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We've told TPTB that we don't want the product they are trying to sell us.  Here we explain to them why and present some Stargate Solutions.

 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.


|| Seasons Four and Five Recurring Themes ||  An analysis of the writing   ||

PhoenixE: An open letter to Mr. Joseph Mallozzi continued

Humour

Upgrades, Window of Opportunity, Wormhole X-Treme and The Tomb

Humour - an interesting concept.  It's also interesting to examine the things that make us laugh, and to do so by taking a look at what has been offered to us as 'funny' during the course of the series, most particularly the last couple of seasons.

There are many types of humour, but if you want to simplify it, and I do, what makes us laugh in this series in particular does it in three specific ways.

The episodes in this series which are deliberately 'humorous' attempt to be so by making us laugh WITH the characters or by laughing AT them, or by being unintentionally humorous - that is to say funny without meaning to be.  Oftentimes these examples of 'inadvertent' humour are funnier than the supposedly 'funny' episodes.

The first type, where we laugh WITH the characters, is fairly self-explanatory.  The humour is derived from the characters' reactions to the situation in a way that is somewhat exploitive, but  in a fondly teasing fashion which does not subject them to excessive, gratuitous ridicule and humiliation.  Is never cruel or degrading to them.   It is the situation itself which is absurd, impossible, frustrating, and we sympathise with the character's struggle while we are laughing in a kind and encouraging way.  Because the humour does not depend on making the character look overly ridiculous and in fact in many cases actually inclines us to be sympathetic and empathic toward the character as we watch them struggle - as I said, laughing with them rather than at them - the episode is 'funny' more than the first time you watch it.  Also a lot of 'fun' to watch more than once.

Urgo and Upgrades are both examples of episodes based on this first type of humour.  These episodes are about the members of SG-1 - recognisable as themselves and behaving in familiar ways, that is, until an influence is applied (in both instances a piece of alien technology, however, in the former ep the technology tends to be a lot more garrulous than in the latter) which makes them behave in ways that are ANYTHING like themselves.  The brief character distortion is in fact part of the plot and from which the humour of the piece is mostly derived - them acting so radically 'out of character' is not only the way we know something is 'wrong' with them, but why the episode is funny.

The second type of humour laughing 'at 'em, not with 'em'  is extremely exploitive in a juvenile and mean-spirited way, often making us laugh, it's true from sheer shock value but also making us feel guilty and somehow 'bad' for having found the brief, often painful and painfully embarrassing misfortune of another 'funny'.  It's uncomfortably manipulative, and almost always unkind to the poor sap having something mean or really awful  happen to them so we can get a cheap laugh at his or her expense.

This is the kind of explosive, initially often cruelly funny, spontaneous, extremely embarrassing type of humour that depends on shock value - catches us by surprise and makes us laugh at things we would NEVER ordinarily find funny - and are secretly uncomfortable laughing at even though we can't help ourselves doing it.

We've all done it. And all felt absolutely appalled with ourselves afterwards for having laughed when what has happened has actually not been funny - at all.

The spontaneous, almost involuntary laugh that results from watching an old man slip on a banana peel, go flying through the air and land splat on the ground.  An unsuspecting pedestrian abruptly falling into a hole in the ground he and we do not see until it's too late and he's gone.  A pail of water perched on a door dumping on some poor geek's head as he opens the door to his office.  We know these things are bad and people have gotten hurt but just for a split second - they're funny.  And only that split second.

Practical jokes, cruel accidents, situations deliberately engineered to humiliate.  Slapstick of the extreme, where the character is made to deliberately look foolish for our amusement.  Cruel parody.  The humour derived from laughing AT the character, reducing them, demeaning them, making fun of them in a way which at times verges on the contemptuous.  Thinly veiling an outright insult in a 'joke'.  And offering this contempt to us as 'humour'.

Juvenile, immature, frequently gratuitous, self-indulgent, scarcely original, often excessive and for the most part, just down right MEAN.

Much more than the first type of humour whether or not this brand of jocularity stands up to repeat viewing depends of the subjective tastes of the viewer.  I know myself something I might laugh at initially simply because what happens is so unexpected and shocking - like watching a piano fall on someone walking in front of me is definitely only going to get that reaction from me once.

I highly doubt I would find the event subsequently amusing if I was forced to watch it a second time.  Which is pretty much my reaction to the episodes Window of Opportunity and Wormhole X-Treme.  They got a laugh out of me the first time due to sheer novelty but I would rather laugh with my team than at them.  I LIKE these people, like them a lot, certainly like them far too much to do to them what is done to them in Wormhole X-Treme in particular, although after watching these ostensibly 'humorous' episodes I have to wonder - um - do you? Like the characters, that is?

I'll finish up the humour section with an example of something that's pretty darned funny although it's not supposed to be.

Upgrades

As I stated above, this episode, like Urgo, is an example of 'laughing with them' kind of humour.  Urgo I like a lot, watch a lot and enjoy tremendously every time I watch it.

I should be able to say the same thing about Upgrades, certainly the first time I watched it I thought it was great fun, not very serious - okay, I know it was a comic book plot but that was okay,  it was a huge relief, after the shocks of Small Victories and The Other Side to see the team ostensibly back together as they should be even if they were a bit 'pumped' by the armbands.

The whole adventure started to go 'off', however - the second Jack and Sam started to go BACK into that ship after Daniel went down and watching it for the first time I was sitting up and going 'huh that - that's DUMB!  Why are they doing that?'

Something was up, something was wrong again.  I had been enjoying myself immensely up until the business with the forcefield and Jack, Sam and DANIEL all acting 'off' again and I had the uncomfortable feeling I'd just been played for a sucker.  Didn't know why or how, but the episode left a bad taste in my mouth and an uncomfortable, unsettled feeling in my stomach.  Which now had the season four tally up to three for three of me not feeling good, satisfied or happy with the ending of the episode.

A couple of episodes later, in Divide and Conquer I discovered once again, my instincts were on the money.  Upgrades was nothing more than an elaborate set up for the 'feelings'  situation in Divide and Conquer.

I suppose it's pointless to point out to you the fact you had to MANUFACTURE  - and extremely clumsily - a scenario where Jack is forced by a contrived and ridiculous situation (interestingly enough exactly the same thing he was faced having to do to DANIEL in Serpent's Lair - leave him behind, only the way Daniel came to  be in the predicament he was in and needing to be left behind made perfect sense) to have to suddenly face these 'feelings' he's supposedly been harbouring all this time and the fact there wasn't already a pre-existing incident in canon you could draw on as a basis for this astonishing revelation - as there is in Daniel's case - um, more than ONE, actually - means that maybe the whole FEELINGS issue was as contrived and manufactured as the situation in Upgrades?

Basically, Divide and Conquer has completely ruined Upgrades for me.  Retroactively tainted the episode.  When I can watch it at all I can only watch it without starting to get REALLY MAD as far as the end of the brawl at O'Malley's.  The second bubble lips shows ups with the news about Apophis' ship  I feel my blood pressure starting to go up.  I really hate being suckered and this episode was just one big mean trick for what you turned it into at the end and used it for down the road.

Especially as, once again, to make it all possible you turned SG-1 into big honking dummies to get Jack and Sam into that situation where he is suddenly, supposedly blind-sided by all these 'feelings' for her she subsequently gets to bully and brow beat out of him in Divide and Conquer.

BAH!  PHOOEY!  NUTS! Horse frigging HOCKEY!  How STUPID do you think we are?  Not nearly as stupid as Jack and Sam are in this one, I don't mind telling you.

Why am I so angry about this?  Aside from the fact you dumbed up (or should that be down) my characters and did THAT to them - and made us WATCH it - (blech!)  you completely ruined for me what was up to the point where this weirdness  with Jack and Sam acting like their brains had gone south started happening -  a really good time.  So I feel as if I was screwed over twice getting what I WAS enjoying ruined  with you trying to get me to buy something I never wanted, certainly never asked for, and was never ever even there no matter how many times you try and say it was so.

I guess what makes me the maddest about this episode is I knew something was wrong the first time I watched it but I had absolutely no idea HOW wrong....

I keep saying it was wrong, and you made the team dumb.  What do I mean?  Oh, only I don't care how pumped up Jack and Sam were on that armband, I can't believe he would be so STUPID to do what he did in that ep.

Consider if you will, the situation SG-1 finds them in when Daniel goes down and his armband comes off.  They have finished their mission - FINISHED, mind.  All done, no need to hang around.   Nothing left to do in the ship, but LEAVE.  They know they have less than ten minutes before the ship and subsequently the MOUNTAIN goes boom.

They are alone behind enemy lines, hip deep in hostiles.  They are also UNARMED.  Their single, sole tactical advantage are the armbands - which they’ve just seen proof are going to be coming off like ANY second now - and leaving them defenceless and vulnerable like, real soon. Plus they have a team member down - and then another one shows up who might have a zat, but he doesn't have an armband. Whose welfare they also have to take into account.

So, what do the vastly superiorly capable members of the team who have two other members at a decided disadvantage and for whom, logic would dictate, they should be primarily concerned and on whose behalf they should be using their enhanced abilities to get them to safety in fact DO with these vastly enhanced abilities and the subsequent tactical advantage they enjoy over the enemy because of them?

You've gone out of your way to establish just how fast and strong the armbands make Jack, Daniel and Sam.  Five times as strong as a normal human?  We see them zipping from the gate to the ship in seconds, and zipping by the Jaffa like they're standing still.  Can't see them, can't touch them, can't stop them.

Seems to me all Jack and Sam have to do is pick up Daniel and Teal'c (I think if they're five times as strong as the normal human they can handle giving their team mates a piggy back ride back to the gate) and run them both back to the gate in a couple of seconds, get the hell back to the SGC before the armbands give out. Especially as the clock is frigging ticking and they all damned well KNOW this! That's what I would have done and I'm not a highly trained, former special forces Colonel in the United States Air Force with all this combat experience etc etc.

I'm just someone who can very quickly look at a situation, evaluate my options and select the MOST LOGICAL course of action given what will most likely happen to me and my friends if I don't do the smart thing and get my ass out of there pronto.

Not unlike what happens to Jack and Sam - completely, and I mean COMPLETELY unnecessarily.

Faced with a situation where mission is accomplished, a team member is down, nothing left to do but get their asses out of there and quick before they fall down and go boom as well and still possessing the ways and means to get EVERYONE's asses back to the gate quick and fast, what do the highly trained Air Force Colonel and his plucky major do?  Do they see to their fallen team mate and make sure to get him, and Teal'c AND themselves quickly out of harms way before their armbands give out?  No, they do not, do they?  They are dumb.  They run back INTO the ship ostensibly to 'lead away' the Jaffa from Daniel and Teal'c.

What the f**ck for?  They can run right PAST them.  With Daniel and Teal'c on their backs.  Get the stink out of the ship before the armbands come off!  Morons!

There is absolutely no reason Jack and Sam needed to go back into that ship and no excuse for having made them do so.  NO excuse for them to have put themselves in a situation where Sam ended up trapped behind that forcefield.  It's inexcusably stupid, and just plain inexcusable

I really couldn't believe this the first time I saw it - it was a piece of stupidity that absolutely defied description and I could not accept Jack could really be this thick.  Or heedless of not only his personal safety, but all the members of his team as well.  Like I said, he might have been pumped by the armband, but I cannot and will not believe they made Jack THAT stupid or careless.   Of course, afterwards, when I realised the whole POINT of the ship scenario was to get Sam trapped behind the forcefield so Jack could go into his anguished 'I'm not leaving you behind' act. Setting up that completely ludicrous scenario for the equally ludicrous premise of D&C was the entire justification for the whole stinking armbands episode.

Stupid.  The whole thing was stupid.  There was absolutely no excuse for Jack and Sam to go back into that ship and for her to get stuck behind that forcefield.  It is doubly infuriating to me now, not only because the very fact it happens is so completely inexcusable and insulting to the character of Jack but how what should NEVER have happened is subsequently USED in D&C to further assassinate the characters of both Jack and Sam. Grrrrrrr.

Not to mention the not so subtle attempt to turn Daniel into faint-hearted whiner at the end of Upgrades.  Considering how incredibly brave and resourceful this man has proven himself to be time and time again as well as how fiercely loyal he is to the rest of his team - to have him standing there trying to talk Teal'c out of staying while not really coming right out and saying 'well, they're toast, we should just - um go' - just slap him in the face and get it over with, okay?  You want to know what Daniel is really all about I suggest going back and reviewing a few episodes.  Solitudes.  Fire and Water.  Fifth Race.  Devil You Know. New Ground, Thor's Hammer, There But For the Grace of God.  For starters.

Actually, from the looks of the scripts from the fifth season I think you guys need to sit down and air quite a few of the eps.  Refresh your memories.  Possibly watch them for the first time.

So, as you have probably surmised, I don't much care for Upgrades.  Not because I don't think it's funny - like I said, until they come back from their 'trip into town' it's very funny, with some lovely humorous moments and nice team bits.

Unfortunately the way it is used - and the way the characters are distorted to foist an inexcusable piece of character assassination on us quite spoils it for me.  I pretty much fastforward after Hammond's immortal line 'I thought the devices were supposed to enhance them physically, not make them stupid.'  There's no way it made them as stupid as the rest of the episode, which is a complete waste of my time, as far as I'm concerned.

And speaking of wastes of time not to mention bitter disappointments....

Wormhole X-Treme
Or Send in the Clowns

Opinion on this one is sharply divided.  One of those you either love it or you hate it kinda deals.  I didn't even like it the first time I watched it.  Mainly because I kept waiting for the rest of the team to show up.  Here it was, the one hundredth episode, and was I looking at SG-1?  No, I was looking at mostly Jack, with an occasional assist from Teal'c and frigging, stinking MARTY with all the rest of the action taken up by  this pseudo SG-1.  Where the hell was the REAL SG-1?

Sidelined in their own one hundredth episode by Team X-Treme who were not so subtle send-ups and rather cruel caricatures parodying the real deals and not in a kind way, their over the top portrayal of SG-1 as idiots aided and abetted by the creative team who might have been cavorting around in the episode making fun of themselves, but from where I was sitting (not quite believing what I was seeing) they were far too busy making fun of '1" with 'Team'.

Oh, but not all of the members of Team X-Treme were unflattering send ups of either the real actor portraying the character or the very real and shameful ways another character has been underused and turned into a comic 'prop' being highlighted, snickered at and made into a running joke through the episode.

Sam isn't made fun of.  What a surprise!  'Stacy Monroe' isn't made to look like she's a vain idiot, nor does she have things thrown at her after her actor is made fun of, which is what happens to another 'Team' member after certain aspects of the way the actor portraying ANOTHER character are blatantly parodied and exaggerated for a laugh.  'Stacy/our Stand-in Sam', is pretty, she's smart, she gets to stump the dumb director and the dumb creative consultant with an oh, so clever question (arising from a plot inconsistency stolen from a DANIEL episode, I might add), and she furthermore gets to catch the eye of the dashing visiting Colonel.  (Stands to reason, right, I mean if Jack wuvs Sam he can't help but be attracted to her equally lovely and desirable stand in.)

Those thudding sounds you hear are me throwing things at my television.  I've been doing that an AWFUL lot the last couple of years.

Can't even bring yourself to make fun of Sam, can you?  Everyone else is up for grabs, you can take a round out of all the  other team members, but Sam has to be perfect, she's sacrosanct -  even when you're playing it - or so you say - for laughs.

Where are the rest of SG-1 while Jack and Teal'c are having loads of fun with Marty, the creative team and the new' improved' version of SG-1 - oh I mean, Team X-Treme?

Oh, running around on various wild goose chases.  Sitting in surveillance vans, still with no doughnuts.  Getting to go to the SAME warehouse they got taken to in Point of No Return to waltz with the NID.  Oh, they're on their way to the studio as of the finale, but don't quite make it in time to be included in the big finish.

At Gatecon during the producer's panel the audience was told Wormhole X-treme was for US.  The fans.  We were the only ones who would 'get' it.

Oh, I think we've been 'getting' it, for quite a while now.  The shaft, the run around, the wool being pulled over our eyes, all of the above.

I'm just curious where any of you got the idea a hundredth episode featuring all you guys taking bows with your Team X-treme (which you might as well keep on using in lieu of the real SG-1 for what's left of it after all you've done to it - and I'm not saying this to be pissy, I'm serious - look at the episodes, dammit!) with the centrepiece of the ep being a damned Mary Sue - stinking MARTY.  (We do NOT like Marty.  Okay?  Can't stand the odious little twerp.  Make him DIE.) was what the fans wanted?

Call me crazy and ungrateful as well, but this fan would really much have preferred the one hundredth episode had been about, oh, SG-1?  All of it?  I know, I insist on being completely unreasonable, wanting a show called Stargate SG-1 to be about a Stargate and a team called SG-1, but hey, I'm funny that way.

So although Wormhole X-Treme might have seemed funny to some, it was not at all my cup of tea. Certainly once you've seen it once and heard all the jokes, they definitely lose their impact the second time through.  I fast forward through this entire episode.  Or rather, since it's the last ep on the tape, I hit rewind as soon as I see the teaser scene.

I've seen it.  One time too often.  Aside from the fact it overfloweth with characters I do not care about, it also celebrates (in spades) the mean-spiritedness of most of the 'humour' of the fourth and fifth season.  SG-1 are a joke, devalued by their team mates, (and apparently by the people who write them and make their livings off of them - again, just going by what I saw on the screen) verbally humiliated, allowed to take falls, sniped and griped and at times made to appear downright foolish at all in the name of wringing a cheap laugh out of a script.

We didn't laugh at Siler when a super powered Jack accidentally pushes him down the stairs.  But we think it's absolutely hysterical when Jack watches Daniel take a  nasty fall in WoO - and then stands there and allows it to happen yet again in the next loop.  We giggle when Teal'c slams the door that's been slamming him in the face against the poor unsuspecting airman on the other side who's doing this for the first time as far as he's concerned no matter how many loops Teal'c has been through and from the sounds of things does the kid more than a bit of an injury in the process.  Funny stuff, right?

Not in my book, buckos.  It's mean, it's nasty, it's lowest common denominator type of humour and Window of Opportunity is full of it.

But, my time runneth out and so must I.

Stay tuned, I will get back to you.  Next time, Window of Opportunity and if my strength holds out, the Tomb.

PhoenixE

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