Write or Wrong? Writing Stargate SG-1

"Stargate is a tough show to write for," continues Glassner. "One of the reasons for this is that we want to give something to all of our leads to do in every episode and occasionally that's a challenge if the plot centres on just one of them."

Jonathan Glassner, Executive  Producer, Stargate SG-1 Seasons One - Three.

PhoenixE: An open letter to Mr. Joseph Mallozzi continued

Conflict

Conflict: noun.  Disagreement; struggle or fight. Verb: be incompatible.

Red Sky and Between Two Fires

Here we are, back at the keyboard.  Happily leaving behind Neanderthal Jack doing his 'Captain Kirk blowing up the bad alien computer of the week and liberating the poor, hapless humans' impersonation and moving on to consider a much better script.  Along with a kinder, gentler, smarter 'being not only a team player but a leader' Jack. As well as all of the other lovely and talented members of his team all fully represented and allowed to turn out as themselves and stay in character during the entire course of the episode.  Wow! But before I do all this, I must confess I am appalled to admit I really dropped the ball on the ending of Beast of Burden.

Although the best of the season, BoB is not perfect.  Especially the ending - it's down a team member and you know what, there is no reason why it should have been.  However, it's also an extremely strong testament to how effectively the other member of the team being gradually made to go away  - namely Teal'c - has been marginalised and not subtly either since early season four - that even though Sam TELLS us Teal'c has gone to dial the gate in the last scene to explain his absence, the fact he is not there with the rest of his team for the ending - (and damned well should be, there is no reason for Teal'c to not be in that scene - why couldn't for once it have been SAM off dialling the gate if it was necessary to make one of the team members disappear) -  I didn't even REALISE he wasn't there until now.

I find that utterly shocking.  I did NOT miss one of the main characters when he was not in the scene and should have been in the scene especially as it was the episode finale.  No reason at all for him to not have been there.  I'm also shocked at what this means with regards to my changing awareness of and perception of the character and his participation within the existing dynamic.  He's being made to go away standing right before my eyes so effectively I didn't even miss him when he wasn't really there.

I don't understand this, but it's not fair, it's not right, it's a complete waste of a potentially fascinating character, not to mention how the continuing, completely over-inflated emphasis on Sam to the point where, according to reports of people who have seen the latest episodes she is starting to become more important than JACK, even - is pretty much flushing the last dying gasps of the team dynamic down the tubes.

I guess we're also dropping the pretence this is an ensemble show any more, eh, when one of the supporting characters, the third billed character (a technicality I'm sure will be rectified next season) - not the most popular character, either, for all the effort expended over the fourth and fifth season to persuade us she should be - is getting more attention and promotion in the latter season five scripts than the ostensible series lead.

I fail to understand the logic of creating a cast of characters who have so much chemistry together - creating a show whose demonstrated success is in the interaction of an ENSEMBLE cast (and the actors, interestingly enough like each other off screen as much as they do on, which only adds to the success of the chemistry and the on screen interaction between them), have it work so well and then - dismantle it completely for no good reason.

Rating?  Have you got them?  Pleasing your audience?  Have you?  Not wanting the stories to get stale?  Wasn't aware that was happening.  Wanting to try a new creative direction?  What for, there was nothing wrong with the old one.

No new stories in science fiction? Whoever said it!  Excuse me - but are you even DIMLY aware of the potential of your premise?  That ring is capable of generating as many scenarios to challenge our team as there are possible destinations.  You can go to a new world every single week!   Brand new ball game, new world, new characters for the team to meet and interact with, new problems to solve and dilemmas to explore.  I can't believe with what you have to work with, that incredible diversity and potential for exploration on the other side of the Stargate this earthbound X-Gate conspiracy claptrap is what you've come up with.

I'll tell you something else about the X-Files - I and the band of people I knew here who were enthusiastic X-Filers (Tim and the other boys went to Chris Carter's panel when he was at Keycon here, oh god, a few years ago, but Barb and I opted for Guy Gavriel Kay) stopped watching it a full year before Mulder left for the first time.  Maybe more. None of the people I know here and who used to get as excited as I did about it watch it any longer either.  It was getting too ridiculously complicated and just plain - ridiculous.  Made absolutely no sense.

I and the people I watched it with and spent many an evening discussing eps in Tim's living room liked it best when it was about the 'monster/mystery - freak of the week'.  The early, early days.  Mulder and Scully investigating the unknown - the 'pure' days of chills and thrills, before the show started going down the 'alien conspiracy' road.  When it started getting complicated, illogical, completely improbable and more than a bit out there.  And yeah, stupid.

So I guess if I don't like what X-Files is currently about on the X-Files and haven't for several years I'm not likely to enjoy a rather lame attempt to reproduce it on Stargate, am I?

I've wished the X-Files would return to their original premise as well, and while when it first aired I was wildly enthusiastic about it (but never to the degree I was about Stargate) and thought it was incredible, clever, innovative and ground breaking - and for the first couple of years that was indeed the case, but then more and more of the conspiracy stuff kept creeping in and what made X-Files work so well got ground up and spat out in all the bewildering and nonsensical machinations.

I kept watching as it got stranger and more confusing and my enthusiasm commenced to appreciably wane, eroded away little by little by the depressing, improbable and down right ridiculous to-ing and fro-ing and the schemes and the plots and - just how many sisters does Mulder have anyway?  Or, wait, was that all a dream?  Who can keep it all straight?  After a while, who cares to?  Or just plain, who cares?

 I watched until I finally realised I'd probably be having a better time if I spent the hour sorting my laundry.  Haven't watched since.  I understand it's still on, which I find really hard to believe.  Couldn't tell you for sure, though.  Couldn't care less.  Don't watch it.

I'm unhappily getting to feel exactly the same way about Stargate.  I am a Canadian and watch the syndicated version on Saturday nights on an ABC? Affiliate.  We're a season behind, so right now I'm watching the season four episodes.  Or rather I'm not - because I've seen them, I've got them on tape and they're not worth my time tuning in to watch them again as they are broadcast on Saturday evening.  I wish the affiliate would go back to the first season and start the run all over again.  I'd tune in and watch those eps.  You bet!  Don't mind watching them again at all.  They're GREAT.  (Besides, I need some new copies of the first and second season eps. )

I have the fifth season eps on tape as they've aired on Showtime (never mind, but no money changed hands!) but won't actually get to see them start coming into my living room in the syndicated version until this October.  Thereabouts.

I presume by that time the entire season will have long ago aired on Showtime.  And Sci Fi will be well into airing the sixth season episodes. Which I wouldn't be able to see first run either, but a year after they air if they too are syndicated.  That was, if I was planning to watch a sixth season, which right now, I am not.

However, the way I feel about the way things are going I will be waiting until everything after the one hundredth episode shows up on my TV screen on Saturday night to finally watch the rest of season five.  Nine months from now.  Or maybe more.

Or - not.  I still honestly haven't decided yet.

Does saying the fact I used to impatiently count the hours until Stargate aired and went to extraordinary lengths to try and procure copies of the episodes well before I'd be able to see them on my local station - extraordinary, believe me, you wouldn't believe it - put my 'I probably won't even watch it' reaction to the rest of season five in context?

Forget about season six.  Twenty two episodes without Daniel, some bloody anagram getting screen time to try and make us like him that should have been given to Daniel in the first place - and the remaining characters being written the way they've been written - and in Teal'c's case, pretty much not written at all - for the last two seasons? As The pod people trying to pass themselves off as Jack, Sam and Teal'c?

Do the words 'not a chance in hell' mean anything to you?

Now, if these writing issues were DRASTICALLY addressed, if there was an ASSURANCE that Daniel would be returning to the team at least for the guest appearances that were promised to us at Gatecon (yeah, I want 22 guest appearances, but then, I'm greedy and I'll admit it!)  with quality scripts  (you know, good plot, good characterisation, little things like that) for the entire season making Daniel's return - as well as ours to the show worth ALL of our whiles then oh yeah, definitely I'm there.  Yeahsureyoubetcha.  Me and a whole bunch of other people, I expect.

The way things stand right now, at the moment, not only can you take your fifth season, but your sixth as well and....

Sorry, no, I'm going to stay polite here.  I'll leave it to your imagination all I'll say is if you'd followed my suggestion as to the disposition what's left of Stargate you wouldn't have enjoyed it much.  Any more than I'm currently enjoying what's left of Stargate.

Between Two Fires.  The more I watch this episode I find myself feeling, - in Jack's words, it makes me feel both sad and happy.  There are problems with the premise (like the vessel with the pestle and the chalice from the palace), but they don't bother me nearly as much now when I enjoy what this episode does have - characterisation.  A truly beautiful and rare gem in the wasteland of the last two seasons, an episode rich with team feeling and significant interpersonal interaction and relating - in character - between all the members of SG-1 being totally, absolutely themselves, with the completely 'boy are they them being them' interaction between Jack and Daniel a large part of what drives the plot.

The way it used to be.  The way it should be.  When we say 'we want the team being themselves and working together' - THIS is what we mean.  Even though a lot of the premise didn't make sense in Between Two Fires seeing this level of consistent characterisation attained and maintained through the entire episode after not seeing anything close to this in ANY episode for far too long made me very, very happy.

Now, for the sad part.  I wasn't sad like this the first time I watched it because I had no way of knowing, at the time, I was in fact watching the swan song of Jack and Daniel.  The very last time I would see them being together like this in the series..  Being friends, being close, working together.  Doing their 'talking together' thing, finishing each other's sentences, double teaming Trevel and trading quips and bantering.  Teasing each other.  Working out their plan of action.  Being 'our boys' all over the screen to our considerable amusement and satisfaction.

Michael Shanks departs the show in Meridian but by all reports Jack and Daniel left the show at the end of Between Two Fires.  This is certainly the last ep of the season as aired where Jack and Daniel work together or have any significant equal and amicable interaction.  And it also seems to be the last ep, again from what I've seen and heard, we see any indication Jack still gives a shit about Daniel.  At all.

I didn't realise that lovely little moment where they are sitting shoulder to shoulder tossing ideas back and forth as to how to proceed was a watershed moment.  A SIGNIFICANT moment.  For it is, in fact, the very last Jack/Daniel moment of the series.

This could be a premature assumption, seeing as how the last of the eps for season five haven't even aired yet but from what I've heard about what others are seeing, I don't think I'm wrong.

Jack and Daniel.  Here it is again - and there it goes.  All in this one script.  I guess that gives the episode added significance to me and increases my fondness for it, knowing now, in retrospect this is the last time an episode is truly 'good' in this series because it's the last time I'll ever see my boys together like this on the screen again.

That is, unless things change.  Drastically.

So I find myself watching this episode like a greedy misery, drinking in the closeness, and the banter and the interaction - both not believing it's actually all THERE so absolutely perfect, so them and yet - it's going to be gone again with the end of the ep just as briefly as it existed.

And also now, because I realise I'll never again see another true Jack and Daniel scene like the shoulder to shoulder scene - this episode, culminating in this scene is literally, the end of an era - I can't watch it now without becoming extremely upset.

I know it probably sounds strange but in a way it's difficult to explain why this episode upsets me more than the impending Meridian.  Daniel's actual, final physical departure in Meridian is a mere technicality.  You've written him out long before that, he's been long gone even though we could see him standing there in the background, and in my mind Between Two Fires is really Daniel's final episode.

It's certainly the final episode of the Jack Daniel friendship.

I don't mind if you know how much of an emotional investment I have in this show.  I don't really mind who knows.  I don't apologise for my passion for these characters and Stargate, or the lengths I am prepared to go to creatively (such as devoting the enormous amount of time I am giving over to writing this) to try and in some small way contribute to getting it restored to its former greatness.

I think it's interesting, in a terribly bittersweet way, the essence of Between Two Fires can be summed up in that touching, final intimate conversation between Jack and Daniel.

'I think this thing smells worse and worse by the minute'
'Are you still willing to proceed?'
'Oh, I think it's the only way we're going to find out what's really going on.'

Actually this can probably apply to a lot of the fourth and fifth season as well.

This story 'pushes on blindly ' trying valiantly to make sense of itself the same way Jack and Daniel try to get their heads around the seemingly senseless scenario they are presented with in the Tollan wanting to make a weapons deal. Again, it's a script that had a lot of promise but I feel it 'missed' being everything it could be because it missed the point of what it should have really been all about.  And again there were silly, completely illogical things about it, the Goa'uld came off looking pretty stupid and only people as desperate and greedy for technology as we have become (unfortunately) would have been taken in by either Trevel or her implausible stories and even more implausible acting.

The Goa'uld make Trevel set us a 'trap' for reasons which are never clear a five year old with a good sense of smell wouldn't have fallen for.  Sure, we don't either, eventually, but if it hadn't been for Nareem telling us we maybe shouldn't be so trusting of the benevolent intentions of our good friends and allies?

I've got a 'slightly heightened sense of smell' as well.  Let's see what I can sniff out.

Okay, the big problem with the Tollan in this story.  The Tollan society presented to us in BTF seems extremely inconsistent and unlikely (with the disquieting fascist/Big Brother' overtones completely not in evidence in Pretense) given what we've seen of the society to date, but unfortunately these slight paranoid and over the top surveillance elements make it easier for the team to track down the trouble in less than forty four minutes..

I'm not really sure how a society which has evolved to such a technological and peaceful level would have the need for all this surveillance not to mention obsessive record keeping, but it's lucky for SG-1 they did. Certainly the entire atmosphere on Tollana is completely different from the first time we have spent time there.

If the viewers can pick up on the increased presence of such barely discernible from before elements like stormtroppers hovering within earshot - not to mention how paranoid and careful Nareem has become, then why can't the team whose job takes them into the unknown all the time and whose lives depend on them being able to get the 'lay of the land' within minutes of arriving on the other side of the gate realise something is not right as well?  Right at the beginning?

That is definitely a consideration to me as the teaser ends, however, my first problem with the story starts here as well, and it's because of something I concluded after pondering some 'clues' thrown at us in Enigma.

Because of the evidence for my premise already provided to us in canon I'd previously made a base assumption about the Tollan which is immediately contradicted in the teaser and it kinda pissed me off that it was, because it made the Tollan now completely make no sense to me, and I just didn't buy what happened in the teaser.

Mainly, Omac's funeral.  I have problems with the idea it could have occurred, not that he died, but that he STAYED dead and therefore needed a funeral.

I figured the Tollan, like the Nox and the Asgard, AND the Goa'uld, have some kind of resurrection technology.  Why do I figure this?  Aside from the fact the other races mentioned above have it and the Tollan are at LEAST on a par with them - so why would they not also?

But my assumption was based on something a little more concrete than that.  Right out of the script of Enigma.  First - Omac begging Sam NOT to save them, which would seem to make no sense, as Jack tells Omac in the infirmary, he and his people are acting fairly ungratefully for their 'rescue' from Volcano World because they wouldn't have lived long enough for the rescue ship to get them.  They'd have died before it arrived.

Omac's response is interesting.

"Perhaps that's more a problem for you than it is for us."

D'uh?  What does that mean, dead is dead, right?  Well, not to the Goa'uld, the Nox, the Asgard, as we have seen.  So, why should it not also be for the Tollan?

The guy was completely unconcerned he and his people were about to expire on Volcano World, and more concerned he and his people were removed from the planet before their rescue ship could come and collect the bodies.

Presumably, to revive/reanimate them.

So basically on the strength of this statement I always assumed the Tollan could bring back their dead as well as the Asgard, Goa'uld and the Nox can, so having this ep start with a funeral - that I felt wouldn't need to be necessary - really threw me for a loop.  Kinda ruined the whole thing right off the top.

Which was of course followed by Aw MAN!!  Did you HAVE to kill OMAC?

I am going to keep this rant very, very short because you've probably heard more than enough people screaming at you for the terribly high supporting character body count over the past couple of seasons.

Martouf.  Wah!  What?
Rothman.  Come on, guys, was this REALLY necessary?
Heru'ur  Well, um, damn. He had promise.
Chronos.  This one really annoyed me, the best Goa'uld you had and you threw him away, barely used.
Apophis  FINALLY!  About freaking time!  You kill off Heru'ur and Chronos both of who were way more interesting making out their grocery lists than Apophis EVER WAS and keep resurrecting snakebutt and inflicting him on us.  He IS dead, now.  Finally?  Right?
And now, Omac.  Sob.  I was really looking forward to a future reunion between him and Daniel which now will never happen.

And I understand from a shriek that went up about Aldwin you're still at it, hard at work whacking previously established by other writers in seasons before you secondary characters. Characters you didn't create but don't seem to be having any problems disposing of.

I guess you felt you needed to clear the slate for all the NEW supporting/original characters you've been creating since the beginning of the fourth season.

There certainly have been a PILE of them.  Between coming up with them out of the blue and reinventing existing marginal supporting characters (Maybourne comes to mind, he's a total reinvention) there's quite a cast of brand new supporting players waiting in the wings to extensively interact at a moment's notice with the main character of choice Jack or Sam or a combination of both in lieu of the rest of SG-1.

In fact, way more creative and writing energy has gone into creating secondary characters or reinventing marginal recurring SC's who were basically ciphers used as plot devices Maybourne, Major Davis)  in past seasons into full fledged substitutes for the members of SG-1 who are not Jack or Sam - than has gone into properly writing and using all of the four main leads.  Not just Jack and Sam.

A lot more writing attention and energy has channelled into the development and promotion of the revolving cast of Mary Sue of the week original character than is gone into maintaining the integrity of the character of the four leads and having them interacting with each other as themselves on an equal, weekly basis.

I recently read an interview where you commented on what a pleasure it was to write for Tom McBeath, the actor who plays Maybourne.  As a matter of fact, you enjoyed writing for his character SO much Maybourne reprised his role as Hutch to Jack's Starsky this season in an episode where the roles of Daniel and Teal'c were significantly reduced to almost nothing for absolutely no good reason.  So we got lots of time to watch you having a good time writing for Maybourne, our appreciation of your new, improved interpretation of his character uncluttered by the presence of the other bothersome, extraneous members of SG-1 who aren't Jack or Sam.

Too bad you don't appear to enjoy writing for Daniel and Teal'c nearly as much.

Last time I looked the name of the show as Stargate SG-1.  With the members of SG-1 being - as listed in the credits, Jack, Daniel, Sam and Teal'c.  In THAT order.

Not - Jack and Marty.  Or Jack and Harry.  Or Jack and Tyler.  Or Jack and the Russian colonel.  Or Jack and Sam and the cadets.

Or Sam and Orlin.  Or Sam and Joe.  Or Sam and Cadet Hailey. Or SAM with the rest of SG-1 standing around in awe and wonder (as we all should be) as she single-handedly saves the world.  Again.  Or...you get the idea.

There's been WAY too much of this sort of thing going of for the last two season.  However, happily, it's not happening in BTF.

Even though we've seen the Tollan and Nareem before, he doesn't get to monopolise the script.  Makes an important contribution, it’s true, but this episode never for one minute stops being about SG-! and their efforts to uncover the truth and starts becoming about Nareem and his thing for Sam.  That is touched  upon, but in context.  Nareem fulfils his function and stays in his place, which is also one of the things this script has in its favour.

Proper use of supporting characters as SUPPORTING characters. Yeah!  Let's hear it for letting the members of SG-1 actually be the stars and the featured players on their own program!  Woo hoo, what a concept!

The Tollan seem 'off' from the first scene on, though.  You could chalk up Trevel's rather remarkable change of attitude to her being 'grief stricken' over Omac, I suppose, but she certainly seems a whole lot less arrogant, not to mention decidedly 'softer' and more feminine, complete with hair framing her face and a lot more make up as opposed to the severely tight bun - stark, plain face of before.

The Trevel in Pretense was severe, almost asexual in appearance, angular - unattractive and unapproachable, not the soft-edged, soft-focused, feminised, plumper, rounder version we see of her here.   And what's with all the cleavage and that neck deal that reminded me uncomfortably of that bizarre hunk of metal Anise had around her neck during her first appearance?

Also, really hard not to notice, but everyone, including the stormtroopers were all wearing grey.  Jack even makes a joke about it later on.  We weren't trying to use the wardrobe choice to make a little statement about the Tollan being in a similar morally ambiguous decision as Jack was in 'Shades of Grey' were we - sort of doing an homage to the ep by dressing all the Tollan in grey?  Just wondering because I did notice the grey, particularly on Trevel and that's the way it struck me, as being deliberate and symbolic of moral ambiguity.

Or maybe the wardrobe people just went with what was close to hand and I'm reading way too much into it.

Moving on beyond the 'help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope,' moment.  Which was a bit of a chuckle, especially with Jack stuck looking at the back of the holo Nareem's head.

I have to admit here the way the plot unfolds I'm completely confused as to exactly WHY the 'Goa'uld with no name' who runs Tanith feels he has to spin this elaborate scheme to con the Tau'ri.  What is he hoping to achieve by making SG-1 jump through all these hoops?  Get some footage for his Saturday night showing of 'Oh Those Wacky Tau'ri' when he gets together with his other System Lord pals and kicks back, compares notes and has a few cool ones?

Is the purpose of the ruse to get the Earth to take delivery of the useless ion canons?  No - that can't be it, because Tanith orders Trevel to send one of the doomsday bombs through the Stargate.  So that's out.

Is it to get the Earth to supply the trinium to finish making the bomb?  That's hard to swallow, on a number of levels.  Hard to believe there is only one trinium mine in the universe and we've got control of it (and when this happened, I'd sure like to know, first we've heard of it!) and by the time Trevel announces the weapons are all good to go and she can start shipping them up Earth has only sent one little shipment through and they have hardly had time to add the trinium they have only just received to all those lovely bombs Trevel says she's going to start delivering to Tanith.

Sooo, that can't be it either.  So like I said, whoever is pulling Tanith's string's, his motivation behind his little scheme is completely unclear.  Which needless to say makes the whole run around of SG-1 initially entertaining, but the more we learn about what is supposedly going on the less sense it all starts making and that 'pushing blindly forward' sensation continues.

Getting more information is supposed to have the opposite effect.  Clearing matters up instead of making them more confusing.  At least in a story that's swiftly approaching the finish line and is making less sense as it is about to be ending as it did when it was beginning.

Which brings us right around to 'the iris is no obstacle' doomsday weapon.  Why didn't Tanith have Trevel shoot one of those through and take us out at the very beginning?  Aside from the fact if he did that there'd be no series and if SG-1 didn't go for the canon gambit there would have been no episode.  Oh.

Not only does involving SG-1 in this plot to begin with in the first place make no sense given the ability they now have, thanks to the Tollan, to completely wipe us out without us even knowing what hit us - but the fact Tanith DOESN'T immediately follow through with the bomb once he knows Sam and Daniel are on to him and Jack and Teal'c are out there somewhere, unaccounted for, and he has no way of knowing what they know - again, really, really dumb.
 

It seems to me this scrip is suffering from a touch of the 'unwritten law which states in order to ensure good triumphs over evil  (and make it easier for the writers to get the hero out of a sticky situation) the villain MUST do something stupid, thereby allowing the hero time and opportunity to foil his cunning plot.

Never mind if ANY villains were as routinely arrogant and stupid as they are routinely written, and this includes the Goa'uld - they wouldn't survive to be an obstacle or a problem for anyone.

This something stupid usually takes the form of one of the following:

The 'expositional gloat'
This is where the villain explains his plan in great detail to the helpless hero, there by telling him everything he needs to know not only to escape but how to proceed to foil the plot once he has escaped, as a preamble to making his NEXT stupid move...

Which is one or the other or a combination of both

The failing to stay and make sure the hero is really dead' gambit

In this one the villain decides he has better things to do than stick around and make sure the hero does indeed get taken out by his clever bat trap and after mouthing the appropriate cliché such as  'I hate to gloat and run' or 'I shall leave you to your fate, we shall not meet again' he walks away, leaving the hero  unsupervised and able to make his escape.

Or - the failing to press his advantage before the hero has time to head him off at the pass gambit

The villain inexplicably does not do what he obviously needs to do next when he needs to do it - right now - and what's even worse fails to do it himself - but instead decides to delegate the dirty work and does not personally following through on his cunning plan in an efficient and timely fashion.

Tanith manages to touch ALL the dumb bases in this one.

Spilling his guts to Daniel and Sam and then giving Trevel a HALF AN HOUR to send off the bomb and not leave ANYONE with her to ensure she does it? As well as postponing taking delivery of his goodies until a half an hour has elapsed and the Earth is blowed up?  Leaving Daniel and Sam in HER custody?  Especially when Jack and Teal'c are still unaccounted for?  He might not think much of Jack but Tanith has to have SOME respect for Teal'c's abilities.  I mean,  I know the Goa'uld are arrogant, but if they are all this stupid I have a hard time believing they've managed to survive long enough to be as supposedly successful as they have been.

(Mind you, the way the Goa'uld have been written so far in this series they've made even less sense then the Jaffa, so there you go.)

 As to the WHY the SGC falls for this foolishness (even though the audience can smell a rat with Trevel's first dewy-eyed invitation to 'come up and see me sometime to talk technology, boys') is perfectly logical however.  The fact Hammond urges Jack and Daniel to CONTINUE to go for the guns in spite of how howlingly obvious it is becoming, especially by Trevel's behaviour in the second interview that something is really, really WRONG is a painful illustration of what I was talking about earlier, our techno hunger making us ripe for this sort of plucking and exploitation).  We were so stupid in this one we almost deserved to get blown up.

I was glad to see Jack voicing some objections after that first, extremely STRANGE interview with Trevel in her office.  After her high and mighty posturing in Pretense, not to mention the emphatic stand both Omac and Nareem took in Enigma, hearing Trevel prattle on about 'politics having common threads wherever you go' as an explanation for what was happening and the Tollan's sudden change of heart. Whaaaa?

Trevel's further explanation for why they are making the justification for this weapons largesse seems to be all about getting trinium (turning off a surveillance system so she won't be recorded - a detail that had me going, huh - along with all the stormtroopers suddenly hanging about, when did the Tollan suddenly become fascists with every aspect of their lives scrutinised and monitored - at least those in public office anyway.) when it was really about saving face in front of the part of the curia that wanted to hold to the 'old ways' doesn’t explain what motivated the REST of the curia to want to suddenly play Santa Claus to the Tau'ri.

What do THEY gain from this change of attitude?  And where the hell did it come from?  If most of the Tollan are as arrogant and smug in their superiority as Trevel and Nareem have been (and there is no reason to suppose they wouldn't be, I mean, to the Tollan people at large, who the hell are the Tau'ri anyway?  Yeah, maybe they helped save the planet but they're still 'primitives' and we all know you shouldn't let children play with matches, end of story.) they'd think the idea of handing out ion canons to children absolutely ridiculous.

Which of course is the way it really is.  Omac's protest wasn't about any debates in the curia about handing over technology to the Tau'ri, which of course never happened, he was murdered because he protested the plan to COLLUDE with the Goa'uld.  That's never made clear enough for me, as once again, this story never properly focuses on what the main issue is either - the MORAL issue of what the Tollan have actually done - sold their souls to the Goa'uld - and how close we came to doing exactly the same thing.  But I'll come back to this point in a bit.

Besides, how can this even be happening?  Trevel tells Daniel in the teaser of Shades of Grey technology is the one thing they can't give us 'Tollan law strictly forbids it'. And the reasons for the laws are still relevant. So the curia simply starting to debate changing their policies without actually changing the existing law wouldn't give Trevel the authority to do what she is doing.  I know, just me nit picking, but I'm saying the dialogue in the scene could have still use a little work.  Trevel's 'explanations' to Jack and Daniel about why the whole deal is happening sounds too contrived for either Jack or Daniel to not have immediately been a whole lot more suspicious then they actually were.

I didn't fall for it, and I'm having a hard time swallowing they would either.  Trevel is just too weird - too different from the way she's been before, and her story is just too 'convenient'.  Especially given the arrogant, adamant way the Tollan have sneered, condescended and 'oh you silly little primitives, you'll shoot your eyes out and blow each other up, now stop bothering the grownups and go away and play in the sandbox,' treated us, without fail in the past.

Now Trevel would have us, and Jack and Daniel believe the curia is prepared to throw all of that aside for - well, we really don't ever find out the real why, do we, if the 'we need trinium' rationalisation is only a cover.  Considering this scene is pretty important to the rest of it - Jack and Daniel have to 'buy' what she is selling enough to carry on, even if their suspicions are aroused - and to me it doesn't do that.  It's too weak as it stands and no way Jack should have taken this deal back home to Earth without doing some serious investigating.  Certainly not Daniel, either.

And he should have walked away times two after the NEXT meeting with her Highness.

Still, it's pretty embarrassing to see the way her hoity-toit Tollanness dangles the ion canon in front of Jack's face (nice doggie, see the pretty big honking space gun) and see how HAPPY he is to think he might get to bring one home to show Dad.

You really gotta lose this 'get the guns' storyline, guys.  Seriously.  We're starting to look like idiots who can be jerked around by anyone who's got a used space gun they want to tempt us with.

PhoenixE

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