100 Reviews: 72
Jul. 26th, 2013 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthOkay, let’s get back to this. Not that I have a ton to say on this one.
SG-1: 1x07: Cold Lazarus
This is an episode that I really like...in theory. I have some problems with it on a script level, but I think my ultimate problems are with the direction. I have a feeling RDA gave the performance he was directed to give as not-Jack and while it doesn’t suck and can be made to make sense it doesn’t quite work; if it were just that the performance didn’t work for me I might give him more of the blame, but the whole encounter just lacks a consistent tone, outside of bland where it should be heartbreaking.
I can understand why this storyline was done, they needed to openly acknowledge Jack’s damage in the show but Jack as a character is difficult to get to open up about his damage. So introducing another force to experience and express Jack’s pain rather than repress it is a...logical-ish move. As a sci-fi show they could have both that and get a quasi meeting between Jack and Charlie and they did it without undoing that very critical part of Jack’s backstory. Over the course of the show this morphs into giving Jack a lot of kids to bond with as Charlie surrogates, but up top it needed to be directly about the Charlie issues.
The episode gets off to a bad start with the cartoon looking planet of primary colors. Then it has the...problem that could have been a strength of being pretty vague about what not-Jack was about. And while I *do* understand why it was done this way it also suffers from not being real-Jack going through this process. The explanation of not-Jack’s reasons has never made all that much sense to me, towards the end the acting/wrting.direction on not-Jack gets really wrong-footed, the resolution between Jack and Sarah feels rushed, and the fact that this is basically never spoken of again doesn’t help it in retrospect.
I do like that there isn’t a real enemy or villain here. There’s not even really a huge crisis until the last act and not-Jack is...dying...possibly going to explode...I really don’t think this race makes a ton of sense. I also don’t feel the need to complain that no one notices not-Jack is so out of it seeming; confused alien and stoic reserved hero can come across kind of the same unless you were looking for something to be wrong. Now they did ham up the fact that Jack isn’t really the stoic reserved hero when real-Jack came back, but he can be and Sarah (and her dad) hasn’t seen him much since he was movie-Jack where he *was* that guy.
Also, if I can take a moment to Colorado nit-pick; Winter Park (according to the address on the letters) is quite a ways from Colorado Springs. I think they might have meant Woodland Park which would still been a bit of a commute if Jack was working out of Peterson AFB or NORAD or wherever he was working before getting into the Stargate program, but not unreasonable like Winter Park. And we know that’s where he lived before because we see pictures of the family together at that house and Sarah’s left Charlie’s stuff in place so it’s not like she moved after they split up.
To more broadly nit-pick...how did not-Jack get there? Did he access Jack’s memories about how to drive and where the house was? Although we never saw him pull up in a car so...did he figure out how to hail a cab? Colorado Springs (and surrounding areas) is not exactly a small place that he could wander around in for a day and stumble on the old O’Neill house.
I do like the implied relationship between Jack and his former father-in-law. They’re not on great terms right now, and maybe they were never great friends, but FIL understands what’s happened and is only going to be warning about causing any more hurt. It really helps to ground the story and broaden the tragedy of what’s happened to Jack. Losing a child is bad enough, but it cost him the rest of his family too. He closed off and didn’t try and lean on anyone else, Daniel only knows what happened because of how things went down on Abydos, but he really doesn’t *have* anyone to turn to. Though again, a lot of what’s set up/hinted at here kind of suffers from really never being important again.
The stuff with the rest of the team is good. Some of it is dramatic, some humorous, some kind of throw away but pretty much all serves to show how they’ve all settled into their team (Sam says it’s been months at one point, and...I can maybe believe it). It’s not presented as a family of any kind that can possibly substitute for what Jack’s lost, which I do appreciate believe it or not, this is about what’s going on with Jack not what’s going on between Jack and the team, but it feels comfortable enough to be called a team at this point.
I have some crossover-world related thoughts that this episode would give me a chance to discuss, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood to. I think I’ll leave it to this for tonight
Net time:
Probably back to TVD, but I make no promises
Encode chevrons for the suggestion box (if you want)
SG-1: 1x07: Cold Lazarus
This is an episode that I really like...in theory. I have some problems with it on a script level, but I think my ultimate problems are with the direction. I have a feeling RDA gave the performance he was directed to give as not-Jack and while it doesn’t suck and can be made to make sense it doesn’t quite work; if it were just that the performance didn’t work for me I might give him more of the blame, but the whole encounter just lacks a consistent tone, outside of bland where it should be heartbreaking.
I can understand why this storyline was done, they needed to openly acknowledge Jack’s damage in the show but Jack as a character is difficult to get to open up about his damage. So introducing another force to experience and express Jack’s pain rather than repress it is a...logical-ish move. As a sci-fi show they could have both that and get a quasi meeting between Jack and Charlie and they did it without undoing that very critical part of Jack’s backstory. Over the course of the show this morphs into giving Jack a lot of kids to bond with as Charlie surrogates, but up top it needed to be directly about the Charlie issues.
The episode gets off to a bad start with the cartoon looking planet of primary colors. Then it has the...problem that could have been a strength of being pretty vague about what not-Jack was about. And while I *do* understand why it was done this way it also suffers from not being real-Jack going through this process. The explanation of not-Jack’s reasons has never made all that much sense to me, towards the end the acting/wrting.direction on not-Jack gets really wrong-footed, the resolution between Jack and Sarah feels rushed, and the fact that this is basically never spoken of again doesn’t help it in retrospect.
I do like that there isn’t a real enemy or villain here. There’s not even really a huge crisis until the last act and not-Jack is...dying...possibly going to explode...I really don’t think this race makes a ton of sense. I also don’t feel the need to complain that no one notices not-Jack is so out of it seeming; confused alien and stoic reserved hero can come across kind of the same unless you were looking for something to be wrong. Now they did ham up the fact that Jack isn’t really the stoic reserved hero when real-Jack came back, but he can be and Sarah (and her dad) hasn’t seen him much since he was movie-Jack where he *was* that guy.
Also, if I can take a moment to Colorado nit-pick; Winter Park (according to the address on the letters) is quite a ways from Colorado Springs. I think they might have meant Woodland Park which would still been a bit of a commute if Jack was working out of Peterson AFB or NORAD or wherever he was working before getting into the Stargate program, but not unreasonable like Winter Park. And we know that’s where he lived before because we see pictures of the family together at that house and Sarah’s left Charlie’s stuff in place so it’s not like she moved after they split up.
To more broadly nit-pick...how did not-Jack get there? Did he access Jack’s memories about how to drive and where the house was? Although we never saw him pull up in a car so...did he figure out how to hail a cab? Colorado Springs (and surrounding areas) is not exactly a small place that he could wander around in for a day and stumble on the old O’Neill house.
I do like the implied relationship between Jack and his former father-in-law. They’re not on great terms right now, and maybe they were never great friends, but FIL understands what’s happened and is only going to be warning about causing any more hurt. It really helps to ground the story and broaden the tragedy of what’s happened to Jack. Losing a child is bad enough, but it cost him the rest of his family too. He closed off and didn’t try and lean on anyone else, Daniel only knows what happened because of how things went down on Abydos, but he really doesn’t *have* anyone to turn to. Though again, a lot of what’s set up/hinted at here kind of suffers from really never being important again.
The stuff with the rest of the team is good. Some of it is dramatic, some humorous, some kind of throw away but pretty much all serves to show how they’ve all settled into their team (Sam says it’s been months at one point, and...I can maybe believe it). It’s not presented as a family of any kind that can possibly substitute for what Jack’s lost, which I do appreciate believe it or not, this is about what’s going on with Jack not what’s going on between Jack and the team, but it feels comfortable enough to be called a team at this point.
I have some crossover-world related thoughts that this episode would give me a chance to discuss, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood to. I think I’ll leave it to this for tonight
Net time:
Probably back to TVD, but I make no promises
Encode chevrons for the suggestion box (if you want)
