Four things on Thursday
1.
Just using this icon again for an episode reaction is making me a little verklempt.
I thought Continuum was just lovely. I'm fairly skeptical about the chances of another movie getting made (though I would love to be proved wrong), and if that turns out to be the case, they went out on a high note with Continuum. There was continuity-palooza with characters, and it was wonderful to see not just the SGC and the gateroom, bustling with activity once more, but so many familiar faces: Walter, Major Davis, Sergeant Siler, President Hayes, GENERAL HAMMOND. Even Apophis and Camulus and Nirrti. All of that backwards-looking meshed perfectly with the plot, with the alternate timelines and what could have been, with the retelling of the familiar story in a new way.
I would have liked to see more of Vala, rather than Qetesh, because I think her time as a Goa'uld--and the way it intersects with Daniel's Massive Issues Around Goa'uld Hosts He Has Known--is a rich vein that the show barely had a chance to mine. But I can see where the writers chose to pick their conflicts and focus, and I can't really disagree with their choices. There was a lot of exposition going into the extraction ceremony, but I am glad that she got to talk about what it feels like to have the symbiote that has controlled you for years finally be extracted; it gave added weight to the ways the alternate timeline was a place where those tiny little decisions and chance events had taken the wrong direction for so many of them. I also liked the contrast between Vala and Qetesh, underscored by Vala's need to help Baal's host at the end; and how devious and ruthless Qetesh was; and the fact that Baal, who had known Qetesh in this timeline, and then knew Vala on SG-1, deliberately sought her out in the alternate timeline, because he wanted her and because he saw not only Qetesh but potentially a free Vala as a threat. (And, obviously, while he had a pretty good handle on what Vala would have become, he fatally underestimated Qetesh. Oops.)
And they killed Jack! They ended up killing Daniel too, for old time's sake, but still, that was different. Jack's death at the beginning, right after Vala and Teal'c's disappearance, was the beginning of an accumulation of wrongs in the other timeline that built a real sense of peril. It wasn't so much that all Our Heroes would be dead, but some of them would, and the rest would be doomed to live out other lives where their potential was warped and thwarted, and that everything was just wrong, starting with the big, gaping hole left by the missing stargate program and ending with Daniel's missing leg. Teal'c was just waiting for an option that would give him a path to freedom for the Jaffa; instead of Jack's wristwatch, he got Baal. Mitchell didn't even exist. Sam had tried another path to space and been killed. Daniel was living out the natural trajectory of his theories, an obscure crank. (How great was it that he called himself and gave himself a pep talk? Because he, of all people, knew exactly how much of a pep talk he would have needed at that point. And then his other self hung up on him! Oh, Daniel.) And, as the final wrong, the remnants of the team were stripped of the only things that could have made their lives in this timeline marginally bearable: contact with each other, work in their fields, the things that made them them. (Oh, Sam's face as the military functionary read off the list of fields she could no longer have anything to do with, the laundry list of things that had given her life meaning, that she had traded so much else for, that animated and drove her.)
But not everyone had an unhappier ending. I like that Charlie didn't die in that timeline, that, as Landry points out, the wrongness of it is all relative. (Although did he have to be such a dick about it? I guess one of the things both timelines had in common was that he needs to shut up in both.)
I also really liked the way they used both the budget and the bigger timeframe in this movie. The pacing was right on; they were able to draw out the consequences of the alternate timeline much more vividly than they would have been able to in even a two-part television episode. They also did a really good job with the cinematography and effects. Whereas the panoramic helicopter shots in Ark of Truth felt gratuitous and a little silly, the long shot of Sam and Mitchell walking across the ice, all that white, cold distance, drove home how isolated and without resources they were in this timeline--with the gate literally sunk to the ocean, and with it all of the tools and help they would otherwise be able to bring to bear on a problem. The sub was extremely cool, as were the aircraft, and the reminder that before all of the gate travel, Mitchell and Sam were both pilots, that that's another part of who they are that had been taken away and was now restored. And there was also profanity! I am enormously entertained that Daniel's the one with the pottymouth.
All in all, Continuum made me very happy. Good job, show.
* * * * *
2.
If Michael Scott had had this alarm clock, he would never have burned his foot on a George Foreman grill. (via Serious Eats)
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3.
This article about online vs. offline reading habits that singles out fanfiction as something young people read online makes me go "hmm" in both good and bad ways. The good "hmmm" comes from the educational perspective of the article, and the discussion of online reading sometimes involving different skill sets than offline reading. The bad "hmmm" comes from the choice of the particular examples, a young woman reading and writing (horribly misspelled and ungrammatical) fanfiction and a young man reading articles on technology and politics, and the way the article clearly positions the latter as learning more important skills from his choice of online reading. Well, yes, for those specific examples. I'm sure they're valid examples, too, but so are examples of a young woman writing good fanfiction and discussing writing craft in online communities and a young man writing incoherent screeds on fringe political blogs, where the value proposition is quite the opposite; or of young women engaging in politics and young men writing fanfiction of questionable quality. The combination of dismissiveness and gender in the choice of examples isn't surprising, but it does make me cranky, especially since what the article is discussing is a real and interesting phenomenon. (via Smart Bitches Trashy Books)
* * * * *
4. I am having pizza for dinner. WOO! Delicious, delicious pizza. Hopefully that and Babylon 5 will be sufficient loin-girding for my mother's impending two-week visit. And hopefully at some point I will finish my latest episode post.
Just using this icon again for an episode reaction is making me a little verklempt.
I thought Continuum was just lovely. I'm fairly skeptical about the chances of another movie getting made (though I would love to be proved wrong), and if that turns out to be the case, they went out on a high note with Continuum. There was continuity-palooza with characters, and it was wonderful to see not just the SGC and the gateroom, bustling with activity once more, but so many familiar faces: Walter, Major Davis, Sergeant Siler, President Hayes, GENERAL HAMMOND. Even Apophis and Camulus and Nirrti. All of that backwards-looking meshed perfectly with the plot, with the alternate timelines and what could have been, with the retelling of the familiar story in a new way.
I would have liked to see more of Vala, rather than Qetesh, because I think her time as a Goa'uld--and the way it intersects with Daniel's Massive Issues Around Goa'uld Hosts He Has Known--is a rich vein that the show barely had a chance to mine. But I can see where the writers chose to pick their conflicts and focus, and I can't really disagree with their choices. There was a lot of exposition going into the extraction ceremony, but I am glad that she got to talk about what it feels like to have the symbiote that has controlled you for years finally be extracted; it gave added weight to the ways the alternate timeline was a place where those tiny little decisions and chance events had taken the wrong direction for so many of them. I also liked the contrast between Vala and Qetesh, underscored by Vala's need to help Baal's host at the end; and how devious and ruthless Qetesh was; and the fact that Baal, who had known Qetesh in this timeline, and then knew Vala on SG-1, deliberately sought her out in the alternate timeline, because he wanted her and because he saw not only Qetesh but potentially a free Vala as a threat. (And, obviously, while he had a pretty good handle on what Vala would have become, he fatally underestimated Qetesh. Oops.)
And they killed Jack! They ended up killing Daniel too, for old time's sake, but still, that was different. Jack's death at the beginning, right after Vala and Teal'c's disappearance, was the beginning of an accumulation of wrongs in the other timeline that built a real sense of peril. It wasn't so much that all Our Heroes would be dead, but some of them would, and the rest would be doomed to live out other lives where their potential was warped and thwarted, and that everything was just wrong, starting with the big, gaping hole left by the missing stargate program and ending with Daniel's missing leg. Teal'c was just waiting for an option that would give him a path to freedom for the Jaffa; instead of Jack's wristwatch, he got Baal. Mitchell didn't even exist. Sam had tried another path to space and been killed. Daniel was living out the natural trajectory of his theories, an obscure crank. (How great was it that he called himself and gave himself a pep talk? Because he, of all people, knew exactly how much of a pep talk he would have needed at that point. And then his other self hung up on him! Oh, Daniel.) And, as the final wrong, the remnants of the team were stripped of the only things that could have made their lives in this timeline marginally bearable: contact with each other, work in their fields, the things that made them them. (Oh, Sam's face as the military functionary read off the list of fields she could no longer have anything to do with, the laundry list of things that had given her life meaning, that she had traded so much else for, that animated and drove her.)
But not everyone had an unhappier ending. I like that Charlie didn't die in that timeline, that, as Landry points out, the wrongness of it is all relative. (Although did he have to be such a dick about it? I guess one of the things both timelines had in common was that he needs to shut up in both.)
I also really liked the way they used both the budget and the bigger timeframe in this movie. The pacing was right on; they were able to draw out the consequences of the alternate timeline much more vividly than they would have been able to in even a two-part television episode. They also did a really good job with the cinematography and effects. Whereas the panoramic helicopter shots in Ark of Truth felt gratuitous and a little silly, the long shot of Sam and Mitchell walking across the ice, all that white, cold distance, drove home how isolated and without resources they were in this timeline--with the gate literally sunk to the ocean, and with it all of the tools and help they would otherwise be able to bring to bear on a problem. The sub was extremely cool, as were the aircraft, and the reminder that before all of the gate travel, Mitchell and Sam were both pilots, that that's another part of who they are that had been taken away and was now restored. And there was also profanity! I am enormously entertained that Daniel's the one with the pottymouth.
All in all, Continuum made me very happy. Good job, show.
* * * * *
2.
If Michael Scott had had this alarm clock, he would never have burned his foot on a George Foreman grill. (via Serious Eats)
* * * * *
3.
This article about online vs. offline reading habits that singles out fanfiction as something young people read online makes me go "hmm" in both good and bad ways. The good "hmmm" comes from the educational perspective of the article, and the discussion of online reading sometimes involving different skill sets than offline reading. The bad "hmmm" comes from the choice of the particular examples, a young woman reading and writing (horribly misspelled and ungrammatical) fanfiction and a young man reading articles on technology and politics, and the way the article clearly positions the latter as learning more important skills from his choice of online reading. Well, yes, for those specific examples. I'm sure they're valid examples, too, but so are examples of a young woman writing good fanfiction and discussing writing craft in online communities and a young man writing incoherent screeds on fringe political blogs, where the value proposition is quite the opposite; or of young women engaging in politics and young men writing fanfiction of questionable quality. The combination of dismissiveness and gender in the choice of examples isn't surprising, but it does make me cranky, especially since what the article is discussing is a real and interesting phenomenon. (via Smart Bitches Trashy Books)
* * * * *
4. I am having pizza for dinner. WOO! Delicious, delicious pizza. Hopefully that and Babylon 5 will be sufficient loin-girding for my mother's impending two-week visit. And hopefully at some point I will finish my latest episode post.