Critique
It's very strange. I have watched Stargate with a very mild interest since they killed my favourite character off in Season 4, so I have no particularly strong feelings about the Daniel/Jonas issue at all. Based from a viewpoint of total impartiality therefore, this is what I personally felt:
Whatever I thought about the actor himself, who I do not rate at all.....I did think that the character of Daniel was well rounded and very visible. He seemed to act as the conscience of SG1 using childlike enthusiasm, expertise and diplomacy to offset the cold science of Sam and the horribly gung ho **** spouted by Jack on nearly every occasion. The mistake the producers made was to make that Daniel into gung ho, fit into the team, rooting tootin and shootin Daniel.
Enough about Daniel who has now gone. Suffice it to say that the show has lost an angle which was one of the cornerstones of the Stargate concept.
Jonas........Jonas is a 'non' personality. He's a bland, tea drinking, grinning young man who is desperately seeking approval. Whether or not he's a traitor or hurt Daniel or not.....pound of flesh per pound, he is less qualified to join SG1 as a permanent member than the little tech guy with the glasses who opens the iris (can't remember his name). Less qualified than poor Captain Hagen or whatever his name was who got shot with a dart at the beginning of the episode. He floated around on the periphery and even the shot of him standing staring ruminatively at the Stargate, books under his arm and large mug of tea in his hand seemed weird somehow. In fact the character made very little impact on me. McKay made more of an impact on me than Jonas did, if only for the fact that Stolid and Boring Sam loves to hate him.
The Redemption episodes were rushed. I dislike being hurried from one bit to another with few real explanations, but I do understand that they have limited time to show stuff. I like my stories to unfold not slap me in the face. Jack was supreme in this episode....lots of the eyebrow raising, facial twitching, jerky movements seen in other episodes which passes for McGyver's idea of method acting. Sam was........god.....she was BUTCH....where have her boobs gone? Why does her hair look like someone attacked it with a knife and fork? Someone wrote to me privately and said that they almost expected her to grunt, spit on the floor and adjust her package! And they were right. Sam is turning into a man. Surrounded by too much testosterone probably. Out of everybody, I thought Teal'c and Bra'tac were the best....in fact the scenes with the Jaffa were the best.
Jonas, poor little bland Jonas, stuck in the middle of all of that 'Oh no...the earth is under attack and Sam can't pull a solution out of her butt' he seemed lost....wandering around pleading with somebody.....anybody to recognise he existed.
So....they take him off base. "You've been here three months now, General Hammond thought it was time you should get off base ".
Okay, so what is with that? This is an alien from another planet whose loyalities are questionable without a doubt and three months is enough time for the authorities to have questioned and examined him and his motives, decide he's squeaky clean enough to see a HIGHLY CLASSIFIED PROJECT?
Is it just the military in me, or does anyone else have a problem with that? In the military in order to be allowed to handled classified Top Secret UK Eyes Only documentation, I had to go through years of training and then in depth examination of my life and my forebears up to three generations previously, including what my great grandmother's dog ate for breakfast on the day she died, before they would pass me as fit to see such things.
Yet there he is....toddling around with the gang, wide eyed, smiling while Jack does his usual monosyllabic acting
'No.....no.....no.......no......no......and in case anyone is in doubt about how I feel....no' because at a moment's glance at a highly technical piece of flying equipment, Jack is able to see that he won't like risking his life in it. Sam is busy doing her technobabble part accompanied in this season by a smile. (Something we didn't see her do much before) and Teal'c is his usual inscrutable, man of few words self.
The few light moments were the exchanges with McKay.
What I have heard from fans worldwide are the following:
"Is it just me or does Jonas make eating grapes look sexy?"
The answer to this last gem was:
"Hee hee......just wait until you check out his banana!"
"Wow, check Jonas out in that tight little tee shirt!"
"Wow what was with that smile Sam gave in the X203 when she and Jack were doing the checks? <sigh> that was such a Sam and Jack shippy moment!"
"That conversation Sam and Jack had about cake was so cool and SOOOOOO cute....." Cooed another few fans.
(Another moment in which people apparently seemed to see some sort of meaningful relationship in this. All I saw was two equally boring people going to eat cake because one finally couldn't pull a solution out of her butt, and the other wasn't going to even try because he was way out of his league in the situation!)
Not one fan has even mentioned or discussed the fact that earth was desperately in trouble and that this Goa'uld had technology which could possible win through against the God-given right handed to our fearless and god-fearing US military brethren to defend this planet (for 'this planet' read America, the rest of us would just be standing around picking our noses while the planet got annihilated of course!)
At the end of this episode, all I could think of to say was 'why in hell did that child Ryac not pick his bloody feet up when he walked?' They had him in these huge fishing waders, he clumped along the corridors with his dad and Jack and all I could hear over the dialogue was this irritating drag and thump sound that children make when their shoes are too big for their feet. So....they couldn't get him a pair of fishing waders to fit? Or perhaps he was just being an irritating child. In fact, he was irritating all the way through, from his lip trembling tearful aggression at the beginning to his dragging feet at the end. If he'd been my kid pouting and whingeing to be allowed to prove himself, I'd have shoved him back, given him a knife to peel potatoes and told him to grow up a little first.
On the upside.......'What? There's an upside to all this?' I hear you gasp! The producers and writers have made a conscious effort to inject some life into the show, which was moaning and gasping to be allowed to die quietly at the end of last season. And there were some parts which were very good.. the interchanges with the Russian Colonel for instance, the scenes with the scientists and McKay and Bra'tac who is always an absolute delight to watch. Hopefully these positives will creep through and invade the rest of the episodes and build up.
But Jonas? Oh dear....he was okay, he would pass in the dark with a big push and a man on a galloping horse wouldn't even know he was there. And Jack only took him on the team because he was the lesser of two evils.....Hammond would have forced him to have one of those pesky darn Russkies, who are only second in the line of villains to the Goa'uld in our intrepid Jack's eyes. And the military/government would really allow him to have that choice? No wonder they're making decisions in real life which are going to get us all blown to smithereens!
My critique for what it's worth. But I think that many of those Daniel fans need to look at their reasons for liking a character, because in general, they seem to be all hormonally based..... Many seem to be switching loyalties based on Jonas' sexy grape eating, tea drinking, tee shirt wearing persona rather than whether he would be an asset to a first line fighting team!
It's very strange. I have watched Stargate with a very mild interest since they killed my favourite character off in Season 4, so I have no particularly strong feelings about the Daniel/Jonas issue at all. Based from a viewpoint of total impartiality therefore, this is what I personally felt:
Whatever I thought about the actor himself, who I do not rate at all.....I did think that the character of Daniel was well rounded and very visible. He seemed to act as the conscience of SG1 using childlike enthusiasm, expertise and diplomacy to offset the cold science of Sam and the horribly gung ho **** spouted by Jack on nearly every occasion. The mistake the producers made was to make that Daniel into gung ho, fit into the team, rooting tootin and shootin Daniel.
Enough about Daniel who has now gone. Suffice it to say that the show has lost an angle which was one of the cornerstones of the Stargate concept.
Jonas........Jonas is a 'non' personality. He's a bland, tea drinking, grinning young man who is desperately seeking approval. Whether or not he's a traitor or hurt Daniel or not.....pound of flesh per pound, he is less qualified to join SG1 as a permanent member than the little tech guy with the glasses who opens the iris (can't remember his name). Less qualified than poor Captain Hagen or whatever his name was who got shot with a dart at the beginning of the episode. He floated around on the periphery and even the shot of him standing staring ruminatively at the Stargate, books under his arm and large mug of tea in his hand seemed weird somehow. In fact the character made very little impact on me. McKay made more of an impact on me than Jonas did, if only for the fact that Stolid and Boring Sam loves to hate him.
The Redemption episodes were rushed. I dislike being hurried from one bit to another with few real explanations, but I do understand that they have limited time to show stuff. I like my stories to unfold not slap me in the face. Jack was supreme in this episode....lots of the eyebrow raising, facial twitching, jerky movements seen in other episodes which passes for McGyver's idea of method acting. Sam was........god.....she was BUTCH....where have her boobs gone? Why does her hair look like someone attacked it with a knife and fork? Someone wrote to me privately and said that they almost expected her to grunt, spit on the floor and adjust her package! And they were right. Sam is turning into a man. Surrounded by too much testosterone probably. Out of everybody, I thought Teal'c and Bra'tac were the best....in fact the scenes with the Jaffa were the best.
Jonas, poor little bland Jonas, stuck in the middle of all of that 'Oh no...the earth is under attack and Sam can't pull a solution out of her butt' he seemed lost....wandering around pleading with somebody.....anybody to recognise he existed.
So....they take him off base. "You've been here three months now, General Hammond thought it was time you should get off base ".
Okay, so what is with that? This is an alien from another planet whose loyalities are questionable without a doubt and three months is enough time for the authorities to have questioned and examined him and his motives, decide he's squeaky clean enough to see a HIGHLY CLASSIFIED PROJECT?
Is it just the military in me, or does anyone else have a problem with that? In the military in order to be allowed to handled classified Top Secret UK Eyes Only documentation, I had to go through years of training and then in depth examination of my life and my forebears up to three generations previously, including what my great grandmother's dog ate for breakfast on the day she died, before they would pass me as fit to see such things.
Yet there he is....toddling around with the gang, wide eyed, smiling while Jack does his usual monosyllabic acting
'No.....no.....no.......no......no......and in case anyone is in doubt about how I feel....no' because at a moment's glance at a highly technical piece of flying equipment, Jack is able to see that he won't like risking his life in it. Sam is busy doing her technobabble part accompanied in this season by a smile. (Something we didn't see her do much before) and Teal'c is his usual inscrutable, man of few words self.
The few light moments were the exchanges with McKay.
What I have heard from fans worldwide are the following:
"Is it just me or does Jonas make eating grapes look sexy?"
The answer to this last gem was:
"Hee hee......just wait until you check out his banana!"
"Wow, check Jonas out in that tight little tee shirt!"
"Wow what was with that smile Sam gave in the X203 when she and Jack were doing the checks? <sigh> that was such a Sam and Jack shippy moment!"
"That conversation Sam and Jack had about cake was so cool and SOOOOOO cute....." Cooed another few fans.
(Another moment in which people apparently seemed to see some sort of meaningful relationship in this. All I saw was two equally boring people going to eat cake because one finally couldn't pull a solution out of her butt, and the other wasn't going to even try because he was way out of his league in the situation!)
Not one fan has even mentioned or discussed the fact that earth was desperately in trouble and that this Goa'uld had technology which could possible win through against the God-given right handed to our fearless and god-fearing US military brethren to defend this planet (for 'this planet' read America, the rest of us would just be standing around picking our noses while the planet got annihilated of course!)
At the end of this episode, all I could think of to say was 'why in hell did that child Ryac not pick his bloody feet up when he walked?' They had him in these huge fishing waders, he clumped along the corridors with his dad and Jack and all I could hear over the dialogue was this irritating drag and thump sound that children make when their shoes are too big for their feet. So....they couldn't get him a pair of fishing waders to fit? Or perhaps he was just being an irritating child. In fact, he was irritating all the way through, from his lip trembling tearful aggression at the beginning to his dragging feet at the end. If he'd been my kid pouting and whingeing to be allowed to prove himself, I'd have shoved him back, given him a knife to peel potatoes and told him to grow up a little first.
On the upside.......'What? There's an upside to all this?' I hear you gasp! The producers and writers have made a conscious effort to inject some life into the show, which was moaning and gasping to be allowed to die quietly at the end of last season. And there were some parts which were very good.. the interchanges with the Russian Colonel for instance, the scenes with the scientists and McKay and Bra'tac who is always an absolute delight to watch. Hopefully these positives will creep through and invade the rest of the episodes and build up.
But Jonas? Oh dear....he was okay, he would pass in the dark with a big push and a man on a galloping horse wouldn't even know he was there. And Jack only took him on the team because he was the lesser of two evils.....Hammond would have forced him to have one of those pesky darn Russkies, who are only second in the line of villains to the Goa'uld in our intrepid Jack's eyes. And the military/government would really allow him to have that choice? No wonder they're making decisions in real life which are going to get us all blown to smithereens!
My critique for what it's worth. But I think that many of those Daniel fans need to look at their reasons for liking a character, because in general, they seem to be all hormonally based..... Many seem to be switching loyalties based on Jonas' sexy grape eating, tea drinking, tee shirt wearing persona rather than whether he would be an asset to a first line fighting team!
