Pick your five favourite TV shows (in no particular order) and answer the following questions about them. Don't cheat!

Mine are:

1. Blake's 7
2. Stargate SG-1
3. Magnificent 7
4. Robin of Sherwood
5. Sapphire and Steel


( I really shouldn't be doing this right now... )

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I have to rewatch some of these shows, sometime.

So, what am I up to, these days? Well. Mostly, work has eaten my brain, but I think I'm beginning to see a way through, or at least... a way to arrange the tunnel lights so I can keep going, I guess?

( C25K )

( Katana. )

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I rewatched Solitudes, the end of Singularity, Point of View, and the end of Learning Curve yesterday, thanks to holdouttrout and her rewatching from the start. I realised that I'd accidentally put together the Sam Cries A Lot, Jack Calls Her 'Sam', They Stand In For Each Other's Spouse, And Then They Rescue A Little Girl viewlist. I think watching all those in succession would give someone a misleading idea about the show. I love Solitudes. See Trout's post for more coherent comments.

I think the characters in my head are veering away from the characters in the show. If I want to write more fic - which I don't have time to do at the moment, anyhow - I need to watch some eps again. It's funnny how that happens, isn't it? Although I guess the ones in my head are closer to how they are in the later seasons, because I've been more aware of them through redial_the_gate - but I still feel like I've kind of lost their voices and bodylanguage.

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Okay, that's what's in my head right now.

Just came across this io9 article on how to get into 20 classic science fiction shows. I like how their advice for Stargate is to watch seasons 2 - 8. *g*

Whilst I agree that those are its prime years and that everyone should watch them, under duress if necessary - as my fiancé will wearily attest, I'm fundamentally incapable of accepting that someone doesn't love a show I love - they say at the beginning that this guide is meant for potential new fans, not people who already love these shows. Either the first couple of seasons grab you, or they don't and you're not going to enjoy the rest. And if you've watched seven seasons, you really might as well watch the other three.

Overall, I prefer season 3 to season 2, but season three opens with the second half of a not especially good two-parter ('Into The Fire'), and then 'Seth', and that's not fair to spring on a newbie. It doesn't get good until 'Fair Game' (and if you don't already know the Goa'uld, the sight of them eating Earth snacks won't be as hilarious as it might be otherwise), and it doesn't have a properly offworld episode* until seven shows in ('Deadman Switch').

Season 2 again starts with the second half of a two-parter - but a much better one, IMO - and is followed by 'In The Line Of Duty' (not one of my personal favourites, but kind of essential later), 'Prisoners', and 'Need'. There are some things in season 2 that a newbie would need to know about - but then again, there's a load of that in season 1.

Eh. I say start with season 1. Trial by fire. If you - you, the theoretical newbie - can handle the stilted scripting and studio-pleasing nekkid gurls of 'Children of the Gods', the horrible linguistic anthropology of 'Emancipation', and the bad science of 'Broca Divide' and 'The First Commandment' and still enjoy all the good things that make it Stargate ("If you don't make it... can I have your stereo?"), then you can handle anything they're going to throw at you later on.

Plus you should watch the original version of COTG, and not the revamp. Otherwise that joke in Moebius makes no sense at all.

Then again, I watched it in this order, IIRC: 4, 3, 7, 1, 2, 6, 5, 8, 9, 10. The only lasting damage was a feeling of disappointment when I discovered that 'Enemies pt 1' didn't exist.

It occurs to me that there's no point whatsoever to this post.

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Oh, that reminds me, 'Affinity' is the last episode left unclaimed on the Redial season 8 sign-ups.



* There is 'Learning Curve', but only half of the team is offworld in that, and it's mostly talky stuff.

I seem to not have words lately. *shrug*

...

[wind whistling, tumbleweeds tumbling, dogs barking in the distance]

...

Yes. Welcome to my journal of silence. Sheesh.

RDA, pls to be learning the 140 character limit. Your Tweets make even less sense (who'd have thought it was possible?). Still, so cute.

I watched 'Holiday' yesterday - young!SG-1 gets me every time. I hope that ep made everyone realise that they needed to give Chris Judge more to do OMG. He does a great imitation of Jack, but RDA conversely does a pretty poor imitation of Teal'c - 'be expressionless' isn't really playing to his strengths.

I'm trying to work out whether Ma'chello already knew that it could all be fixed with a bit of musical bodies. Surely he must? He built the machine, after all - he must know its capabilities. But despite his insistance that he'd totally go back if only he could, he never actually makes it clear that there is a way. He does sort of hint at it, and Sam picks it up straight away - and he seems to realise, 'Wow, this woman is really smart'. It would've been interesting to have more of Ma'chello on base, talking to Sam. Not good from a future storyline perspective, but they would have found it interesting. :)

I was... was I dreaming about reading bad romantic novels? That's just strange. Oh well.

Tea tea tea.

Okey-dokey, Stargate season 2.

I was looking back through the season 2 recap discussions on redial_the_gate recently, and it reminded me why this is one of my favourite seasons. They got more into the rhythm of the characters (Teal'c isn't so damn stoic all the time) and some of the longer-term ideas – there are fewer "three shots disintegrate!" moments. SG-1 are still young and innocent in the ways of the galaxy, and the Goa'uld are still ZOMG DANGEROUS!!! The number of people who know about the programme is still relatively sane (although getting worse). Battlestar Galactica hadn't yet come along to convince sci-fi programme makers that they had to be all gloom and angst in order to be taken seriously.

And, there are some awesomely crazy costumes.

( Plus they still had some doozies to tick off on their Big List Of Genre Tropes. )

Does Jack know how to dance? Formal sort of dance, I mean - not getting down on the disco floor (god help us all). I've read fics where he does, and they're not all badfics - okay, the majority were, but not all. He's the same generation as my parents, who took themselves to dance classes at one point, as a sort of... thing that people do. But. I'm still having problems picturing it.

I wonder if the others know how to dance. Are there Jaffa formal dances?

( Cut for disconnected wittering. )

I spent the majority of Sunday watching Stargate in my pyjamas (uh, that is, me in my pyjamas and Stargate on the TV - Stargate was not actually in my pyjamas, and that's a really peculiar notion, stop thinking about it). It was awesome. I watched season 4, from Small Victories to Window of Opportunity, then a break while I got dressed and went to the shops, and then Watergate to halfway through Beneath the Surface. Then my mum turned up unexpectedly (travelling back from Vienna, engineering work on the train tracks at Oxford, so she stopped at ours overnight), which was also awesome but meant I had to stop my deliberate programme of doing buggerall in order to pamper her for Mother's Day. *g*

( Stargate musings. )

Watched Allegiance again last night. Because I can. I wonder how they decided who got to be the hero and shoot the bad guy in the end? I suppose Jacob got to have a scene where he counsels Jack about post-Abyss trauma. It tickled me how Bra'tac makes his eyes REALLY BIG when he's in the forest and straining all his senses to detect invisible bad guys. Also, I just stared at the scene where Jack is asking Jacob and Bra'tac to use their combined powers of awesomeness to keep the Jaffa and Tok'ra in line, and wondered how the film stock didn't spontaneously explode.

I haven't had a chance to use this icon in a while. I'm wondering whether signing up for a ficathon now is asking for trouble, or whether it'll kick my inspiration into gear. But I feel very bad - baaaaaaaaaaaaad - that I didn't finish two whole ficathons (apocalypse_kree and reel_sg1 – I'm so sorry, Jenn and Kellifer! I still have the stories wanting to be finished, but they may be a few years late! *is bad pepper*). I don't have any particular ficathon in mind. Well, except possibly the sjficathon, but that's not until 2009. Not that 2009 is far away...

My weekend? Busy. There was family visiting, and then dealing with banks and utility companies (WHY would they assume that A and I have a joint account? Asshats), and then a birthday party (yay socialising!), and then Sunday brunch (yay more socialising! Yay fried eggs!), shopping, tidying, trying to fix some furniture, making lemon meringue pie, and... other stuff, I forget now. Anyhow, I feel like I've been out of the office for ages.

OMG I need to finish knitting that scarf. And I need to buy Christmas presents. And cards. And I need to design cards for my mum. And I need to... phone my temp agency and ask what holiday I've accumulated. Srsly.

LJ, what is this you keep doing with formatting? Stoppit.

I feel like I haven't posted much of substance lately – probably because I, uh, haven't. I've not been having crises or anything – I've just been a combination of busy and uninspired.

So, what'm I up to? Well. Working, mainly (such is life). Saving up money for trips to cons / a new camera + some good lenses / various other plans. I keep picking up digital SLR magazines and looking at the camera porn. *wants*

I've watched a lot of Stargate recently – but not S10. I'm staying in my comfort zone at the moment. :) I've seen most of season 3 recently, although I'm trying to resist watching the ones we're due to rewatch on Redial (Urgo, Shades of Grey, Crystal Skull, and Nemesis), and several of season 6. Paradise Lost, mmmmm. What is it about Jack running around unshaven, with bare feet and a gun? And that scene between Sam and Teal'c is just so good – Daniel gone, Jack missing for nearly a month, and it's just beginning to sink in that they may be the last surviving members of the original team, and Teal'c goes to tentatively put his arm around Sam (unsure if she'll accept it? Unsure if it's the right way to comfort her?), and she just flings her arms around him and clings... *sniffles*

And I'm reading a lot of old fanfic that I'd saved to my computer, and trying to take note of episode-related fics to rec for Redial (I have a Foothold rec! I'm so going to leap in there with it, before anyone else has the chance. *g*). Thinking of such, I was trying to find a fic recently. I swear I didn't imagine it, but I can't for the life of me remember author, title – anything useful like that. It was a brief, tragic little thing, with Sam going to visit Merrin (the little girl from Learning Curve) after Jack has died. Anyone on my flist know of, or in fact write, it?

Hokay. Back to work.

So, Stargate season 10. I want to go find other people's observations (and, hey, if anyone wants to link me to theirs, I'd be very grateful!), but before I do, let me give you my thoughts, gratis, on the first episode.


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My laptop is overheating, and I know how it feels. Sheesh.

I'm not going to do the whole Stargate meme currently going around, because my answers are so similar to a lot of other people's that I can't be bothered (*g*), but I had a couple of thoughts, which I shall now tell you. Aren't you lucky? 

I've noticed that most (all?) people seem to be choosing to be Tok'ra rather than Jaffa, and that interested me. I kind of thought everyone hated - or at least thoroughly disliked - the Tok'ra. It's not a straightforward question, though - I think it would depend on Jaffa when - before or after the rebellion? Because after... well, although building a new society and altering the programming you've had since birth ("You will obey your god!") sounds kind of tiresome, they're a lot more fun than the Tok'ra. And you don't have to have a symbiote - although that would mean being dependent on tretonin, which would also suck. Hm. The idea of having a symbiote does kind of intrigue me - I'm not as against it as, say, Jack. You could sit around for hours, cracking yourself up. :) Before the rebellion, definitely Tok'ra.

I was also thinking about my favourite SG-1 episode. This varies, but at the moment it's Heroes (both parts, because picking just one doesn't work). It's all about the characters. There is action, but it's almost incidental - no one really cares about why SG-13 is under fire offworld (do they?). The sheer amount of great moments is just amazing - Daniel making the camera crew chase him, grieving for Janet, hiding in the infirmary, giving Bregman the tape, visiting the new baby... Sam and her petrified expression when being introduced to the people of Earth, her "It's really cool. Steam comes out of it and everything", her moment with Jack, her trying to write a speech, her voice wobbling when she gives the speech... Teal'c refusing to speak in his interview, and then later helping Sam find the right words... Daniel, Teal'c and Sam all refusing to cooperate with Woolsey's interrogation... Jack being a smartass for Bregman, through to him being serious and sober (omg so very sober) when finally sitting down to be interviewed... Hammond is General-y and takes care of his people, but lets his opinion be changed by Bregman's sincerity. Bregman rocked, IMO - quite the most well-rounded guest character they've ever had. Kinsey is there, and Jack gets to yell at him, but everyone is being so awesome that I almost forget. Janet... oh, Janet. She gets a love interest, she gets to show her humour and her intelligence and her quiet professionalism, she gets to go offworld, and everyone gets to show how much they love her. 

The whole thing just grabs me and gives me goosebumps, even reading the transcript. I can't watch it too often because it's a bit much. And hey, any episode that I can love this much, even when Jack is missing for a large chunk of it, has to be doing something right. :)

Er, no - there isn't a point to this ramble, other than "OMG I love Heroes!!1!!111!"

(Still no news. *chews nails*) 

ETA: I knew this was coming, and yet I still managed to forget to include it... HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABYSSIS! But more about that later... ;)

Hear ye, hear ye... 

Announcing the arrival of

redial_the_gate, a comm in which we're going to rewatch all - yes, all - of the Stargate episodes, including the film. Yes, this will take about four years. What, you had something better to do?

It's still in the stage of being set up, so please step carefully around any exposed cables, wear your hard hat at all times, and don't lean against the paint. It'll be fully operational (fingers crossed) for discussion of the film on Tuesday 24th July, just in time for the 10th anniversary of the debut of Stargate: SG-1 (27th July). *gets misty and sentimental*

So dust off that old VHS of Stargate the movie, give it a watch, visit the comm, and join the squee!

And don't forget to bow down in praise to abyssinia4077, the genius who thought of it in the first place, and the driving force behind setting it up. KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD, TAU'RI!

*picks up tools, gets back to work*

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Oh, before I forget - does anyone know how to chat to more than one person via IM? So that all the people involved can chat at the same time, in the same window, I mean - like a conference call (I can do the holding-two-separate-conversations-at-once thing, although it does make my head want to explode). Is it easy, or do you have to download a specific IM service? I've failed at teh internetz, and can't work it out. 

 

My season 9 Stargate watching stalled somewhat (I just was in the mood to watch, er, anything with Jack in, instead), but I picked up from where I left off and watched 'Babylon' yesterday. 

nandamai has reviewed a couple of season 8 episodes recently, and it's got me reminiscing. The first Stargate episode I watched was 'Full Alert', which was... a really weird one to start on. For a start, it's 95% gibberish without a working knowledge of Stargate history (NID? The Trust? Goa'uld? Al'kesh? Prometheus? Symbiote poison? Ancient outposts? Snakes? ...wtf?). It's not a typical episode, either - mostly set on Earth, lots of political shenanigans, everyone except Daniel spend most of the episode making phonecalls and looking at computers. Sam and Teal'c have so little to do that I didn't realise they were main characters. And there's a very abrupt ending...

Still, somehow I found it intriguing. I liked Jack from the start - casually threatening Kinsey when he breaks into Jack's house and drinks Jack's scotch...

Kinsey: "Who are you calling?"
Jack: "Local sheriff’s a friend of mine."
Kinsey: "I may be disgraced, but I’m not wanted for any crimes."
Jack: "Breaking and entering?"
Kinsey: "Jack..."
Jack: "Shh. It’s ringing."

Then Kinsey disconnects the landline, Jack gives him a long, cool look, calmly gets out his cellphone, and I fell in like.

It was the show's underlying sense of humour that caught my interest (I don't like my sci-fi to be entirely serious). For instance, the scene when Teal'c and Carter are sent off on big, important assignments, and Daniel is left sitting at the briefing room table, with Jack ignoring him, and apparently nothing to do... "I have to pick up my dry cleaning." Hee.

I was prepared for a steep plot-learning curve - after all, I'd done the X-Files thing, and the Buffy thing. I didn't watch any more of the series that was on TV - I'd found out that it was quite far along in the show's run. But it stayed in my mind. A few weeks later, and my boyfriend (with whom I live) was away for a couple of weeks. I had nothing much to do in the evenings (social life? What social life?), so I did some research and decided that the 4th season seemed like a good place to start. I didn't want to start from the 1st season - they're usually a bit iffy - and there was this Sam/Jack shippy thing that intrigued me... I bought the DVDs, stayed up all night, serveral nights in a row, watching it, and by the end of the two weeks I was an addict, and had ordered the 3rd and 7th seasons. Watching it in order? For sissies.

That was exactly a year ago - January '06. Since then I've seen watched seasons 1-8 (I don't have cable and live in the UK), read about seasons 9 and 10, written a bunch of fanfics, and generally leapt feet-first into the Stargate fandom world. 

I'm sure this'll have been asked before, but anyone else out there care to share their memories of the first Stargate they watched? Or the first one that got them hooked? What first attracted you to the show? If you're a shipper, how quickly did you latch on to your pairing of choice?