Enjoy Your Fictional Characters, You Nerds.
Years ago, 
magistrate and dracothelizard conspired to make me try out Stargate SG-1. I was instructed to watch only certain episodes and assured that all of the other episodes were terrible. I enjoyed what I watched, but I never got terribly far.
I've now started watching SG-1 from the beginning, without skipping anything, and I've discovered that they weren't joking. A lot of these episodes are really bad, and I say this as someone with demonstrably dreadful taste in television.
'Brief Candle' had a fairly cool concept (humans who age at an accelerated rate and have no idea that they're supposed to live for years rather than days), but it was deeply uncomfortable to watch because of what happens to Jack at the beginning. He is drugged. A woman has sex with him while he's drugged. She doesn't understand that she's done something wrong - in her culture, it's presumably understood that the 'wedding cake' is drugged and accepting it is understood to be consent - but, because of this misunderstanding, something pretty horrific has happened to Jack.
And then it just isn't acknowledged. At the very least, I wanted his teammates to ask whether he was okay. But instead we get a weird little romance between Jack and the woman who drugged him. It was impossible to enjoy the episode with the shadow of Jack's rape hanging unacknowledged over it. I just needed someone in the episode to recognise that, hey, something bad happened!
There's a part of me that sort of wants to write fanfiction in which Sam tries to talk to him about it, but I'm having trouble imagining Jack's response being anything other than an immediate refusal to discuss it, which doesn't really make for much of a story.
While I'm under the 'impaired consent' cut, I suppose I might as well talk about 'The Broca Divide', the episode in which Sam is infected with a disease that makes her try to make out with Jack (sci-fi!). This was less uncomfortable because it's acknowledged as screwed-up and Jack immediately understands that something's not right. I sort of love that, when she says, 'I want you,' his bewildered response is, 'Why?'
I also enjoy Jack's reaction when she first accosts him in the changing room. He starts at first, then he relaxes when he realises it's just a member of his team. It's another moment before it suddenly occurs to him that maybe he should put some clothes on.
Despite the variable quality of the first season, I do like the SG-1 team quite a lot, so I'm still watching for now. I can sit through a great deal for a good cast of characters.
I may 'ship Jack/Sam a bit. When Jack makes a joke, he'll sometimes surreptitiously glance over at her to see if she laughs. It's incredibly endearing.
I may 'ship the entire SG-1 team a bit, actually. I think I'm taking whatever I can get to pull myself through the questionable early episodes, and apparently what I can get is 'adorable polyamory'. It's a strong offer, I'll admit.
magistrate and dracothelizard conspired to make me try out Stargate SG-1. I was instructed to watch only certain episodes and assured that all of the other episodes were terrible. I enjoyed what I watched, but I never got terribly far.
I've now started watching SG-1 from the beginning, without skipping anything, and I've discovered that they weren't joking. A lot of these episodes are really bad, and I say this as someone with demonstrably dreadful taste in television.
'Brief Candle' had a fairly cool concept (humans who age at an accelerated rate and have no idea that they're supposed to live for years rather than days), but it was deeply uncomfortable to watch because of what happens to Jack at the beginning. He is drugged. A woman has sex with him while he's drugged. She doesn't understand that she's done something wrong - in her culture, it's presumably understood that the 'wedding cake' is drugged and accepting it is understood to be consent - but, because of this misunderstanding, something pretty horrific has happened to Jack.
And then it just isn't acknowledged. At the very least, I wanted his teammates to ask whether he was okay. But instead we get a weird little romance between Jack and the woman who drugged him. It was impossible to enjoy the episode with the shadow of Jack's rape hanging unacknowledged over it. I just needed someone in the episode to recognise that, hey, something bad happened!
There's a part of me that sort of wants to write fanfiction in which Sam tries to talk to him about it, but I'm having trouble imagining Jack's response being anything other than an immediate refusal to discuss it, which doesn't really make for much of a story.
While I'm under the 'impaired consent' cut, I suppose I might as well talk about 'The Broca Divide', the episode in which Sam is infected with a disease that makes her try to make out with Jack (sci-fi!). This was less uncomfortable because it's acknowledged as screwed-up and Jack immediately understands that something's not right. I sort of love that, when she says, 'I want you,' his bewildered response is, 'Why?'
I also enjoy Jack's reaction when she first accosts him in the changing room. He starts at first, then he relaxes when he realises it's just a member of his team. It's another moment before it suddenly occurs to him that maybe he should put some clothes on.
Despite the variable quality of the first season, I do like the SG-1 team quite a lot, so I'm still watching for now. I can sit through a great deal for a good cast of characters.
I may 'ship Jack/Sam a bit. When Jack makes a joke, he'll sometimes surreptitiously glance over at her to see if she laughs. It's incredibly endearing.
I may 'ship the entire SG-1 team a bit, actually. I think I'm taking whatever I can get to pull myself through the questionable early episodes, and apparently what I can get is 'adorable polyamory'. It's a strong offer, I'll admit.