(no subject)

[ebonlock]

I finished up Dexter s. 2 yesterday and the end left me a little cold. They'd pushed Dex way out onto a ledge and instead of making him either jump or fly, they kind of cheated him back off it again. Usually the writers are better than that, so I was disappointed.

After that, and a lazy day wherein I picked up another sister's birthday gifts (being born into a family with birthdays all within a two month span of time right after Xmas is its own unique form of hell sometimes), ran a few other errands, and then curled up and did a lot of nothing except enjoying the rain from my nice dry, cozy couch. Did bake some "No Pudge" brownies, which turned out surprisingly well and made my entire apartment smell like chocolatey goodness. Then cyranocyrano popped by for our usual SG-1 night.

I apologized profusely before showing him "The Broca Divide", if you've seen it you know why. Aelf contends it's the worst ep of season 1, though I'm still an "Emancipation" hata' myself, at least TBD contains the one and only scifi plot point based on seasonal allergies, to the best of my knowledge. As an allergy sufferer myself I kind of enjoy that. We made it through 3 eps before calling it a night, and I commented to C- that re-watching the older eps is fun because I get to see again why all the rules and procedures most of us take for granted in the SG universe now came about in the first place. It's like SG-1 was an extended Alpha test and SGA has become the Beta test.

Comments

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Emancipation is insulting to women, but has some genuinely funny lines. TBD has some really forced sexual attention from Jack to Sam and a plot that I can barely remember... tough call.

If forced to rewatch one of them... I'm leaning toward Emancipation, as crazy as its misogynistic tones make me.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

The Sam in a dress stuff just makes me want to hit a writer really hard. The boys having an "Oh hey, she's a girl!" moment likewise. I was amused by these earlier episodes in that Sam is all "We've got to do something!" and charging headlong into danger. I can't remember exactly when she exchanges that role with Daniel and he's the one charging off half cocked into danger, but it's gotta' be either soon or next season from what I can recall.

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

I think Emancipation was the writer's answer to "we need to address the fact that the butchest human on our team is a woman" or something like that. And yeah, I think it's season two, but as I recall, I haven't seen all of season one yet. Someone convinced me to stop renting them from Netflix. ;)

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Dude they've been sitting on my shelf collecting dust for months, don't even start ;)

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

*giggles* Oh, I'll start, but apparently I won't get to finish.... ;)

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've started a log of what SG-1 eps I've seen/haven't seen. Turns out there is only one ep missing from season 1. Might I just borrow that DVD this weekend, watch it and return it to you by Monday?

Also, this nearly made me spit my coffee all over my lcd:

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

So, being a man, I may be missing this. Was having an alien culture where women are opressed and then having the good guys Enlighten them the insulting and misogynistic part? Or were there parts I should have pointed out to me?

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

In my opinion (I can't speak for Ellie), it was the fact that they put Sam in a dress and suddenly all the guys on the team started to treat her differently and make inappropriate comments. And the fact that, as I recall, none of the guys had any problem with the way they were treating their women until Sam was kidnapped. But you've seen the episode much more recently than I have, and maybe my memory hasn't retained the plot as well as I would like.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

No, I could see that. Thank you!
Yeah, I'm interested in seeing if there's a consistency to their 'we will impress our moral standards upon other races at *this* point' actions, or if it just sort of happens at each episode's plot need.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

One of the things I've always kind of liked about SG is that they decided early on that ST's "Prime Directive" was just not a standard they were going to be able to hold themselves to. It was refreshingly honest of them, and some of my favorite moments tend to involve Daniel being torn between "We should do something" and "Well it's *their* culture and we should respect that".

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

In my opinion (I can't speak for Ellie), it was the fact that they put Sam in a dress and suddenly all the guys on the team started to treat her differently and make inappropriate comments. And the fact that, as I recall, none of the guys had any problem with the way they were treating their women until Sam was kidnapped.

What she said too. The dress scene reminded me way too much of a lot of old films where the stodgy girl in glasses would take them off and let down her hair and suddenly all the guys would be like, "WOMAN!"

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

It's not just old films. Modern teen films are full of 'nerdy hot chick who gets a complete make over by taking off her glasses'.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I think the parts we're referring to are the not letting women talk and then making them stay veiled and so on, not the eventual enlightening aspect. It's just a really tired cliche plot, drop the team on misogyny world and let the female member show everybody that a) she looks good in a dress and b) can kick any guy's ass. It's been done to death and I find that more annoying than the team regressing to cavemen...but that's probably me.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was definitely a tired cliche.
But I also thought that the 'cavemen are violent and full of hate, cavewomen are agressive and full of lust' to be pretty sexist as well. As was the comment 'No, no, cavemen always have violent nonconsensual sex. That's just their way, don't interfere.' Especially the cavewoman in the pretty pink dress.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Oh no doubt about it, it was dumb in pretty painful ways too and cliche and misogynistic. And I do also want to kick the writer who had Daniel say that stupid, stupid line (again, suffice to say that Daniel stops acting this way fairly soon and you'll like him much more as time goes on). And I'm not even going to get into the whole histamine explanation for the parasite because it makes my head hurt.

But I will say that I love Dr. Janet and any episode she gets to shine in will tend to make me happy. And there were Minoans! And giant bulls! And yes I am enough of an art history geek to get off on that. As I said, I'd want to be assigned to SG-20, the art historical team that gets to go back with their one wise-cracking military liaison and ask people like this, "So hey, what's up with the bulls?"

[mister-sunshine.livejournal.com]

It's like the writer was watching 'I Love Lucy' re-runs and paying more attention to the TV when writing this episode. :)

Another thing that bothered me: that a modern soldier, in a knife fight, would be able to defeat a top fighter from a culture that solves its disputes by knife skill.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Another thing that bothered me: that a modern soldier, in a knife fight, would be able to defeat a top fighter from a culture that solves its disputes by knife skill.

I can let that go in that a) he seriously underestimated Sam and b) she's been taught some moves that his culture hasn't even invented yet. Still it was a sad and tired plot that tends to make most women viewers groan and hide their faces in shame. I'm just glad they got all of this nonsense out of their systems in the first season.

[mister-sunshine.livejournal.com]

I can get behind you on (a), but knife fighting is not new--techniques from hundreds of years ago are still used today. New moves are designed when there are developments and/or conditions in warfare that make the old ones obsolete. In an environment that lacks those developments and conditions, however, the new moves can actually be a detriment.

The root of my objection is that they depicted a culture as stupid in almost every way.

Since it's from the 1st season, I can -almost- forgive them--maybe they were going to emphasize Sam's melee prowess in future episodes. But I think this is the only episode in the entire series where she demonstrates any.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

The root of my objection is that they depicted a culture as stupid in almost every way.

Um, do we get to count the villain cultures as well? If so I think the Wraith are leaps and bounds more stupid (and improbable!) than even these pseudo Huns could ever be. But they were painfully stupid, no question.

Since it's from the 1st season, I can -almost- forgive them--maybe they were going to emphasize Sam's melee prowess in future episodes. But I think this is the only episode in the entire series where she demonstrates any.

I recall her kicking ass in hand to hand a few times but I can't honestly recall her ever picking up a knife again to do so with.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

:: instead of making him either jump or fly, they kind of cheated him back off it again

That is the best way I have heard it put. After this, they really owe us something huge. I think it's about time that they have someone find him out. Like, not Doakes -- someone he CARES about.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I'd really get a kick out of it if it were Deb, although I thought his scenarios of her possible reaction were right on the money. Still if he eased her into with, "Oh and the Ice Truck killer didn't commit suicide...uh, I kind of did that..." it might not end too badly.

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

I'd LOVE it if it were Deb. (That's actually the fanfic I'm writing right now, as a follow-up to the story I posted a few days ago.) I'm not sure she could take it, but yeah, if he eased her into it the right way, it might fly....

Even if someone like LaGuerta or Batista found out, it would be interesting -- because unlike Deb, they have more of a professional relationship with him, and there'd be a far greater chance they'd turn him in. Someone someone SOMEONE needs to find out. Seriously.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it wouldn't break Angel (oh and the moment where Dex says if he could be human he'd want to be Angel was just too good), the guy's just too sweet. Unless...unless something happened to Angel's daughter and Dex got revenge on the sick fuck who did it in his own special way. That might allow him to be ok with it.

But I tend to think most folks would end up reacting like Harry did, while they would respect his work on an intellectual level the moment they really saw just what he was and what he did that would be too much.

BTW, can't wait to read your fic when I get home tonight! :)

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Oh man... if anything happened to Angel's daughter, I'd want to kill the bastard myself. But that brings up a really interesting idea -- what if Dex killed someone who connected back to him? Something like what you said, maybe, or if one of his victim's turned out to be a friend of Rita's or something? Played right, it could be really interesting. SO many possibilities.

I think you're right about the reactions, and I really REALLY like the way the writers did that. They spent the entire first season getting us firmly on Dexter's side... and then in the second season, they started letting us glimpse him in a different light. First by showing us exactly what he does. Then by letting us see him through Doakes's eyes. And finally, by revealing that even Harry couldn't deal with what he was doing. It's just so, so creepy in the best possible way -- and now they need to take it to the next level, where someone has to see it all and actually DEAL with it.

Yay, I can't wait for you to read it either! Hope you like. Dex's voice is hard to get right, and he's the sort of character who refuses to be written in anything but the first person. (Also, if you're interested, I have two amazing fic-recs by people who aren't me. One between seasons 1 and 2, one post-book-3.)

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Dex fic might just be the thing to lure me away from my SGA fic obsession over the past couple of months :) And what I really liked in season 2 is that Dex has Harry's code yanked out from under him and suddenly he has to start deciding what he's going to do or not do in a given situation. I was kind of surprised that he didn't leap wholeheartedly into rationalization land when it came to Doakes or Lila, though he really had to have been tempted to.

And after the last scene between Doakes and Dex I have to admit that if there's some good slash out there I'd totally read it. If there isn't, well Jesus, why the hell not? It's practically crying out for it.