Stargate binge

I've been taking a break from posting recently and, lest you think it's because I'm wasting my time getting a life, be assured it's because I've been watching too much tv. For the past couple weeks, I've been indulging an SG-1 craving, and with ten seasons' worth of episodes, that's a lot of tv to watch. At the moment, season three's "Shades of Grey" is playing. It seems my favourites are the eps where one [or all] of the team goes bad, in this case Jack turns criminal.

It's been fun to marathon a little SG-1 and I've enjoyed noticing how the characters have changed in ten seasons. Jack got greyer [not a bad look for him, btw], but retained the best parts of his personality, like his caustic wit, intense loyalty and abrasive charm. But he also mellowed somewhat, probably due in great part to the actor [Richard Dean Anderson] settling into the role. I think that was definitely the case with Daniel [Michael Shanks]. Shanks started out playing Daniel very much like James Spader in the movie, but over the course of the series, he took command of the character and molded it into something still essentially geeky, but far less awkward and "soft." We got to watch Daniel mature into a capable, self-possessed man. Sam didn't change a whole lot over the years, but that's okay. I can't say enough about how awesome she is. Not only is she totally hot, she's also a badass supergenius who could kick your ass. I wouldn't say Teal'c changed a lot either, though season one Teal'c is easy to identify by his nearly ever-present pout.

In a previous post about the 200th episode, I mentioned the highlight of that ep being the way the show so delightfully mocked itself. Though the humour in that ep was on the extreme side, it was not out of character for the show, which is part of what makes me like it so much. Yeah, it can be pretty cheesy, sometimes a little lame or badly written, but the good things about it more than outweigh the negatives. In addition to making me laugh, it has characters that I really like, or enjoy not liking, often interesting & exciting storylines, and some pretty nifty tv-science [questionable by nature, of course].

I finally watched Stargate [the movie], for the first time since its release in 1994. This is, after all, where everything started. Though I didn't remember many specifics, I did recall that I walked out of the theater with a sinking gut, realizing that two hours of my life were irretrievably lost. I thought it was simply an awful movie that not even Kurt Russell & James Spader could salvage. Well, on my re-viewing, I was pleased to find that I enjoyed it. Perhaps my tastes have changed, my standards have lowered, certainly my appreciation for cheese has increased. I still wouldn't say it's a great movie, but it's plenty entertaining and I'm glad it spawned the series.