Nope, it's Jack.
--EW handful of symbiotes! Ew!
-- And apparently I was wrong--making Jack a Jaffa by definition means he has no immune system. (Which, you know, ignore the biology there.)
-- Oh, Jack: your first time in the sarcophagus, but far from your last, more's the pity.
-- ACK Janet got shot! Noooo!
-- But Jack is back, which is good. And now the sarcophagus is all blowed up, thus allowing the show to kill off people without having to explain why they couldn't just use the sarcophagus to revive them.
-- "Wow, it's a miracle." "Crunches." Okay, bwah.
-- Now can someone please give Janet some first aid? She's bleeding!
-- Off to the locker room for a third time, and Jack freezes up for no reason that I can discern, and it's Sam who actually shoots Hathor. No real explanation for why the hot tub catches on fire, though.
-- And Daniel's totally fixated on the burning tub of Hathor and larvae. except she actually manages to slip out without being scene and runs for the gate.
-- We must assume Hammond showed her how the dialing computers worked, otherwise there is NO WAY she would have been able to dial the gate in that short amount of time. Major handwave there.
-- And both Jack and Daniel are all, "what's going on?" thus conveniently forgetting the Many Ways in which they were both violated and thus avoiding the psychological consequences (except in fic).
-- I gotta say, those Atta Girls from Jack and Daniel are distinctly uncomfortable. If I were Sam, I dunno as I'd be so pleased: she's gotta be at least a little resentful.
-- Well, that was painful, but there were a few fun bits in it. And we learned some about Goa'uld biology. If you skip past the happy fun rape and so forth. Ergh.
I have to say, though, that if this is the show's attempt to Deal with Gender Issues, I'm just as glad they gave up trying. Because honest to god. Ew.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.