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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 SG-1 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.


||  Season Four Themes ||  An analysis of the writing ||
 

Sam and Jack

"Never.' A, it could never happen because he's her superior officer, and B, we don't want it to kill the show."

"When we first started the series, there was talk of starting up something between Jack and Sam, or Sam and Daniel, and we all nixed that," Tapping says. "Richard and I right away said, 'Never.' A, it could never happen because he's her superior officer, and B, we don't want it to kill the show. I think the beauty of the relationship between the four of us on the team is this great friendship that we have, and this wonderful respect and admiration for each other. Adding anything into that mix would be silly, because I think right now it works as a team of really good friends."
Amanda Tapping in 1997, commenting on season 1

"As for Carter and O'Neill, the writers constantly scan the Internet and they know the audience has a yearning to see some sexual attraction between these two characters, but at this time we believe that's too obvious a choice," explains Anderson. "We're not saying that things aren't going to go somewhere, what we are saying is that it would be a mistake to jump into this situation right now.

"We shot an episode back in the middle of April that's set in an alternate reality and our O'Neill has to relate to an alternate version of Carter. So we deal with that dichotomy and the emotional dilemma O'Neill must go through because he's never really thought of Carter in sexual terms. Obviously, we'll have to face it eventually..."
Richard Dean Anderson, 1999 commenting on season 3

“We’re really, really excited about the show this year,” he beams. “We’ve had a little bit of a shift around, introduced some new members to the creative team, welcomed Robert aboard in a different role as co-executive producer and confidence is high. We feel Season Four is going to be our best season yet.”

"Part of the appeal of the show is that we strive for realism, particularly with regard to our military pursuits. In accordance with current regulations, it would be highly irregular for two serving officers such as O'Neill and Major Sam Carter [Amanda Tapping] to have an on-going personal relationship. So in the context of SG-1 it's unlikely to happen."
Brad Wright, 2000, commenting on season 4

When I first started watching 'Stargate' I did so with great trepidation because I was dreading a set-up where 'that guy from MacGyver' hogged all the camera time, had a relationship with the blonde, and where O'Neill and Jackson were constantly at each other's throats, because after all, that's the way these things usually go in TV land. Oh yes and Teal'c stood around in the background with nothing to do, because that's usually the way those things go in TV land as well.

But unexpectedly and wonderfully, 'Stargate' dared to be different. I couldn't think -- still can't -- of any TV show that had a hero figure like Jack who showed such compassion and concern for all of his teammates irregardless of gender. Usually any tenderness or affection between any characters of the same gender is automatically forbidden just in case anyone should happen to misinterpret the relationship and -- God forbid -- impugn a character's sexuality.

While every time Jack showed his respect for Sam by treating her like an Air Force officer instead of a woman, *my* respect for the show went up another notch. And although there were blips in the first season and a few sexist bits did still creep in, like the first meeting between Jack and Sam in 'Children of the Gods' and the unusually poor ending to 'The Broca Divide'; episodes like 'The Nox', 'The Torment of Tantalus', 'Fire & Water', 'Solitudes', 'Enigma', 'There But for the Grace of God' and 'Within The Serpent's Grasp' soon convinced me that this was a show which just got better and better with longer acquaintance. And continued to get better and better through the next two seasons.

Then we hit Season Four and it's as though all my 'Stargate' nightmares have decided to come true at once. Sam is no longer a person in her own right. She no longer has a recognizable character. She no longer has any relationship with Daniel or Teal'c. She is just the object of Jack's affections.

The unique and incredible Jack and Daniel relationship, which was always the core of the show - and always should have been the core of the show in my opinion as it was the relationship from which the program originated - has apparently been discarded despite the incredible chemistry of the two actors which makes every scene they share so magical. (And makes the loss of those scenes seem like such a dreadful waste.)

Sam as a strong woman in the services was a wonderful character. Sam as Jack's love interest *and* new best friend in the place of Daniel is someone it is becoming increasingly hard to like.  There is no longer any sense of SG1 being a team. Jack now has so little respect for Sam he kisses her when she's not going to remember it then smirks at her smugly afterwards.

Teal'c has been woefully underused in almost every episode. And as for Jack's friendship with Daniel, well that is now apparently yesterday's news. It was implied in 'D&C' and now it's been made explicit in 'Beneath the Surface': the only relationship in 'Stargate' that now matters is the one between Jack and Sam. When the chips are down (or in this case when Jack's subconscious is running the show) the only member of SG1 he remembers is Sam.

This despite the fact that those two very good actors cannot make their scenes together anything other than flat and uninspired because there is simply no chemistry between them. Something which has been obvious since Jack and Sam's first meeting in 'Children of the Gods'  -- making it all the more inexplicable that TPTB should have chosen to shine a spotlight on something they must have known would never be able to stand up to that degree of illumination. As a depiction of two Air Force officers whose mutual respect and affection had deepened into friendship, the Jack and Sam relationship was terrific.

As a romance it is a rather distasteful bad joke.

But I can't even say the people making Season 4 have a hidden agenda because it's not even hidden. Someone making Season 4 clearly wants this to show to stop being 'Stargate SG1' and start being 'Stargate Jack and Sam' but I can't imagine *why* they did. I am genuinely puzzled as to why the clearly very talented people who write, produce, direct, and star in this show decided to change a formula that was working so wonderfully well before, to destroy something so unique, subtle, and intelligent, and give us something so clichéd and commonplace instead.

The loss of that team relationship is the one I find the most upsetting.  There was so much warmth in what 'Stargate' used to be; such a strong sense of characters who cared for one another so deeply, (shown over and over again in Sam's compassion for Jack in Solitudes; Jack's grief at the loss of Daniel in 'Fire & Water'; Jack comforting Sam in the same episode after she realizes they left Daniel behind; Jack forgiving and comforting Daniel in the storeroom scene in 'Need'; Teal'c mopping Jack's brow in 'Message In A Bottle'; Daniel's unstinting care of Jack in' The Fifth Race'; the look of absolute devastation on Jack's face when Teal'c is drowned in front of him in 'Demons' etc.); something exemplified for me by RDA's incredible acting in the corridor scene in 'Serpent's Lair', and then cheapened and tainted by his so uncharacteristically unconvincing acting in the poor copy of that 'Serpent's Lair' scene in 'D&C'.

But I no longer get any sense of four characters caring equally for each other from these Season 4 episodes. Daniel and Teal'c now seem completely isolated from Jack and Sam. We have been thrown a 'Teal'c' episode and a 'Daniel' episode, yes, (and the latter one was truly excellent and the former one, although less successful in other ways did at least give Teal'c some of the attention he deserves as well as showing what *real* chemistry is like when an actor and an actress truly do set the screen on fire) but in both cases Teal'c and Daniel were interacting with Other Characters, not with Jack or Sam.

Jack and Sam now only interact with each other - as 'Watergate' proved when even though Sam and Daniel were occupying the same aqua-sub they certainly weren't interacting. And I don't even want to think about how long it's been since Jack and Daniel worked together the way they did in 'Pretense' or indeed were in any episode where they weren't either ideologically and/or physically separated.

For me, everything that once made 'Stargate' unique and admirable has been deliberately deconstructed in Season 4. Which is not to say Season 4 hasn't had some wonderful episodes; it has. The production values are incredible.   The special effects are mind-blowing. The quality of the photography is staggering. But the overall trend is to do exactly what people feared after 'D&C' was broadcast: to destroy the group dynamic, undermine the Jack and Daniel friendship, ignore any inter-team relationship except the one between Jack and Sam, and completely obliterate that sense of four people who have come to care for each other so deeply and unselfishly that they are now a family.

And the bad episodes have been so *very* bad that it is difficult to know what to make of them. Both 'Divide & Conquer' and 'Beneath The Surface' betray such a lack of any subtlety, intelligence, originality, or even basic common sense that it is difficult not to think that a production team who are capable of producing such travesties could be capable of anything.

This is still a show with lots of admirable things going for it, but it no longer contains the things that I was watching it for. I'm sure it will win new fans for itself as it has always done, but it is losing an awful lot of old fans in the process. And I can't help thinking that, despite the wonderful photography, great special effects, big budget, and sky-high production values, what 'Stargate' used to be was more admirable and certainly more original than what 'Stargate' has now become.

I'm going to hang on in there until reruns start but if in the next five episodes there isn't at least one good original storyline where I see some clear evidence that the team dynamic is still intact and the Jack and Daniel relationship is still the heart of this show, I think I might just save myself that twelve dollars a month and watch videos from the days when 'Stargate' was about so much more than a man and a woman interacting their way unconvincingly through yet another dreary plot contrivance.

Unhappy S4 Fan

Addendum (Jan 2002)

Stargate SG-1 did gain in the coveted male demographic.  It rose to first place, capturing an extra 25% of the market.  At the same time, it slipped from first place to sixth among women.  Overall the audience for season four fell by 26%.  The creative shift in season four was little short of disastrous.  I cannot comprehend why the production staff have pushed even harder down the same road.

The show wasn't stagnating.  It had barely touched the surface with its four leads.  Season four didn't build on the strengths of what had gone before.  It cast them away and embraced a creative direction that alienated one quarter of the audience, and deeply disappointed the majority who remained loyal.

Season five is season four revisited, except this time we have no Sam and Jack.  Sam features heavily, as does Jack.  The same dynamic, the same focus and creative energy driving two characters to the exclusion of the others.

Only UK viewers are witness to the ongoing attempts to minimise the loss of Daniel from the team.  Some of us don't think we're even going to make it to Meridian as Stargate viewers.  The characters are being changed to fit the writing, changed beyond recognition to accommodate the departure of one quarter of what was once a family.  It makes for uneasy viewing.

Alison

(c) 2001 Unhappy S4 Fan.  All rights recognised.  No copyright infringement intended.

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