Eye of Polyphemus

Florida Primary Predictions

2012-01-31T08:39:00.003-05:00

I doubt the outcome of Florida's primary will be a surprise to anyone. The margin of victory is likely the only unsettled point;

Mitt Romney
Newt Gingrich
Rick Santorum
Ron Paul

i explained my rationale for Romney beating Gingrich yesterday, so there is no sense in repeating it here. I do not not fresee as big a blowout for Romney as some polls are predicting, but if he does win by a huge margin, Romney is going to have a lot of momentum heading into favorable primaries and caucuses next month. With no debates for three weeks, gingrich is not going to take advantage of his campaigning strength for a while. Considering that he did not set the woods on fire in the last debate, an upcoming lull in which he will likely appear weak may do his candidacy in.

Santorum will come in third. He had pretty much given up on florida even before his daughter was hospitalized in Pennsylvania. I do not expect a sympathy surge in voting, and I will just leave it at that.

Paul will finish last and probably in the single digits percentage-wise.

Stargate SG-1--"Secrets"

2012-01-31T08:29:00.002-05:00

“Secrets” deals with the subject of family far better than the previous episode which was actually entitled “Family.” the episode has many interesting touches, among them Sam’s struggle that she can never please her father, Daniel’s willingness to risk everything in the near hopeless cause of recovering Sha’re, and talc’s loyalty to daniel being so strong, he will take the risks right along beside him. My inner X-Phile also appreciates the appearance and conspiratorial fate of Armin Selig, played by Jeffery Spender’s Chris Owens.

Exactly one year to the day Daniel promised to return to Abydos with the rescued Sha’re, he feels compelled to return anyway to explain to her father he has not given up the search. Teal’c agrees to go with him as back up. Jack and Sam are due in Washington to be awarded medals for their meroism in destroying Apophis’ ship, though the cover story is they are being awarded for research efforts. On Abydos, Daniel and teal’c discover sha’re has returned some time ago expecting apophis’ child. In Washington, sam is confronted with her cancer ridden father who is trying to guilt her into joining NASA so he can die knowing she is an astronaut. Jack is confronted by a journalist who knows all about Stargate Command and what has transpired there over the last year.

Two Goa’uld are forbidden from having a child together because the child would inherit the genetic memory of all Goa’uld, so Apophis incapacitated Sha’re’s symbiote in order for her to have a child. Apophis’ hid her away on Abydos to keep his rivals from taking the child. Daniel is devastated, but eventually comes to decide he should take Sha’re and the child back to Earth. Once Sha’re gives birth, she will revert back to Amaunet and have to be imprisoned so as not to harm anyone, but both she and her child will be free from Spophis’ grasp.

In Washington, Sam is surprised to see her major general father attending her ceremony. There is a definite vibe that he wanted a boy to be just like him, and nothing sam has ever accomplished has satisfied him. He reveals that he has pulled some strings to get her into the astronaut program, but she refuses. Her father drops the bomb on her that he is dying of cancer and wants to know she is going into space before he passes on. He leaves her with that guilt trip. The bitter part being if he knew what role she really played in top secret SG-1, he would think a career as an astronaut is child’s play. Or not. There probably is no real way to please him.

Meanwhile, jack encounters a journalist named Armin Selig who knows all about the stargate program. Selig is played by Chris Owens, who had been playing the young Cigarette smoking Man on The X-Files for a couple years and had just begun playing Jeffrey Spender a few months before “secrets.” Selig has shades of Fox Mulder. He is a guy who has stumbled across a government conspiracy involving aliens that he is determined to unravel even though no one would likely believe the truth. Selig is killed by a hit and run driver after confronting for the second time. It is unclear whether selig’s death was an accident or someone murdering him to keep the stargate a secret. Nifty homage there, but I cannot help but think it was thrown in for the sake of giving Jack something to do in the episode. He is the only main character who does not have emotionally difficult decisions to make regarding someone he cares about.

Sha’re gives birth. Her Goa’uld reemerges just as Heru’ur arrives to kidnap the child in order to spite Apophis. Daniel gives the child to Sha’re’s father to spirit away, and the rest of SG-1 arrive just in time to rescue Daniel and Teal’c from Heru’ur. Apophis arrives after his defeat to “learn” the child has been stolen by Heru’ur. She does not reveal SG-1 is hiding in the pyramid from Apophis, thereby proving she is fighting against Goa’uld control.

“Secrets’ is a solid episode. It is packed with great character moments which also further the overall story arc while including an action oriented ending. If there is any flaw, it is the inclusion of Selig feels forced. Either the threat of the stargate’s exposure is thrown in to give Jack a more pivotal role in the episode, which still does not exactly measure up, or it was meant to be an wink to The X-Files and nothing more, it is still the episode’s weak spot. But not weak enough to be considered a serious detriment.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Reese Witherspoon

2012-01-31T06:52:00.002-05:00

Formspring Question #347--Palin Pandering Edition

2012-01-30T15:34:00.007-05:00

What is Sarah Palin's game? Does she want to be Newt's vice-presidential pick?

No. When Newt Gingrich dropped her name as a potential running mate, he was pandering to Tea Partiers just as much as he was mentioning Marco Rubio as a possible veep choice to Florida Republicans in the last debate. Sarah Palin knows that. Her time as a serious candidate for any office, assuming she ever truly enjoyed one, has passed. I assume she knows that, too.

As for why she is so adamantly backing Gingrich, I assume she is trying to hold on to her conservative icon status. It I probably no coincidence she agreed to keynote the 2012 CPAC and began cheerleading for Gingrich shortly after there were no takers for her latest reality show idea. You know, the one featuring her husband snowmobiling that barely registered on anyone’s radar? Her punditry is the only thing she has left, so she has to keep her ultraconservative fan base on her side.

I would not necessarily discount the idea Palin and Gingrich have become friends since they both worked at FOX News. I suspect she is more motivated by self-interest than to help out a buddy, but just throwing it out there. Palin has a history of doing weird and impulsive things for reasons that are not often clear.

Formspring Question #346--Newt-ron Bomb Edition

2012-01-30T14:09:00.002-05:00

Think Newt can rally in Florida like he did in SC w/o another debate?

No fair. You are going to make me preview my Florida primary predictions a day early. Spoilsport.

I am more skeptical Newt Gingrich can win Florida than I was a week ago. There was a genuine distaste for Mitt Romney in South Carolina, so much so we were willing to risk our 30 year streak of the eventual nominee always winning the South Carolina primary, because we did not like Romney. Gingrich became the beneficiary because he has staked his fortunes in conservative southern states and we liked his combativeness in the debates. Florida obviously has a different mood. The wealthy snowbirds appear to be more moderates down there.

I imagine the ’boosts” of the tea Party endorsement and Herman Cain’s support are probably things gingrich would have had going for him anyway. Rick Santorum does not generate much excitement among the Tea Partiers and cain voters are natural gingrich voters even without his blessing. If the Tea Partiers and the Cainiacs can be credited as a surprise factor that puts Gingrich over the top tomorrow rather than making up the base of support that still has him trailing Romney now, it would be a genuine surprise.

Nevertheless, I do not expect a huge blowout by Romney. I hate to sound conspiratorial, but I feel like any news about Romney is being presented in the best possible light light. The GOP establishment wants him as the nominee. For whatever reason, the Democrats do, too. Maybe they think conservatives will stay home on Election day rather than vote for another moderate like John McCain or Bob Dole. That only means that Gingrich is probably going to do better than is generally assumed. Winning Florida is another matter. I am just not sure how reliably conservative florida Republicans are.

Formspring Question #345--Weed Whacker Edition

2012-01-30T13:35:00.003-05:00

Do you support legalizing pot?

I do not care enough to make it a big issue either way. If pot legalization was a ballot initiative, I would vote yes. It would not bother me if my elected officials voted in favor of legalizing pot. Nor would I much care if they took a moral stand against it. While I am confident pot would be less of a bane on society than alcohol consumption, it is just not that big a deal to me. There are more important things to work on first.

Besides, legalizing pot would not be as great as its advocates believe. We are an absurdly judgmental country when it comes to personal habits. We outright ban smoking even in some bars. Smokers are segregated at from non-smokers even in places where smoking is accepted. Those who partake in alcohol have to qualify themselves as “occasional’ or ’social’ drinkers to avoid being labeled drunks. We even go after food. Vegetarians flip out over those who eat meat. health food nuts are on everyone’s case. You are not even supposed to buy your kids a happy meal these days because some lax parents do not care enough about their bratty young ones to keep them from scarfing down enough junk food to make them resemble the Michelin Man.

If pot were legalized, the stigma of pot smokers as dumb, lazy, and unreliable would persist. There would be even fewer places for pot smokers to partake than cigarette smokers. The end result would be as though pot had never been legalized in the first place.

It likely will not be, either. there is a growing private prison industry that has a vested interest in incarcerating as many as it can for as long as it can. This industry is one of the main reasons we have the highest percentage of citizens incarcerated than any other country. The private prison industry employs lobbyists all over the united states to promote three strikes laws and zero tolerance policies. Considering how many inmates are incarcerated on drug related crimes, one should not expect any slack in drug laws to be forthcoming.

Which is not to say you should buy into the drug legalization myth the majority of those incarcerated on drug related crimes are decent folk unfairly busted for simple possession. As this study shows, the vast majority incarcerated on drug related crimes are extremely violent and dangerous. Nevertheless, pot smokers are not likely to join the side of angels at any point as long as their is momeny to be made locking them up.

Stargate SG-1--"Family"

2012-01-30T07:29:00.002-05:00

“Family” revisits Teal’c’s family situation back on Chulak while showing us the aftermath of Apophis’ failed attempt to conquer Earth. If you are a big teal’c fan, this is the episode for you. Or maybe not. He gets roughed up pretty badly on an emotional level.

Bra’tac comes through the stargate, something he is only supposed to do in an emergency, to warn Teal’c Apohis has kidnapped his son apophis’ army is now in tatters, so he is looking for a way to maintain his hold on Chulak. The theory is to use Rya’c to lure Teal’c to chulak and arrest him as a traitor. Knowing full well this is a trap, Teal’c opts to rescue his son anyway, with Bra’tac and SG-1 for back up.

When they arrive on Chulak, Teal’c discovers his wife Drey’ac has married one of his closest friends, Flo’tac. Faster than you can say kiss my grits, Teal’c disowns his wife and promise to kill Flo’tac once his son has been rescued.. Bra’tac convinces Teal’c his wife and child are better off now without being forced to live with his disgrace, and reluctantly agrees. But he gets another shock when the palace rescue attempt fails because rya’c is brainwashed into a loyal minion to Apophis.

Speaking of palace intrigue, Teal’c and Drey’ac rekindle their romance while flo’tac secretly watches. In response, he decides to turn Teal’c in to Apophis. Jack stops him from doing so, but has to kill him in the process. Drey’ac shrugs his death off like a trooper. When Rya’c appears on a televised speech with apophis in which he supposedly sends a coded message to Teal’c about where to rescue him tomorrow, he shrugs off his son’s earlier betrayal like a trooper, too. I am rather amused at drey’ac coming across as an opportunist throughout the episode while Teal’c has such a genuine love for his son, he is willing to believe anything. I will bet when they were married, Drey’ac chewed Teal’c up and spit him out on a regular basis. It does not matter how big you are, a woman can take you down.

Teal’c is being naïve, of course. Rya’c is not only brainwashed, but booby trapped with poison gas in two false teeth which is potent enough to kill all life on earth within a week. Even the incredibly easy rescue does not prove anything until Frasier discovers the false teeth back on Earth. But the whole human genocide thing is glossed over in favor of Teal’c attempting to reach his brainwashed son. Frasier gives up rather quickly on Teal’c trying to reach him and skips sending in a cult deprogrammer, which you would think should be the next idea, to head straight for Electro Convulsive Therapy. Look, I know the Cult Awareness network, the experts in cult deprogramming, were sued out of existence by the Church of Scientology over a decade ago, so now deprogrammers attached to CAN fret over Thetans, but should counseling really be skipped in favor of frying a kid with electrodes?

But wait, it gets worse. Teal’c decides that it is his responsibility to heal his son, so he opts to shoot him with a Goa’uld energy weapon rather than let Frasier sedate Rya’c and administer shocks medically. I suppose it turns out to be the right decision. Rya’c writhes in pain after being shot, but wakes up fine. A few brain cells friend, but otherwise fine. He and Drey’ac go live with the People of Light, who apparently do not hold a grudge over that whole Hassan are incredibly rude thing a few episodes back.

The choice to use ECT on Rya’c piqued my curiosity. Put aside for the moment Teal’c decided to perform ECT by shooting his son. We can chalk that one up to dramatic embellishment. The question is whether ETC is used as a treatment for brainwashing. I had to look it up. Needless to say, ECT is controversial. Only about 100,000 are performed each year and only in cases of mood disorders in which suicide is imminent. Within that criteria, there is sharp division as to whether ECT ought to be performedi have only taken a superficial scan of the issue from Google search results, but the bottom line appears to be ECT is as close to a reset button the brain has. Psychologists are not even certain why it works or are confident of the long term results. Nevertheless, it is considered a last resort under at best and a human rights violation at worst. I invite anyone interested to search the issue.

“Family’ is questionable up one side and down the other. It is scripted by Katharyn Powers, so what do I expect? All I can say is the decision was not only made to perform ECT on a child, but that was not good enough, so they opted to shoot him instead.--and it worked! Frasier must have graduated from the Katharyn Janeway School of Psychology.

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Brooklyn Decker

2012-01-30T07:28:00.000-05:00

Stargate SG-1--"Message in a Bottle"

2012-01-29T08:17:00.003-05:00

“Message in a Bottle,’ an ironically titled bottle show, can also justifiably be called Sttargate Meets The Andromeda Strain. I will be generous and call it an homage, but one wonders if writer Brad Wright was hoping no one watching the episode has ever seen the movie or read the novel. I will grant some originality in the episode and a creative, non-violent resolution, so thumbs up for SG-1 not shooting its way out of a problem.

The SG-1 team encounters an orb on a dead planet resembling Earth’s moon. They find an orb that dates back from an advanced civilization 100,000 years ago. They debate whether it is dangerous to take the orb back to earth, but conclude any power source than can keep it running for such a long period of time must be studied and hopefully utilized. Back at SGC, Daniel and Sam attempt to decipher microscopic writings on the ord to no avail. When it begins emitting high levels of radiation, Jack orders the stargate opened to send the orb back to the planet. The orb instead locks itself in place with extended “arms,” one of which spears Jack through his left shoulder.

The arm infects Jack with a glowing pathogen that soon infects everyone and everything else in SGC. The whole facility is put on lockdown quarantine and an auto-self-destruct countdown called Wildfire is begun to destroy the pathogen rather than allow it to spread beyond SGC. Efforts to destroy the orb by shooting it with Teal’c’s staff weapon and depriving it off oxygen fail until it dawns on Daniel they have been going about this all wrong. They have been treating it like a disease when it is actually an intelligent alien that trying to communicate. Once they feed it more energy, the alien reveals through Jack that it has no desire to harm anyone, but will not go back to the dead world on which iyt was found. Hammond compromises with the aliens, because when SGC blows, it will release enough energy to cause infection across the entire planet, to send the aliens to a primordial world in exchange for regaining control of SGC. It is a deal folks.

“Message in a Bottle” is pretty much The Andromeda Strain. In the novel/film, there is an alien pathogen that feeds off energy introduced to earth. There is a quarantine similar ro Wildfire. The heroes have to prevent a nuclear explosion that will give off enough energy for the pathogen to infect the entire Earth. I have never read the novel, and I could take or leave the film, so I am not all that bothered by the similarities with “Message in a Bottle.” If there are fans out there who consider the episode a rip off, so be it. On its own merit, it is an exciting episode that creatively gets around what could feel like a throwaway budget-saving story. The story instead emphasizes the skills of the main characters to resolve the conflict. Of note is the loyalty teal’c demonstrates to jack as he spends the entire episode pinned to the wall through his shoulder. Ouch. If there is any real detriment, it is the self-destruct sequence being stopped with exactly one second left to go. Come on--is that not a little too cliché at this point?

Rating; *** (out of 5)

Susan Coffey

2012-01-29T06:38:00.000-05:00

Full Metal Jacket Reach Around #135

2012-01-28T11:19:00.004-05:00

It is time once again to round up all the bloggers gracious enough to link to me this week.

Proof Positive links to Jessica Alba, Olivia Munn, and Elizabeth Hurley.
Say Anything links to Jessica Alba, Olivia Munn, and Elizabeth Hurley.
Motor City Times links to Rightward Ho An Electoral No?
Pirate's Cove links to FMJRA # 134, Blogroll Spotlight #129, and Sandra Bullock.
Sentry Journal links to South Carolina Primary Wrap Up.
Randy's Roundtable links to Adriana Lima and Rose Byrne.
Classic Liberal links to Blake Lively, Elizabeth Hurley, and Olivia Munn.
American Perspective links to Olivia Munn.
The Other McCain links to Blake Lively.
Teresamerica links to Olivia Munn.
Maggie's Notebook links to Blake Lively.
Reaganite Republican links to Emma Stone.

A sincere thank you to all who linked this week. If you linked to me in the last week, but I do not have you here, you unfortunately fell through the cracks of Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Sitemeter. Please drop me a note in the comments and I will update with your link.

Stargate SG-1--"Thor's Chariot"

2012-01-28T09:20:00.003-05:00

I had mixed emotions going into “Thor’s Chariot." The Asgard are my favorite alien race. I am a devoted X-Phile, so how can I not appreciate the Roswell aliens? Any episode I have not seen yet which features the Asgard perks me up. But oh, no--the episode is written by Katharyn Powers, aka the Lisa Klink of Stargate SG-1. My fears were put to rest almost immediately. “Thor’s Chariot” is a solid arc episode.

Stargate Command receives the ’message’ of an object coming through the stargate without opening the iris. An analysis raises speculation it was the box from the Sagan Institute left behind on Cimmeria to be given to the Asgard should they ever return. Assuming the Asgard have returned, SGC sends a probe through the stargate to Cimmeria only to discover the people are being slaughtered by the Jaffa. With their only defense, Thor’s Hammer, having been destroyed in order to save Teal ’c on SG-1’s first visit, the team feels responsible for the slaughter and go to help.

What is interesting about “Thor’s Chariot’ is how the SG-1 team splits up in order to maximize their particular talents. Jack and Teal’c engage in a guerilla war with the Jaffa in order to keep them away from the cave in which the Cimmerian survivors are hiding. The battle is classic firefights, and explosions on a surprisingly grand scale for a cable series. On the other hand, Daniel, Sam, and Girwyn, who we met on the last trip to cimmeria, go off in search of the perhaps mythical Thor’s Hall of Might to see if it has any useful weapons. The three of them are caught up in some Indiana Jones’esque traps which test their spirits and minds more than anything else. So the main cast members are utilized perfectly.

The two tests, by the way, involve crossing a narrow bridge which is intended to set up the opportunity for one waking on the bridge to risk his life to save another as a test of character. The other is to identify pi from markings on separate walls in order to figure out to press a circle on a far wall to make Thor appear in his true grey alien form. One point I liked about the latter is Daniel, brilliant archeologist though he is, needs Sam to point out that pi is the solution and relate it to the circle on the wall. Daniel is not the Sam Beckett uber-genius who knows every minute detail of every intellectual subject. He--and all the characters--are real people who need help when backed into a corner, either physically or mentally. I will admit this is a personal appreciation. My experience in law school was the more expertise a law professor had in his subject, and I am talking brilliant men and women here, the less likely they could pull out a simple fist year concept from another subject. That sort of thing happens, and it is neat to see it on television after all this time of every character on Star Trek knowing absolutely everything they need to know for every conceivable situation. Your mileage may vary.

The two teams rendesvous with each other in disappointment. Jack and teal’c do not have the firepower to defeat the Jaffa. The Asgards had no weapons in thor’s Hall of might, either. Solving the tests was to prove maturity of the Cimmerians. The SG-1 team is forced to surrender in order to prevent the Cimmerians from being slaughtered, but the Asgards intervene in a huge spaceship--the real Thor’s chariot--and put an end to the Jaffa threat.

‘Thor’s Chariot” is a highly entertaining episode. As I noted above, it is well split between action and clever brain teasers. It is also monumental for the overall story arc. We meet Heru’ur, son of Ra and Hathor, for the first time. We get a glimpse of Thor in his true form and discover how powerful the Asgard are. Finally, we learn, thanks to her connection with Jolinar, Sam can operate Goa’uld technology with concentration. Powers has surprised me here with an impressive script. Do I need to cut her more slack for the future?

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Katee Sackhoff and Mary McDonnell

2012-01-28T04:56:00.002-05:00

A blast from the Battlestar Galactica past.

Stargate SG-1--"Need"

2012-01-27T10:13:00.002-05:00

“Need” is a peculiar critter. In an episode that would otherwise be often poorly conceived filler, two major plot points are dropped in. One, Sam does have the permanent ability to sense goa’uld symbiotes, which makes the previous episode’s revelation her bonding with Jolinar affected her body chemistry not one of those typical comic book continuity glitches of a never before mentioned and hereafter ignored convenient plot device. Two, it is revealed continued use of a sarcophagus when healthy, such as the Goa’uld use for extension of their lives, causes psychosis. The psychosis explains why the Goa’uld are so evil. It also explains why the Tok’ra are not. They do not use a sarcophagus to extend their lives. Important points, but otherwise “.meh” on “Need.”

The SG-1 team is observing Jaffa deliver naquadah, a mined metal, through a stargate. They decide to swipe some to research its possible military applications. In the midst of recon, Daniel spots a woman heading off alone. He follows her only to discover she is planning to jump from a cliff to her death. Daniel stops here, but she screams for the Jaffa to help. The SG-1 team is captured. Unable to tell her father, Pyrus, she was trying to kill herself and SG-1 saved her, Shyla allows him to believe they are Goa’uld spies and sends them to work in the mines.

Daniel is gravely wounded in a failed escape attempt from the mine, but shyla uses a sarcophagus to revive him up proper. She has developed a thing for him because she believes his rescuing her from death was destiny. Daniel works to gain both her and her father’s trust in order to free the rest of SG-1. In order to secure her trust, Daniel agrees to use the sarcophagus again even though he is perfectly fine. Using the sarcophagus under such circumstances has a narcotic effect on the user. Daniel becomes more deranged as time goes on.

His agreement to marry Shyla allows SG-1 to go free. Daniel returns with them to Earth, but promises to return to marry Shyla. Back on Earth, Daniel begins suffering withdrawal symptoms. He is held against his will while working it out of his system. He escapes at one point, determined to return to Shyla, but when it would be necessary to shoot Jack in order to get away, Daniel cannot bring himself to do it. He breaks down in tears.

After his recovery, he returns to the planet to find Pyrus has died. Shyla is now in charge of her people. Daniel convinces her to destroy the sarcophagus, end the slavery in the mines, and open peaceful relations with Earth. Oh, and call off the wedding. Shyla agrees.

At the risk of alienating devout Gaters, I am disappointed to learn the Goa’uld are evil because of artificial mind altering techniques. If the running theme of the series is what makes a god worthy of worship, then it is more poignant for those gods to be struggling with the issue of power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely. If the drug addiction allegory is not glossed over in the long run in favor of the moral argument of the power corruption, I am going to be disappointed.

As for the episode itself, I am not all that impressed. It feels way too much like filler, and it is way too early in the season for something like that. The story is rather frivolous. Pyrus is a senile old man putting up the appearance the Goa’uld still rule the planet in order to keep himself in control. Shyla just happens to decide to off herself right when SG-1 arrives. Her falling for Daniel is as convenient as his injury setting up the opportunity for them to hook up. The moral lesson drugs are bad does not much resonate for whatever reason. Poor execution, I guess. Poor acting, too. There is a scene in which Daniel, completely out of his mind, pounds a guard with his fists, but obviously never lands a single blow. It is an unintentionally funny scene that takes me right out of the upcoming dramatic moment in which he pulls the guard’s gun on Jack. I do, however, enjoy the joke in which Shyla takes daniel out to admire the forest. She believes trees are so beautiful, hers must be the only planet that looks like the forest outside Vancouver. Heh. Not quite, honey.

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Emma Stone

2012-01-27T08:04:00.003-05:00

Part of The Other McCain's Rule 5 Sunday.

Stargate SG-1--"The Gamekeeper"

2012-01-26T08:04:00.003-05:00

Those of you suffering from Star tTek withdrawal should rejoice. Dwight Shultz plays the title character in “The Gamekeeper,” the caretaker of a virtual reality world which serves as a velvet cage for the inhabitants of the planet until SG-1 comes along to disrupt the status quo. The plot is reminiscent of several Reginald Barclay episodes of Star Trek spin offs which deal with his addiction to holodeck recreations. I imagine the similarity is why he was cast.

The SG-1 team arrives in a beautiful garden after a recon operation shows people are strapped into some sorts of machinery. Teal’c does not think it is Goa’uld, but the team checks it out anyway. Naturally, they become stuck in the machines themselves. Said machines turn out to be virtual reality devices.

Jack and Teal’c find themselves in 1982 East Germany on the most botched black ops mission Jack in which Jack ever took park. (Hmm...maybe he was not part Operation Eagle Claw after all.) Charles Kowalski, who died last season, and John Michaels, who is going to die on the mission they are about to undertake are alive and well. The two seem to believe teal’c is a regular member of the team named Thomas. Thinking they may have traveled through time--hey, it happens--Jack and teal’c go along with the mission. It turns out to be the same ambush in which Michaels is killed. Jack and teal’c find themselves repeating the scenario immediately, but are unable to change the outcome. Daniel and Sam wind up in the New York Museum of Art sometime in the mid-70’s. Daniel quickly realizes this is the day his parents, Melburn and Claire, die when a large stone collapses on them. As with Jack and Teal’c, he and sam relive the event over and over and are unable to stop Daniels parents from being killed.

The SG-1 team refuses to continue going through the scenarios, which prompts the Gamekeeper to appear and explain things. He has created a virtual world for his people, who have been casually observing both scenarios while wearing black veils for the proper somber effect, one assumes. The Gamekeeper says their world was environmentally damaged beyond habitability a thousand years ago, so they now exist in this artificial world that can create scenarios from their minds. After a thousand years, they have gotten bored with what they have to work with and need SG-1 to stay and share their experiences. The SG-1 team not only refuses, but lets the cat out of the bag the world outside is a paradise. The gamekeeper is lying to the inhabitants in order to keep them there.

Rather than allow SG-1 to spoil what he has going, the Gamekeeper lets them believe they have escaped the virtual reality world and gone back to Earth. But when Hammond orders them back to the planet to further investigate the virtual reality world, they realize they are still trapped. They manage to chase the Gamekeeper through the exit to the garden. The people follow them out, whereupon they realize their world is perfectly fine. The gamekeeper just wanted to keep his garden pristine. No such luck any longer.

I have mixed emotions about ’The Gamekeeper.” It is a neat idea which is in many ways well-executed, but in other ways, not so. There are some small touches which are really good. Kowalski is included on the Eat German mission instead of a guest star to show how far back his friendship with Jack goes. Daniel is dressed in children’s clothes. Not so much to be laughably silly, but enough for you to know he was a young boy when he watched his parents die. Then some other aspects shake you out of the mood. Teal’c is wearing a hairpiece that looks like Charlie Murphy’s in the rick James skits for The Dave Chapelle Show. In order to plausibly only have two person’s memories to deal with, it is explained that Goa’uld symbiotes can resist the mind probing. That explains Teal’c easily, but Sam cannot be probed because Jolinar altered her mind. Still/ Is that not something she should have some lingering concerns about rather than a convenient plot device?

The biggest problem is the premise. The inhabitants are bored because they have been experiencing the same memories over and over again for a thousand years. That would sound reasonable if the gamekeeper did not tell SG-1 they can create anyt environment in which they can imagine from their memories while in the virtual reality world. If som then the minds of an entire plantary population ought to be able to create a infinite number of possible worlds to play in forever. How could they run out in a thousand years? Unless they are just dull people. That may be the case, since they appear most entertained by the strong emotions involved in observing people watch their friends and families die. Or perhaps the gamekeeper was lying to SG-1 about the infinite possibilities that can be created in order to convince them to stay. He does tell them they can change the scenarios if they try, but SG-1 has been unable to thus far. At which point is he telling the truth? I am not particularly certain which is the case.

I have to bring up the same point as I did back when I reviewed “Better Than Life” for Red Dwarf. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, speculated that if you could create a fantasy world, there will be no further inventions. What would be the point? You could just imagine whatever you want. Since hearing that, I have had a difficult time with the idea very many people, much less everyone, would be satisfied to remain in reality if they no longer had to do so. Perhaps that is a choice one has to actually face in order to understand the value of living reality versus living your dreams come true. It is a theoretical question with no definite answer otherwise.

I am not certain I can count that confusion against the episode, because I still enjoy it. As I said above, it is a good idea with some care takern for subtle aspects to tug at the emotions just right. One should--ironically--accept the plot at face value rather than analyzing it too much. There is an added entertainment value if you are familiar with Barclay and his feelings towards the holodeck. “The Gamekeeper’ is worth a view. Just do not analyze it too much.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Kaley Cuoco

2012-01-26T06:02:00.002-05:00

Thursday is Kaley Cuoco Day!

Newt Gingrich Promises a Moon Base by the End of His Second Term

2012-01-25T22:11:00.004-05:00

Newt Gingrich is pandering to the Florida aerospace industry hit hard by the curtailing of the space program, but come on. A moon base would be cool.

Maybe we could even establish a colony there. Send Ron Paul in a rocket and he and his followers can finally have somewhere safe when civilization crumbles for them to do their thing. You cannot get more isolated than the Sea of Tranquility.

See What Google Thinks It Knows About You

2012-01-25T21:53:00.004-05:00

Find out why you get the Google ads you do.

For the record, google thinks i am am a 65+ year old man with an interest in politics and celebrity women far too young for me to be ogling. I am disappointed. While I am certainly not a wild child, I cannot believe I am boring enough to be considered elderly. Google is counting my browsing habits, not that I virtually have one foot in the grave.

Yeesh!

Stargate SG-1--"Prisoners"

2012-01-25T07:31:00.002-05:00

“Prisoners” takes a subtle jab at the zero tolerance mindset of justice and a not so subtle jab at the wisdom of trusting people you do not know simplu because they look like they should be baking cookies for their grandchildren rather than creating a plague to wipe out an entire population of people for the sake of scientific curiosity. Also, Hammond gets to take his first journey through the stargate.

On uey another planet that looks far too much like the forests outside Vancouver--I note it this time because jack Jokes about it--SG-1 aids a panicked man running from Taldor. Taldor turns out to be justice. The man is a fugitive. The SG-1 team is immediately sentenced to life on the prison planet Hadante. They arrive in the underground prison via a stargate with no dial home device.

Sam is immediately attacked by a couple men, but the fight is broken up my the arrival of an elderly woman named Linnea. It is quickly established that even though she is an old woman, she is at the top of the pecking order. Even the burliest men fear her. Jack surmises they need to get on her good side if they are to find a power source to get the stargate working and use the outer ring to travel to the planet SG-3 is currently surveying.

LLinea empathizes with Sam as a woman trapped forever with a bunch of criminally minded men, so it is natural for the two to bond. As it turns out, linea is a scientist, too, and she has conveniently created a power source that can run the stargate. Daniel is not too thrilled with the idea o working with linea since thery do not know why she is in prison. Keep this in mind, because it is the only wise thing said about Linea the entire episode. Jack assures Daniel it is fine to trust her. The justice system probably screwed that sweet old lady over just like it did them. Sam even buys linea’s story that she was a doctor who tried to cure a plague, but wound up making it worse. The power source works. The SG-1 team and Linea escape to the planet SG-3 is surveying. Another inmate, Simeon, hitches a ride before the stargate closes.

All right, here is where it all gets blown to smithereens. Sam, thinking that Linea is a brilliant scientist who can help Earth utilize her clean energy power source, grants her access to the main computer, the stargate controls, and all known addresses to thousands of worlds. She knocks sam out and heads for the stargate. Simultaneously, SG-3 captures simeon, but he reveals Linea is not a doctor who was trying to cure a plague, but a researcher creating one just to see what effects it would have on people. Yes, she is quite insane. She escapes through the stargate before anyone can catch her. She has also sabotaged the controls to keep anyone from immediately coming after her. Well, crap.

I think the truth about Linea and her clever escape from Hadante is a neat twist, but I really hate that Sam yet again looks like a rube for being conned. Sy least she is not alone this time. Jack fell for the sweet granny routine, too. You still have to wonder why no one thought the fear she caused in the entire inmate population did not raise SG-1’s suspicions. She is a famous mass murderer. You would think they could ask any prisoner at all who she was and why she was imprisoned. But that would have eliminated the climactic twist, so no go.

That is a minor gripe. While the episode is not particularly thrilling, there is not much to complain about, either. The SG-1 team has to think its way out of a dilemma rather than shooting their way out. Hammond sees some action by negotiating futilely with the planet’s leadership, though he thankfully does not get as preachy as Picard with his absolutes cannot be just argument. Even in some sense, the fact SG-1 was duped is good, as it shows they can be as flawed as anyone else. In all, a decent, but not great episode.

Rating; *** (out of 5)

Adriana Lima

2012-01-25T05:45:00.002-05:00

Stargate SG-1--"In the Line of Duty"

2012-01-24T08:25:00.001-05:00

“In the Line of Duty” manages to take the frequently emotionally manipulative plot of putting a pretty woman in danger while hinting the male lead has a more than just friendly concern for her well-being and turn it into something unexpected. In this case, sam is possessed by a Goa’uld and Jack appears to take it personally. But all is not as it seems. The episode introduces us to new allies known as the Tok’ra, hints Sha’re’s fate will soon be known, and an even larger Goa’uld plot against earth is afoot.

The episode opens on an impressive action scene as SG-1 is aiding the Nasya from a Goa’uld onslaught. While the rest of the team evacuates refugees through the stargate while under fire, Sam is performing CPR on a fallen Nasya. During mouth to mouth, a symbiote enters her. (yake a minute to go “Edew.”) The symbiote takes her over in order to hitch a ride to earth and eventually somewhere else.

Sam’s remains a secret back on earth, although those around her think she is acting strangely, but not enough to suspect anything but shellshock. Dr. Frasier invites sam to visit the Nasya patients at the air Force Academy Hospital and to see Cassandra again. Cassandra somehow senses Sam is possessed and locks herself in Frasier‘s office. She refuses to come out until she can see Jack. How Cassandra can sense a Goa‘uld symbiote but no one else, particularly Teal‘c, is an interesting question. Is this supposed to be one of those silly you cannot lie to a child things that popular entertainment likes to push on us? I half expected to see dogs growling or a cat hissing at sam as she left. Cassandra convinces Jack, which means she has one up on her namesake, and he helps capture Sam before she can go through escape through the stargate.

While under arrest, the possessed sam reveals herself to be Jolinar, a member of a rogue group of Goa’uld called the Tok’ra who oppose the evil ways of the System Lords. Teal’c has heard of the Tok’ra. They are hunted dwn by the goa’uld with extreme prejudice because of their opposition. The Goa’uld were attempting to wipe out the population of Nasya in order to kill Jolinar. Without proof Jolinar is who he says or that he can safely release Sam, SG-1 cannot let him leave Earth.

Meanwhile, Ashrak assassin posing as one of the wounded Nysa makes his way to SGC in order to kill Jolinar. He manages to make it to his holing cell, assault Sam, and nearly get away through the stargate before being killed by teal’c. Sam recovers from the Ashrak attack, but only because Jolinar sacrificed his life to save her. She knew along along Jolinar was genuine. At one point, he even let her take over her body again to convince Jack to allow him access to the stargate, but he was convinced it was a trick. The bitter tragedy of it all is too much for sam to take. She is only brought out of a near catatonic depression by Cassandra.

“In the Line of Duty” is an interesting episode. It features a lot of exposition about new allies in the battle against the Goa’uld with plenty of foreshadowing interrupted by some over the top drama. One suspects Jolinar could have been less obtuse and aggressive. He might have been able to escape with both his life and new allies with SG-1. Then again, the distrust of the Goa’uld from SG-1 contributed to the impasse. There is a lesson there somewhere, I suppose.

Rating; *** (out of 5)

Rose Byrne

2012-01-24T08:20:00.000-05:00

The Snoozer of a Debate in Florida

2012-01-23T23:51:00.001-05:00

It is just my luck to sit through the entirety of a Republican debate for thwe first time in months and it winds up being more tedious than matching socks straight out the dryer. Big media types should not be the moderators of these debates. Viewers are not going to tune in because Brian Williams is asking the questions. They are tuning in to hear what the candidates have to say about the issues. Get some elder statesmen or academic types out there to run these things. Take questions from viwers more often, too, rather than the moderator pulling them out of thin air. Seriously…sugar subsidies/ Missions to Mars? Teri Schiavo? Is her case still big in florida or has the media lost touch with the state in the last seven years?

It is my blog, so I am going to pile on Mitt Romney. The guy reluctantly participated in the debate in the first place because of his drubbing in South Carolina. I assume he got the message with Newt Gingrich’s surge in the Palmetto State to be more aggressive himself. It did not work. Even when going after Newt Gggingrich on his ethics investigations and lobbying past, he still comes across as a boring wimp. Romney is the epitome of a Beta male. His money has allowed him to coast through life and it shows. The whole idea of self-deportation as an immigration policy is…wow. We are going to trust illegal immigrants to leave based on the honor system, I suppose. Romney did nothing tonight that proves he ought to be president. I would not be surprised if his numbers slipped, actually. He had best hope no one watched the debate. I imagine few did. They were the lucky ones.

Gingrich was far more subdued than in South Carolina. Dialing it down a few notches made him appear more presidential. Yet he still managed the occasional red meat. The Fidel Castro is going to hell deal was throwing a bone to the Cuban community. I hate to admit it, but Ron Paul has it right. We ought to lift the embargo on Cuiba and let american culture seep in. that is how to export freedom. Of course, paul is writing off the Cuban vote. Not that it was going to go for him, anyway. Rick Santorum drew the distinction that Cuba is an enemy 90 miles away, so that is why it is a not a diplomatic and trading partner like China. I have doubts, but okay. I do not want to get into it now. Back on subject, gingrich looks very presidential.

I will give props to Santorum. This was his best performance. Too little, too late, but it was his best performance. I do not have much to say about paul, either, although I did like his line about not daydreaming about being president like the other candidates do. He comes up with some gold nuggets from time to time. Too bad he is also hoarding the real deal in anticipation of the apocalypse. Otherwise, I was not all that amused.

Formspring Question #344--Newt-ering the Sunshine Boys Edition

2012-01-23T17:11:00.006-05:00

I know it’s next to impossible for Newt to win in Florida, but if he can is that Game Over for Romney? And if Romney wins, is Newt realistically out of the running?

I do not see why it is next to impossible for Newt Gingrich to win Florida. He currently enjoys an eight point lead. The latest Rasmussen poll has Gingrich topping 41%. Polls indicate Gingrich is not only a contender, but the heavy favorite to win.

I do not see why that is not the case. It is so uncertain Mitt Romney can win Florida that Jeb Bush is not willing to risk his credibility by backing him. Romney himself has changed his tactic and come out swinging against Gingrich with a palpable frustration that reminds me of Bob dole’s irritation he could never lay a glove on Bill Clinton back in 1996. Not that I blame him for being irritated. There is not much more one can blast Gingrich for. He has been attacked by the media, the left, and the right for ethics issues during his time in politics, his consulting connections outside of politics, and his family issues, yet he won South Carolina and is entering Florida in a strong position. Exactly what more can Romney say about his character to change voters’ minds?

What is Romney’s base of strength in Florida/ Retired yankee snowbirds? They did not come out for Rudy Giuliani like he had hoped. Like he had staked his entire campaign on, truth be told. South Carolina indicated social conservatives, eager to beat Barack Obama, consider Gingrich their man. Evangelicals went for Gingrich, too. Even hardcore Rick Santorum fans are advocating he give up on Florida to concentrate on the evangelical voters in Michigan. I imagine the significant Cuban vote appreciates Gingrich hard line stance against communism over what Romney has to offer.

The only ’advantage” I hear any pundit offering Romney is that he has spent $7 million on an early voting campaign. Here are three problems with that. One, early voters are usually eager to cast their ballot for a certain candidate. Who is excited at the prosect of voting for Romney? Two, Gingrich had a long, high surge in Florida for a while there. Who is to say early voting does not break in his direction instead? Finally, early voting means Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, and Michele Bachmann are possible choices. How many of those ballots there are is a mystery. Not many, I would guess, but still a factor.

The bottom line is Romney does not have any obvious advantage in Florida. In fact, he looks weak overall. He is swinging wildly at Gingrich. He had to change his mind about appearing in the debates after he arrogantly assumed he would cruise to victory anyway. Now he has caved on releasing his tax returns. Romney is not in a position of strength right now. It amuses the heck out of me, by the way. How can he be president if he cannot control the flow of his own primary campaign?

But I will go along with the gag. If Romney loses Florida, it is not the end for him. At least not yet. Nevada, Maine, and Michigan are his for the taking. Those victories would be enough for him to keep on running. His advocates would probably count those victories versus his losses as confirmation of what they already thought--Romney is weak in the South, but choosing a southern running mate will miraculously fix that. If Romney wins Florida, the message will be that South Carolina is full of ignorant, racist bible thumpers who gave Gingrich his only victory. Surely the rest of the country does not want to be idiots like them? That liner of reasoning, combined with the media and GOP establishment claiming Romney’s victory confirms his champion status, would kill Gingrich’s campaign. He may not quit right away, but his momentum would evaporate. I doubt either one would drop out before Super Tuesday regardless.

Stargate SG-1--"The Serpent's Lair"

2012-01-23T08:05:00.002-05:00

“The Serpent’s Lair” is the second season premiere of Stargate SG-1. Quite a strong start to the second season it is, too. The resolution to the first season ending cliffhanger is more engrossing than its build up. I have noted in my television reviewing experience that is a rare thing. How do you top saving the world in the very first episode?

The episode begins right where we left off previously, with SG-1 on the flagship of a Goa’uld invasion fleet about to strike Earth. The only thing they can do is set off the explosives Sam set, killing themselves in the process, and hope the explosion is big enough to halt the attack. Even that is not guaranteed as Apophis’ well-shielded ship arrives. Before they can set off the explosives, they are captured and imprisoned Jaffa. The explosives are still set on a timer, but there are 24 hours left to go before the big boom. Fortunately for SG-1, Bra’tac is on this mission. He frees them from their cell to assist him and several free Jaffa in thwarting the attack on Earth.

Meanwhile, Col. Bert Samuels, Sen. Robert Kinsey’s right hand man in closing down the stargate program, arrives at Stargate Command with news the pentagon has developed a missile made of sleath bomber material to destroy the Goa’uld ships. As you might expect if you have ever seen a plot like this before, the missiles do not do the job. If that was not cliché enough for you, there is another scene set to break up the action on the Goa’uld ship where Hammond sends a group of ’foremost experts in their fields” through the stargate in order to establish a colony that will preserve humanity. One wonders if these intrepid souls really are the best or just whatever could be scrounged up on short notice. Okay, I mock it, but the scene is intended to show the direness of the situation and in that regard, it is effective.

In the interim, Bra’tac bought enough time for the military to attack by placing Klorel in a sarcophagus to be brought back to life. He knew Apophis would wait until Klorel was back among the living before attacking Earth. Bra’tac originally intended to attack apohis’ ship in Klorel’s name in the hopes they would destroy each other in the confusion of the rebellion. Instead, they plan to sneak aboard apophis’ ship and find a way to destroy it along with the ship rigged with explosives they are currently on.

Daniel is mortally wounded and opts to stay behind to cover the others. It is a suicide mission, anyway, so what difference does it make if he dies on the same ship as the others? Proving he is the Rory Williams of Stargate SG-1, Daniel crawls to the sarcophagus and is fully healed. He leaves through the stargate just as apohis’ ship, which has had its control systems destroyed by SG-1 and Bra’tac, collides with the other just before the explosives go off. Ye olde earth is saved.

There are quite a few nifty points of interest in “The Serpent’s Lair.” For one Klorel not only recovers from being fatally shot by Jack, but escapes with Apophis before the ship collision. It looks like the powers that be course corrected after fans expressed displeasure over Klorel/Skaara’s fate. Two, whrn things looked at the bleakest, Samuels suggested sending a nuke through the stargate to Chulak as an eff you to the Goa’uld. Hammond nixes the idea. In the alternate universe daniel visited, that universe’s jack decided to go through with nuking Chulak with disastrous results for Earth. Finally, the episode name drops the real space shuttle Endeavour as the ship which rescues SG-1 and Bra’tac after they flee the explosions in small gliders. I also note Jack is a hero in the Robert A. Heilein mode. Rather than wait for apophis’ ship to be destroyed with them on it, he suggests taking the gliders to escape. He and his team will then be stranded in space to either suffocate or burn up in orbit. He has traded one certain death for another, but his buys them a few more minutes. You have to appreciate the tenacity of cheating certain death as long as possible.

You also have to appreciate “The Serpent’s Lair.” Highly tense and action oriented, it is a slam bang way to begin the sophomore season.

Rating: **** (out of 5)

Ashley Greene

2012-01-23T08:04:00.002-05:00

Formspring Question #343--We Do Not Owe Bill Clinton Squat Edition

2012-01-22T23:08:00.002-05:00

Your stated support of Newt makes me wonder. Has American politics reached a point where marital infidelity should no longer be an issue as to whether a man is suited to be President? Do we owe Clinton an apology?

Absolutely not. Bill Clinton getting away with his extramarital affair, not to mention perjuring himself to a grand jury and manipulating a naïve intern for sex, makes it difficult to hold any politician to a high moral standard nowadays. That is our own fault. The economy was booming at the time. Americans were fat, dumb, and happy, so we did not care what Clinton was up to. If things had been going badly, Clinton might very well have been driven out of office for his transgressions.

The situation with Gingrich is quite similar. Rank and file republicans want someone who is ready to take the fight to Barack Obama, but realize that candidate is not the wimpy, out of touch moderate Mitt Romney. Like Clinton with Clinton back in the days when he dodged impeachment because other circumstance were favorable for Americans, Gingrich gts a free pass on his character issues because circumstances are unfavorable as far as conservatives are concerned. We have a disastrous president undeserving of reelection and the party elites are trying to force a candidate on us who does not what to play the opposition to Obama. I am not entirely thrilled with Gingrich, either, but I have to play the game with the cards I am dealt.

Regardless, I issue no apologies to Clinton. Has he demonstrated an ounce of remorse for his actions? I have missed it if so. Gingrich has at least spoken of his conversion to Catholicism ands the positive effects it has had on him. He may very well be feeding a line to evangelical voters, but I will take him at face value. At least he is putting forth an effort to look redeemed.

Formspring Question #342--X-Tra X-Files Edition

2012-01-22T23:05:00.002-05:00

Hey Jamie- I don't know if anyone checks this site anymore, but, fan-to-fan, would you have an interest in a third X-Files movie?

If another film would resolve the dangling mythology issue, I would be open to seeing it.

Stargate SG-1--"Within the Serpent's Grasp"

2012-01-22T09:00:00.003-05:00

“Within the Serpent’s Grasp” serves as the first season finale. It is a direct continuation of the previous two episodes and ends with a cliffhanger. As such, its main purpose is to build up enough tension to convince us to come back next year. As far as I am concerned, it does its job.

Stargate command is only the verge of being shut down by order of Sen. Kinsey. The Sg-1 team, while desperately trying to find some way to convince Kinsey the value of keeping SGC going, finally decide to try out the coordinates of the alleged attack fleet daniel discovered in the alternate universe. They will be AWOl once they make the unauthorized trip through the stargate, but they are willing to risk court martial. Assuming they survive, that is.

The coordinates take them to the lead attack vessel of the Goa’uld known as a Death Glider. (Seriously/ Death Glider? Is that the best name the writers could brainstorm?) The death Glider is leading a fleet towards Earth. Apophis has placed his son, who turns out to be Skaara possessed by a Goa’uld symbiote. He is now called Klorel and looks even more like Lenny Kravitz than before. What is up with that? Death to all humans--except Lisa Bonet!

Upon seeing Skaara/Klorel and learning of the attack plan, jack split’s the team up. Sam and Daniel are to set explosives all over the ship while he and Yeal’c capture Skaara/Klorel. The plan to capture him is rationalized weakly with the claim they can force him to call off the attack if Skaara can regain control over the symbiote. It is mostly Jack’s vain hope he can recover his friend.

Sam and Daniel are successful, but Jack and Teal’c are captured when the attempt to recover Skaara fails. Still, he does seem to reassert some control over the symbiote, as he refuses to carry out the execution of Jack and Teal’c when ordered by Apophis. The two are rescued by Sam and Daniel, but when Daniel is about to be killed by Skaara/Klorel, Jack is forced to fatally shoot him. I am aware the shooting is extremely unpopular with fans made all the more tragic because skaara had reasserted himself before, but not when it would have counted to save Daniel and himself.

The cliffhanger features the US military mobilizing its forces after the fleet is spotted by NASA flying passed Saturn and the SG-1 team looking on as the fleet descends towards Earth.

I think it is exciting to end the first season on a huge cliffhanger. The story is executed well by showing a massive invasion force from the perspective a small group of men (and one woman) on a mission. It is tough to do a massive alien invasion on a cable television budget. Some corners were definitely cut. In scenes in which SH-1 is sneaking around the ship while hiding from Jaffa, the same group of Jaffa passes by them every time in the same hallway, it is just that SG-1 switches sides to designate they have moved to another part of the ship. Hey, I am amused by it.

Maybe I am being cold here, but I think Jack being forced to kill Skaara/Klorel is a good piece of drama. Perhaps it should have come earlier in the episode instead of right before the attack on Earth so that we would have had time to better absorb it before being hit with something else, but it still works. I have no emotional attachments to the character. His death does not mean as much to me as Jack’s agony over the decision to pull the trigger. He had to kill a lost friend in order to save another who could recover. That is powerful. Whether Skaara got a good send off matters naught to me. That is my two cents worth for any fans upset over Skaara’s death.

“Within the Serpent’s Grasp’ successfully builds up tension. I am definitely eager to see the conclusion. I am not certain the dramatic moments all hit the proper mark, but I have no large complaints, either. Perhaps not as many future episodes will be, but a worthy end to a more solid first season than I expected after listening to fan buzz over it.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Sandra Bullock

2012-01-22T08:59:00.002-05:00

South Carolina Primary Wrap Up

2012-01-21T23:09:00.001-05:00

I claimed to be shaky on predicting the results, but i did not do too badly. Newt Gingrich’s margin of victory was much larger than predicted, for which I am pleased, and Rick Santorum beat Ron Paul for third, which I do not care anything about. I would prefer to see Santorum drop out before Florida instead of after a sunshine state trouncing, but I do not see him doing that even though social conservative broke heavily for Gingrich. There is no where else for him to finish strong. I doubt even Pennsylvania, but no way he will stay in the race until April 24th

Gingrich trounced Mitt Romney in all but three counties: Richland, Charleston, and Beaufort. Richland is the center of state government and home of the University of South Carolina, therefore it is full of establishment types and academics. Charleston and Beaufort are snowbird retirement communities, particularly Beaufort’s Hilton Head Island. In other words, Romney’s supporters are exactly what you thought--moderate establishment types and self-appointed intellectuals who generally make over $100k a year. That was the only demographic with which Romney did well. Gingrich pulled in Florida is going to be very, very interesting now. everyone else--tea partiers, pro-lifers, women, and evangelicals.

I am less certain now of Romney’s inevitability. It is a telling sign that Jeb Bush, who was virtually a shoo in to endorse Romney, just declared he was going to stay neutral in the Florida primary. How can one beat so certain about Romney now? Romney is a candidate who has won only one primary in Massachusetts’ neighboring state of New Hampshire. He has fumbled around on his tax returns issue to the point people think he is hiding something. Gingrich’s win in South Carolina demonstrates his trouble in carrying the south definitely and the Heartland probably. All this when just a few days ago there was talk of Romney sewing the nomination up before Florida. Karl Rove and Britt Hume were talking about how the weather was going to help Romney win today, for crying out loud! They both looked heartbroken at the actual results. All the while, Romney gets a free pass from left-leaning media.

Predictions for the South Carolina Primary

2012-01-21T04:10:00.001-05:00

Ironically, the outcome my home state’s primary is the most difficult thus far to predict. It has been a crazy week in which we have been inundated with political ads both by candidates and from special interests groups acting on their behalf 9for whatever that is worth) results changing in Iowa, candidates dropping out, big endorsements, and lots of weird issues coming up. It has been an embarrassing spectacle. Here are my best guesses how it will turn out:

1. Newt Gingrich
2. Mitt Romney
3. Ron Paul
4. Rick Santorum

Predicting the winner is a tough call, but I am giving the edge to Gingrich. If Gingrich wins, South Carolina will likely break a 32 year streak of always selecting the eventual Republican nominee. We have been so proud of that record, we even made John McCain the winner in 2008 after smacking him around so badly in the 200 primary he blasted evangelical voters all the way to Super Tuesday. Romney looks even more inevitable as the nominee in 2012 than did McCain in 2008, but Gingrich’s witty debate performances combined with his attacks on Obama resonate here. Truth be told, a Gingrich victory may propel him to nomination and keep the streak alive. You never know until all the votes are counted.

Romney has had problems in south carolina from the get go. Tea party darling Gov. Nikki Haley endorsed him in the middle of an ethics scandal for her to deflect attention, but it has wound up not doing much for either of them. A lot of advertisements have emphasized the similarities between ObamaCare and RomneyCare. ObamaCare is not only extremely unpopular here, but Haley’s ethics trouble involve an alleged cover up of her influencing an advisory board to reject implementation of healthcare reform. There is a general feel that Haley is ignoring Romney’s healthcare reform in order to make the short list for his running mate. Then we realize she is doing that because he is a boring, progressive yankee who needs an attractive woman on the ticket, which makes him look even worse.

His debate performance have gone badly for him. We like red meat, and what we have gotten is a lot of fumbling around over releasing his tax returns. We do not like candidates who look weak. His wavering on whether he will debate in florida will have the unintended consequence. Some will think he is arrogant, other chicken. The announcement Romney actually lost Iowa gives him an air of loser, too. The results will be closes because some blue blood ol guard hold onto the idea only he can beat Obama, but I do not think he can win South Carolina.

I have never expected Ron Paul to do well here, but I have him coming in third. It is not so much that Paul has virtues, but it is that Santorum will not do well. I know I have a lot of Santorum fans among my readers, but as Paul noted, he is very thin skinned and whiny. That does not resonate down here. I do not think the evangelical endorsement will do much, either. We are the buckle of the Bible Belt, but we go about it very much in our own way.

For the record, I am supporting Gingrich. I still believe Romney will be the nominee, if for no other reason than most of the post-South Carolina contests look more favorable to Romney. Gingrich is not even on the ballot in a half dozen or so. But I want to vote for someone more conservative than Romney so I can say I did not contribute to his nomination. I appreciate his grandiose ideas far more than Santorum’s wimpy attitude. My support for Gingrich has not influenced my prediction he will win the primary.

Full Metal Jacket Reach Around #134

2012-01-21T02:19:00.003-05:00

It is time once again to round up all the bloggers gracious enough to link to me this week.

American Perspective links to Judy Greer.
Proof Positive links to Anne Hathaway and Eliza Dushku.
Say Anything links to Anne Hathaway and Eliza Dushku.
Sentry Journal links to Romney Rah Rah
Pirate's Cove links to Full Metal Jacket Reach Around #133, Blogroll Spotlight #128, and Jessica Alba.
Motor City Times links to Romney Rah Rah.
Randy's Roundtable links to Mila Kunis and Lea Michele.
The Other McCain links to Gillian Jacobs.
Teresamerica links to Anne Hathaway.
Hefty Source links to Jewel Staite.
Maggie's notebook links to Gillian Jacobs and Adriana Lima.
Reaganite Republican links to Blake Lively.

A sincere thank you to all who linked this week. If you linked to me in the last week, but I do not have you here, you unfortunately fell through the cracks of Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Sitemeter. Please drop me a note in the comments and I will update with your link.

Stargate SG-1--"Politics"

2012-01-21T01:53:00.000-05:00

“Politics” represents the unfortunate drawback of a relatively low budget show that has not produced a true bottle show this season and an expensive finale--the only way to save money on producing it is to make a clip show. Fans do not generally hold ’politics” in high regard. I can see why even if the episodes the clips originate from were not so fresh in my mind. The episode feels like it is adding a boring and unnecessary chapter to the final arc of the season.

The episode begins right where the previous ended. Daniel is having his wounded tended to while trying to convince the rest of the team he has visited an alternate reality and learned the location of a Goa’uld military build up in anticipation of invading earth. His teammates are not buying it, but before Daniel can further plead his case, the team is called before visiting Sen. Robert Kinsey, as head of the Senate Appropriation Committee, he wants to shut down SGC as an overly expensive boondoggle.

Kinsey is plated by Ronny Cox, who has made a career out of playing arrogant jackasses who have attained positions of power beyond their talents and who refuse to listen to any subordinates who can lead him in the right direction. The most relevant example for readers of the eye is Jellico, the temporary captain of the Enterprise who abandoned Picard as a forgotten POW, relieved riker of command, and nearly sparked off a war with the Cardassians. There is quite a bit of Jellico in Kinsey. Kinsey will have a recurring role as leading the political opposition to the SGC program.

The SG-1 team makes its case of how important the SGC program is through clips from previous episodes. The biggest problem with this is not dragging out scenes with which we are already familiar, but that SG-1’s argument they need to continue exploring other planets for technology to fight the Goa’uld is not strengthened by their past adventures. They have not brought back any technology to fight the Goa’uld, but they have antagonized Apophis. In that regard, Kinsey’s argument that Pandora’s box needs to be closed is a decent one at first glance. He wonders why spend %7.4 billion a year to learn nothing more than the history of alien planets?

The writers appear to know SG-1 has a weak argument, so they make Kinsey an idiot. He insists on the one hand that if Apophis comes, the fact they have buried the stargate will convince him to leave. On the other hand, he invokes god’s protection over the United States and the military’s ability to fight off Apophis’ forces. Any alien military force that can travel light years towards earth is not going to engage in a protracted battle the military can fight. They will logically destroy population centers from Earth. Kinsey ought to know that. Even if he is upset SGC has not brought back any technology to fight Apophis, he would be wiser to threaten to eliminate the funding after a certain time period to light a fire under SG-1 to find such technology. But Kinsey is an idiot, so there.

“Politics” has few virtues, but one of them is the subtle jabs it takes at Independence Day, the alien invasion film also by Stargate’s Dean Devil and Roland Emmerich. In the film, the military implausibly defeats an invasion by a superior alien invasion force just as Kinsey falsely believes can happen with the Goa’uld. Sam notes the huge Goa’uld ships can destroy cities from orbit, which is a reference to the ship’s massive size in the movie. They were so large, they could have affected the tides. The aliens could have flooded coastal cities simply by flying around, but chose an protracted battle instead. At one point, Daniel sardonically suggests sending a computer virus to disable the Goa’uld ship. The movie had a similar plot point with the mother ship even though it is difficult to believe humans could create a virus that would affect such advanced alien technology. Funny, but certainly not worth sitting through the episode.

It would not be fair to judge an episode of television from 1998 in terms of today, but since I am going to give “Politics” one star, what the heck. I cannot help but see the now quaint pre-9/11 attitude in Kinsey. His argument is the Cold War is over, so there are--his words exactly--”no more barbarians at the gate.” He refuses to see the Goa’uld as a threat. As a nation, we should have seen the barbarians at our gate, but shortsighted politicians ignored the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the embassy bombings in 1998, and the USS Cole attack, acts of war all. It is bemusing to see Kinsey in hindsight considering how much our government ignored warnings when I know what is coming on both Stargate SG-1 and real life.

Rating: * (out of 5)

Elizabeth Hurley

2012-01-21T01:52:00.002-05:00

Formspring Question #341--Elections as Messages Edition

2012-01-20T18:27:00.002-05:00

I asked question #340. Sorry, I was unclear. I wasn’t asking about the candidates (though it will affect the general) but the state officials elected in 2010. In all those states, as well as others, Republican favorability has taken a nose dive since they enacted policies right of voters there. I wonder if trying to go as right as they can now, while they have the chance, may have hurt the party’s chances both in the general as well as maintaining gains they made in 2010.

I am reluctant to make sweeping claims when all politics is local, but elections tens to be referendums on the electorate’s opinion of those in power. It is probably fair to say Scott Brown benefited from Barack Obama’s unpopularity while Anthony Wiener suffered for it. Even though you cannot draw a correct correlation, voters were sending a message to Obama even though he was not on the ballot by not supporting his allies.

So, yes, if the republicans elected in 2010 are unpopular because they went too far to the right in a more moderate state, other republican candidates may suffer. I expect some of those Tea Party freshman house members will not be reelected, though I think Republicans will keep the House and probably win the Senate. As for predicting how Scott Walker, Chris Cristie, and John Kasich will effect their usually blue state elections, I have no idea. I am not privy enough to the mood of Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Ohio voters.

Stargate SG-1--"There But for the Grace of God"

2012-01-20T18:21:00.003-05:00

I am a sucker for alternate reality stories, except for those mirror universe DS9 episodes, but that is treading old ground, so “There But for the Grace of God” is right up my alley. The episode differentiates itself from others like the DS0 mirror universe because “There But for the Grace of God” has real world consequences because of the ending.

The SG-1 team is exploring an alien complex when Daniel comes across an artifact which--sigh--looks like and has a similar function to the Guardian of Forever. I just cannot escape from Star Trek, can I? Daniel touches the artifact, which we later learn is a Quantum Mirror, and is transported to an alternate dimension. He does not realize this at first. When he discovers the rest of the team gone, he assumes they left without him and dialed home. When Daniel arrives on earth, he is taken prisoner.

It takes a while to sort out the situation. In this reality, Daniel never joined SG-1, Jack is a general, Hammond is a colonel, Sam is a civilian advisor engaged to Jack, and Teal’c is Apophis’ loyal right hand man. (Teal’c’s loyalty is something of an assumption. He is leading an attack on the Stargate Association in retaliation for Jack sending a nuke to Chulak. Teal’c’s family died in the explosion. There is some doubt whether Teal’c would have betrayed Apophis here if not for his family being killed.) I suppose the preceding parenthetical already reveals the Goa’uld have attacked earth. One and a half billion people are dead, including virtually ever major city. Among the dead is likely this Earth’s Daniel, who was serving as an archeologist in the new destroyed city of Cairo, Egypt.

Daniel is able to convince the alternate versions of his friends that he has traveled from an alternate earth by showing them a (very convenient) film of his version of SG-1 exploring the complex with the Quantum Mirror. Convenient because Daniel has never been seen filming these expeditions before. Sam confirms the possibility with a nerdy explanation of the theory that somewhere in the universe, every possible decision that could be made in every situation in played out, creating divergent realities. Daniel also realizes a transmission sent from the Quantum Mirror complex is the stargate address of the planet from which the Goa’uld attack on Earth originated.

Daniel convinces the alternates that he should be able to use their last shot at using the stargate before the Jaffa overrun SGA to send him back to the complex so he can return to his reality and warn Earth of the impending attack. The alternates are reluctant, as this means they will not have any means to evacuate anymore people, but like good alternate universe doubles, realize they are not as important as a world they did not even believe existed twenty minute ago and sacrifice themselves one by one to buy Daniel time to escape. He is shot by teal’c on the way through the stargate, but makes it to the quantum mirror and returns to his reality with evidence of the impending Goa’uld invasion.

I like that the alternate versions of SG-1 are not different just for the sake of being different. There is a reason why each took a different path. Jack is dark and brooding because he has not had his Abydos experience which alleviated his suicidal the suicide notions he was suffering because of his son’s death. It is strongly hinted by her reaction to seeing herself as an Air Force captain in the video Sam wanted to join the Air Force, but did not think she would have much of a career as a woman. I already spoke that teal’c may have wanted to betray Apophis, but Jack hardnosed order to nuke Chulak killed his family, thereby destroying any that may have been within him. I am not certain why Hammon is a colonel instead of a general, but the demotion gives him a chance to be at the center of the action for once. That is pretty cool.

Funny how these alternate realities are always worse than the one from our heroes originate. I guess that is the only way to convince them they need to go home. There would not be a story otherwise, no? “There But for the Grace of God’ tickles a personal fancy. It takes one of my favorite science fiction concepts and more importantly, does it well.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Blake Lively

2012-01-20T05:32:00.003-05:00

Part of The Other McCain's Rule 5 Sunday.

Formspring Question #340--Rightward Ho an Electoral No? Edition

2012-01-19T23:35:00.003-05:00

Do you think Republicans hurt the party by going farther right than voters in states like Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and Michigan? It feels like they tried to go big while they had the chance but in doing so hurt the party’s long-term viability in moderate

The last 32 years of elections do not bear that out. Ronald Reagan won the South Carolina in 1980 and 1984. Bush 41 won in 1988 and 1992. Bob Dole won in 1996. Bush 43 in 2000 and 2004. John McCain won in 2008. I assume Mitt Romney will win Saturday, but even if Newt Gingrich does, history says his move to the far right will not matter much in the long run.

The point to this being the candidate’s stance in South Carolina meant nothing in the long run as far as viability was concerned. I certainly do not believe anyone cared that dole and McCain’s rightward tilt in the palmetto state even existed, much less was a factor in the general election.

Not to make an assumption about your personal beliefs. You may very well not be indicative of what I am about to say, but I think it is a fantasy of moderate Republicans that espousing social conservative values, which is a euphemism for being a crazy Christians, is a big detriment. Granted, there are have been some over the top presidential candidates like Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer who had no prayer--no pun intended--of winning national office, but I do not doubt most of the men who have held the office shared many of their spiritual views.

I have to ask the following question of anyone who makes the statement the Republican party needs to become more moderate in order to compete--compete where? You listed Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, and Michigan. First, Republicans have frequently won Ohio and Florida, so I do not see an issue there. Wisconsin has not gone republican since 1984, so it has not gone for moderates or social conservatives in 28 years. The last time a republican carried Michigan, it was Bush 41 in 1988. I do not see how states so solidly Democrat for over two decades can be won by a left-leaning Republican, so why worry with it/ I certainly do not think any republican candidate, liberal or not, can carry California, Massachusetts, or Maryland. Does anyone really think differently?

It is also telling the converse is not true. No one says Democrats out to become more pro-life so they can carry the South and Heartland. Why not/ it is not like democrats are shoo ins with the electoral college with their current solid bases of support. Why not say they should expand? There is a easy answer--conservative Christian social values are (wrongly) considered a bad thing that need to be phased out as a factor. The democrats purged theirs long ago. Now the powers that be in the republican elite want to do the same.

Kaley Cuoco Day Bonus

2012-01-19T20:52:00.005-05:00

You did not want to wait until next Thursday for this screencap from tonight's episode, no?

Rick Perry Ends Presidential Bid

2012-01-19T18:43:00.002-05:00

Not a surprise. He was counting on Christian conservatives to rally around him in South Carolina, but it is not happening for him. He should have quit sooner, in all honesty. His campaign never got off the ground much after the initial he is Not Romney first look. Unpolished, and slow on his feet, I have to assume Texas has its own standards for electing office holders. That is not an insult to the Texans out there. We South Carolinians kept electing senile Strom Thurmond when he would have been 102 at the end of his term. I do not knock. I am empathetic the rest of the country does not see what you do.

My best guess for perry hanging on is that he has kept the office of governor solely because he wanted to use it as a springboard for the White House. The 2012 election was most certainly his only shot at it, so he held on by his fingertips while hoping for a miracle. The miracle never came. It has to be tough on a personal level to face the realization, especially when he launched his bid with a strong hint the believed god was leading him to do so--without any hin the was saying so to manipulate evangelicals, I might add.

I have been in the Not Romney crowd from the beginning, though I have resigned myself he will be the nominee even if he loses South Carolina. Perry never captured my imagination as potential president. There was a time there when I probably would have voted for him in Saturday’s primary just so I could say I did not help Mitt Romney win the nomination, but that time has long since passed. Judging by his numbers, I am not alone.

Perry’s last ditch effort for relevancy is s kingmaker. In the speech in which he announced he was quitting, he endorsed Newt Gingrich, presumably hoping Gingrich will win Saturday with the victory serving as the springboard for Gingrich to overtake Romney. That way, perry could at least take some credit for aiding the eventual nominee. I do not think that is going to happen for him, either. It looks like the guy just cannot catch a break, no?

Stargate SG-1--"Solitudes"

2012-01-19T17:24:00.004-05:00

It is a safe assumption “Solitudes” is the beginning of the ‘shipper theme between Jack and Sam. Geez, what took so long? Fans were on the Mulder/Scully thing by the second episode of The X-Files. in all seriousness, “Solitudes” features the story of characters, injured and stranded in a survival situation, waiting for rescue. With all the cliché elements.

The SG-1 team hurriedly escapes through the stargate on a far off planet while under attack by the Jaffa. A Jaffa weapon strikes the stargate simultaneously with them entering. The result is a power surge that sends Daniel and Teal’c back to Stargate Command while sending Jack and Sam to an unknown destination. Other teams are subsequently sent out to a number of planets upon which the two could have landed.

Meanwhile, Jack and sam have wound up on what they think is a desolate ice planet. Jack’s leg and a rib are broken, supplies are limited, and sam cannot get the nearby stargate to work. It will crank up, but will not allow her to dial home. The two wind up huddling together in an effort to stay alive as it becomes less likely they will escape.

Sam’s attempt to dial home causes a reaction within the SGC’s stargate. Daniel catches it and surmises the reaction was the equivalent of a busy signal. There are two stargates on Earth. Noting the first use of the stargate caused much seismic activity, SGC looks for instances of seismic activity that coincide with SG-1’s return and the “busy signal.” It is plausible to find such instances in Antarctica quickly, but it is implausible a rescue team could Make from Colorado to Antarctica and find Jack and sam inside a cave within the few hours that supposedly elapse. Oh, well. It is a happy end, so who cares/

Obviously, “Solitudes” features the first appearance of the Antarctic stargate. It will eventually become the main stargate for reasons of which I am only vaguely aware. I assume it has something to do with the Russians getting a stargate themselves. I would rather not have it spoiled in the comments, if that is all right with the more well-versed Gaters.

Jack reveals in was in a parachuting accident along the Iran/Iraq border in 1980. This implies jack was part of Operation; Eagle Claw, the disastrous attempt to rescue the Iranian embassy hostages. The operation occurred in April 1980. Jack’s brief comments about his accident do not exactly fit with the desert One incident and sam does not press him on details to keep him talking, so it could be a television embellishment that viewers are supposed to recognize, but not dwell on, so I will not. It is an interesting factiod nevertheless.

“Solitudes” is a good episode in spite of its clichés. I like it because sam gets another chance to be the hero. As I have said before, the first half of the premiere season was really rough on her. I could have done without the bit in which she climbs out of the cave onto the snowy tundra, then declares to Jack, “It’s an ice planet!” We kind of got that idea when they landed in a frigid ice cave that this was not a tropical paradise. Daniel, too, gets the chance to save the day using his unique skills. The time frame of events stretches credibility, but otherwise, a solid effort.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

I cannot cover “Solitudes” without including the famous practical joke Amanda Tapping and the crew played on Richard Dean Anderson during filming:

Kaley Cuoco

2012-01-19T02:32:00.002-05:00

Here is another photo of her prior to her hosting duties at the People’s Choice Awards for this week’s Kaley Cuoco Day.

The Big Bang Theory airs its 100th episode tonight. It has been hyped as being Leonard and Penny heavy, so I am hoping for a big surge of search engine hits. With TBS airing between four and six episodes up to three nights a week and syndication airing one or two episodes as often as six days a week, Kaley Cuoco photos have brought in a steady stream of visitors. As I am in the hits is hits school of thought, I offer as much encouragement as I can.

I am also on edge to be the first to find provocative photos of the next Doctor Who companion, whoever she may be. I have had that streak rolling since Freema Agyeman was announced in July 2006. It must not end with Karen Gillan! But those are geek blogging concerns for another time.

Nikki Haley Talks Promoting Job Growth, Fighting ObamaCare in State of the State Address

2012-01-18T23:30:00.004-05:00

I have nothing else to add. You are not reading this anyway, right?

Formspring Question #339--All Over the Map Edition

2012-01-18T16:43:00.002-05:00

Where have you been in the world? Travelled much? Where would you like to visit, both domestically and internationally?

I studied abroad in 2002 at the University of Strasbourg. Obviously, I saw a lot of France, but also the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Low Countries.

I would like to go to Israel to see some of the ancient sites of the Bible. Italy is a close second choice. If I lament anything for my summer in Europe, aside from being stuck with a few very unpleasant Regent University Law classmates, was not getting to see Rome.

I have lived in South Carolina and Virginia. I have visited North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Other than Shreveport, all I saw of Louisiana was the highway. I would like to have seen New Orleans. Outside of that, I have no special yearning to go anywhere in particular, but I would consider the opportunity to visit just about any state with something interesting to experience.

Stargate SG-1--"Tin Man"

2012-01-18T13:54:00.005-05:00

"Tin Man" is the first of many references to The Wizard of Oz. specifically, the theme of the episode and the tin man character in the film is the desire of mechanical beings to feel human. The episode also owes a nod to the Cybermen from Doctor Who. the Cybermen wwre intended to be a way of preserving human life by transferring it to a machine. It was a misguided idea that went horribly wrong. Twice, technically speaking for any Wholigans who are sticklers for accuracy.

The SG-1 team arrives on a planet that appears to be an abandoned facility. They are stunned by some sort of energy beam. When they awaken, they meet Harlan, the caretaker of the place who oddly reminds me of Joe Besser. Harlan insists that he has not only improved them while they were unconscious, but they must stay with him now. They naturally refuse and return to Earth. Upon their return, medical exams reveal they have been turned into robots. They are imprisoned until the situation is sorted out, but when they begin malfunctioning, SG-1 is allowed to return to the planet as Harlan had originally insisted.

They demand Harlan return their consciousness to their normal bodies, but Harlan insists that is impossible. The new bodies are not only permanent, but they will have to remain close to the battery in order to continue functioning. The episode commences with a large amount of navel gazing about the meaning of life, the value of living forever, and whether never having physical desires to satisfy are good things. For the recoord, daniel is open to the idea and Jack and sam hate it while Teal’c loses him mind and becomes violent for the sake of the episode having some action in it.

Harlan eventually reveals the truth under pressure. The consciousnesses inside the robots are only copies of the real deals, whom Harlan imprisoned. The real SG-1 is free to go, but the robot duplicates can never leave. Though the robots feel they are human and therefore connected to their ’real’ lives, they resign themselves to staying to help Harlan run the facility.

“Tin Man’ is boringly uneventful. There is no reason given for Harlan not revealing the truth to the robots right off the bat other than to offer a chance for a philosophical discussion over the meaning of life. That is a discussion which never gets off the ground. The malfunction of the Teal’c robot is a cheap attempt to insert an antagonistic element into a story that does not logically have one. Ergo, it is an awkward fit. I would even go so far as to say some of the camera tricks done when the Real McCoy is standing beside his or her robot double is pretty bad by even 1998 standards. The interaction between them are humorous, but it is not enough to raise “tin man” to a decent score. Weirdly enough, the robots return in the future. With a better story, one hopes.

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Mila Kunis

2012-01-18T12:16:00.003-05:00

Does Mitt Romney Know What He is Up Against?

2012-01-17T23:58:00.003-05:00

I am thinking no, even though his general attitude on the campaign trail is focused more on Barack Obama than his Republican primary rivals. Obama has made it very clear he intends to run his reelection campaign on the theme of class warfare. In other words, that income inequality has given the out of touch wealthy more advantages than they deserve. Romney has not gotten the message.

Here are some nuggets that you will probably see in a few Obama campaign ads:

1. Romney offering a $10,000 bet to Rick Perry in the middle of a debate.
2. Romney claiming he likes firing people.
3. Romney admitting he pays a 15% tax rate, which is lower than most middle class families.
4. Romney dismissing the speaking fees he has earned as only a few hundred thousand dollars.

I do not like this whole the 99% v. the 1% at all, but it has become a part of this political season. What the candidates say along those lines are going to come back to haunt them. Unfortunately, Romney has the biggest liability because he seems clueless as to how he is coming across. Ir is doubly tragic because the powers that be are determined to nominate him anyway.

It is just amazing to me.

About Three Steps Back for Google

2012-01-17T23:56:00.000-05:00

Do you hate what Google has become as of a few days ago/ It has now integrated its search results with social media. At least that is what the company announced it had done. Truth be told, Google’s efficacy had long since died off. This article called Why Google is Ditching Search explains the hows and whys of Google’s shift from being a search engine to an online Yellow pages.

It is bad Google is no longer the search engine it once was, but I find that I have subtlety changed how I use it anyway. With all the top results of any search being paid advertisements or generic information, I have been asking Google questions, checking spelling, checking the meaning of foreign phrases, etc for years.

What I lament is the same thing I have been upset over since MySpace became popular seven or eight years ago--social media is drowning out content such as personal web pages and blogs, which are two far more valuable resources than generic profiles and boring Twitter feeds. At the risk of being accused of hypocrisy, I have social media profiles and Twitter, but as a tool of 9often very superficial)b communication. They do not pass on the large variety of useful information true search engines used to provide. In those days, Google was king.

As I said above, Google has become more of a reference book tool than a search engine for me in recent months. I started getting irritated with it when results, which were mostly from paid sponsors, began showing up before I even stopped typing. Don’t read my mind, bro! I have since moved on to a variety od other search engines. Of course, I am now skeptical any search results from anywhere are worthwhile. Google is, after all, what every search engine aspires to be.

Formspring Question #338--Fantasy Objectives Edition

2012-01-17T15:55:00.005-05:00

You said you sometimes enjoy fantasy. Have you read the “Sword of Truth” series? I kind of hated it as I couldn’t get over the heavy Objectivist, Ayn Rand, message. Other than that it was good and I wouldn’t think the philosophy would bother you.

That is the most backhanded recommendation I have gotten in a while.

I assure you I am not an Objectivist. We may often reach similar destinations, but we take very different roads.

I am definitely far apart from Objectivists in metaphysical views. Objectivism rejects the supernatural. I hold Christian beliefs. There is no place for faith in Objectivism. I do not believe fallible men can rely exclusively on reason. Objectivism places a higher value on self-interest than self-sacrifice. Objectivists and I definitely clash on a spiritual and ethical level.

We do not clash so much on a political level. The government should be no-coercive and protect individual rights, particularly property rights, through the courts, police, and military. Even with that in mind, Objectivists are not likely to count me among them. "God’s will be done, not mine” does not gel with Objectivism.

Stargate SG-1--"Enigma"

2012-01-17T14:15:00.001-05:00

Katharyn Powers strikes again with another bad script. “Enigma” is an apt title, because it is impossible to decipher what the episode is supposed to be about. The only high point is a major role for Tobin Bell. Bell plays the same character he always does--a gravelly voiced jerk whose arrogance allows him to be extremely cruel. At least he only sneers down as SG-1 as primitives instead of forcing them to play torturous games to find out about themselves.

The SG-1 team visit’s a planet on the verge of destruction by a volcano. They discover a group of survivors from an advanced civilization stranded there. Under protest, SG-1 brings them back to earth for medical treatment. While on earth, lava overtakes the stargate on the planet, so the Tollan, as they are called, are refugees in need of a new home. The tollan are incredibly arrogant xenophobes who have absolutely no interest in discussing their with primitives, much less living among them, so helping them in the first place is tough enough without their constant refusal to settle on a new world with ‘lesser’ people.

To further complicate matters, the CIA sends a new operative, col. Harold Maybourne, to take charge of the Tollan. The Cia has become even more impatient than before over the lack of technology being acquired by Stargate Command. They plan to hold the tollan in protective custody while utilizing their technological skills. Maybourne will become a recurring villain for many seasons to come , so get used to hearing about him and his stereotypical bumbling intelligence agent shtick.

Hammond is ordered to turn the Tollan over, but SG-1 hatches a plan to settle the Tollan on Gaia. The Nox are advanced enough to suit Tollan standards. Well, is that not just ducky? Daniel helps them escape through the stargate ahead of Maybourne. Because Daniel is not in the military, he cannot be court-martialed. Why Daniel ca get away with aiding the Tollan as a citizen in defiance of a presidential order is beyond me. The whole point is to imprison innocent people indefinitely to exploit them, right? If the Cia is willing to do that, why will they just shrug off Daniel’s actions? Oh that is right. It is because Powers wrote this one. Okay. Now I see.

The human element here is Sam kinda sorta falling for a Tollan named Narim. It is awkward, but sweet, in a way.

What I find odd about “Enigma” is the message it is trying to send. The tollan are completely unsympathetic people because they genuinely believe they are so much more advanced than everyone else. Heck, I wanted them thrown into the worst dungeon the CIA could find! It is not a good sign when the audience wants the exact opposite of what the heroes are trying to accomplish. Take them with my blessing, Maybourne. You all deserve each other. The Tollan are said to be so far advanced because they did not experience any historical period similar to the Dark Ages, so perhaps there is an anti-religion message. But wait--the Tollan are incredibly unpleasant, so they cannot be held up as an ideal. You really cannot say the lack of a dark ages made them any better.

Meh. Who knows? Maybe the title ‘Enigma” is meant to be ironic considering what a mess the philosophy beyond the episode is. Or, more likely, Powers is just a terrible writer. I would not think about the question too much regardless. ‘Enigma” is not worth it.

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Lea Michele

2012-01-17T14:13:00.003-05:00

Eric Cantor Kills SOPA

2012-01-16T16:34:00.005-05:00

Good. SOPA might have been the death of blogging, among many other online activities.

The support/oppositon for SOPA made for strange bedfellows (Yea: Marco Rubio, John McCain, and Lidsey Graham; Nay: Darryl Issa, Pete Stark, and Nancy Pelosi) but I am glad it is dead even if I did have some unlikely allies in my opposition to it.

I imagine many progressives would rather commit seppuku than express gratitude towards Cantor.

Women and Children First? Forget That Static!

2012-01-16T14:21:00.002-05:00

Behold the fruits of feminism. Women on the Coasta Concordia, the ship that ran aground in Italy, are complaining the male crew shoved them aside to make it to the lifeboats instead of being chivalrous. But what are they complaining about? After years of decrying the prioritization of women’s needs above those of men as chauvinist and a slap in the face of gender equality, this is the result. You are on your own, gals1. Er…ladies. Womyn. Definitely womyn.

The entire situation is a bitterly funny indication of so called first world problems. Women are better treated these days than at any point in history, with practically any opportunity they would care to indulge in. Yet it has been drilled into their heads they are being oppressed by a patriarchal system they must tear down. They do so with reckless abandon, until they face a true rather than imagined disaster. Then they suddenly realize the natural order of things is the ideal. The sad part is the realization women and children first is no longer the old standard will not be a lasting lesson. Oppression is the coin of the realm for progressives seeking power. It will never die.

Do not think I am excusing the men. While I am amused women are reaping what they have sown, the emasculation of men is lamentable. I have a notion the men should have stood aside for the women anyway. Regardless of how much feminism has brutalized manhood, we still need to uphold the ideals. Obviously, women want it at their core even if it offends those bra burning yearnings within them. The bottom line is that you have to be a man even it is not in your best interest.

Then again, I was not on a ship that ran aground. I cannot say how I would act under such circumstances, but considering my first thought upon reading the linked story was to laugh the women were left to their own devices as per their presumed strong woman beliefs rather than cringe at the self-serving men, I probably would not have been particularly chivalrous, either. I admit that in the name of full disclosure.

Stargate SG-1--"Singularity"

2012-01-16T14:14:00.001-05:00

"Singularity” finally gives Sam the episode she deserves. Both tough and motherly within, the story makes up, more or less, for some major stumbles with the character. The episode manages to further demonstrate the cruelty of the Goa’uld as well. A sadistic lot, they are.

The SG-1 team arrives on Hanka, an inhabited planet where a team of astronomers has been based in preparation to view an eclipse. The team discovers everyone dead, save for a little girl, from what appears to be a plague. While Jack and Teal’c stay behind under a strained rationale viewing the eclipse is extremely important to human knowledge, the rest take the little girl, Cassandra, back to Earth.

Sam bonds with the child, who clings to her desperately in return. Frasier discovers some sort of device near the little girl’s heart that seemingly was not there. She surmises the little girl is a Goa’uld booby trap. They attack Hanka, killed everyone but Cassandra, and implanted an explosive device that would be activated the moment she went through the stargate. They reluctantly opt to send her back through the stargate to Hanka, but before they can jack and teal’c come through from the other side. They have been attacked by a rival goa’uld faction who have used booby traps like Cassandra to destroy enemy stargates. They cannot send Cassandra back through or else she will destroy the stargate.

The decision is made to place her in an abandoned nuclear facility so the bomb can blow up safely. No one tells Cassandra what is actually happening. The mood is somber, particularly with Sam. She feels as though she is betraying her promise to not abandon Cassandra. When it comes down to it, she cannot. Though she locked Cassandra in the underground vault, she returns to die with the little girl. But the bomb does not go off as planned. The bomb will only explode if she enters the stargate. As long as she stays away, everything will be fine.

Until a suitable foster home can be found, Frasier adopts Cassandra. So much for Take Your Daughter to Work Day, no? ‘and you remember the stargate…” Boom! All right, that is maybe a little too much dark humor. Speaking of humor, I find it funny that yet again Sam is the main emphasis of an episode, yet Frasier is more integral to the resolution. In ”Hathor”, Sam took command, yet Frasier was more pivotal to their escape and eventual victory. Here, Sam spends the entire episode bonding with Cassandra, then Frasier adopts her. Does it not feel odd to build up this emotional connection between the two, then snatch it away at the last minute?

I realize the ‘shippers are big on Jack and sam, but I cannot help but notice an early pull towards Daniel and Sam instead. Daniel is a nice guy who offers support for everyone, but he is right there by Sam the entire episode. It feels like the powers that be are setting the two up for a deeper relationship when Sha’re’s fate turns out to be tragic. I am curious to find out when the focus shifted away from that dynamic. Ot I could just be reading things wrong. Jack and Teal’c are still rather stoic characters. Maybe Daniel just seems more caring in comparison.

“Singularity” does a very good job of ratcheting up the tension. The story puts a child in danger without being too blatant at tugging the heartstrings or being too cheesy. I appreciated the realism involved. In many shows, the characters would have dedicated themselves to saving the little girl at the cost of their own lives, but manage to find a perfect cure at the last second. Here, they are going to lock the girl up so the bomb inside her can blow safely. That is harsh, but it goes against the usual heroic way such things play out on television. After three years of Star Trek handling kid centered stories badly, Stargate SG-1 offers a refreshing alternative.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Natalie Portman

2012-01-16T14:12:00.000-05:00

Jon Huntsman Ends Presidential Bid

2012-01-15T23:58:00.003-05:00

It was all but assured Jon Huntsman would quit his futile run for the GOP nomination. The only question remaining was when. I assumed Huntsman would tough it out through the South Carolina primary to see how well he might do in the South. His numbers were pretty bad here in the Palmetto State. His ego must not have been able to handle going out on another likely last place finish.

This being South Carolina, where politics shifts from a Coen brothers film to a Marx brothers effort and back again, Sunday’s edition of The State, the paper of record in South Carolina, endorsed Huntsman. Chalk it up to the political news staff’s lack of foresight or the ax they have to grind with Mitt Romney endorser Gov. Nikki Haley. Whichever you choose, it is laughable.

I deliberately mentioned Huntsman’s likely motivation for dropping out now is avoiding an ego bruising poor finish. I have long since held Huntsman is a bored rich guy who cannot stand for his legacy to be governor of Utah, a state in which he was forced to govern through gritted teeth far more to the right than he would have desired if the state were not so dominated by Republicans. He jumped at the chance to become ambassador to china for the Obama administration. We know he loved it, because he mentioned his ambassadorship five times more than his governorship.

Last night, I got into a minor tiff with a Huntsman supporter--maybe the Huntsman-- on Twitter who chastised me for speculating whether huntsman might join MSNBC as a commentator. This fellow said no, because Huntsman had a very conservative record in Utah. I finally got the guy to admit the conservative legislature yanked Huntsman further to the right than he wanted to go. Someone else tweeted us both the same happened to Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, only towards the left. We will see Romney’s true colors now that he is free from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. True colors? I am guessing several shades of pink.

Speaking of, Huntsman’s campaign manager has already told the press Huntsman will endorse Romney. I bet he is aiming for the veep slot, but he might settle for a cabinet office. Dollars to donutts, if Romney loses in November, huntsman will try again in 2016 with an even more pompous attitude scolding us for listening to those warmongering religious zealots and not nominating him this year.

Heavily Photoshopped Olivia Munn Strips for PETA

2012-01-15T22:12:00.006-05:00

Olivia Munn is the latest vegan to strip it all off for PETA’s “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur’ campaign. I have a nagging suspicion the campaign is not going very well. Three reasons jump right out at me.

One…Olivia Munn. Really? Is there not any bigger stars in Hollywood willing to take off their clothes for the antifure cause? Animal rights activism has been a fad among starlets for a while. I cannot tell you how many television viewing experiences have been ruined by Sarah McLachlan informing me via commercial about abused pets that do not get adopted even after they have been rescued. Mary Louise-Parker has been grasping for any excuse to take her clothes off as much as possible before turning fifty. Hayden Panettire has an arrest warrant out for her in Japan because of her anti- whaling activities and she has been reduced to signing autographs at $30 a pop at comic book conventions. She would probably go naked, too. There is at least three celebrities that have no problem going to extremes who are far more famous than Munn.

Two, this is Munn’s second go around with PETA. Here first was in 2009 when she showed up to protest alleged elephant abuse by the Barnum & Bailey circus wearing leather boots. It is possible that all has been forgiven in the last three years. PETA has not complained to the PLO since they stopped using animals as suicide bombers, for instance. Or maybe PETA is just scraping the bottom of the barrel these days.

Finally, Munn has had the bejebus Photoshopped out of her on that photo. Munn is 31 and freckle-faced with laugh lines under her eyes, not to mention has a wee bit of a belly. None of that is a bad thing, mind you. She is nice looking. But that girl up there with the rabbit barely--no pun intended--even resembles Munn.

So why go to the trouble of hiring her with these three points in mind? Dare I say PETA is fading fast from what little legitimacy it had left? I would say the organization has jumped the shark, but it may be philosophically opposed to such an expression. They probably do not go for this, either:I go for it, though.

Stargate SG-1--"Cor Ai"

2012-01-15T15:08:00.002-05:00

“Cor Ai” is a compelling episode that deals with the question of redemption of one who has committed evil acts in the past, but is now reformed. The accused in question is Teal’c, who, while under the service of Apophis, murdered a civilian to serve as an example for the rest of a captured population. When the SG-1 team visit’s the planet, Teal’c is recognized and put on trial for the crime.

The subject of war crimes has been of particular interest to me. I have published a law review article on the subject of the Japanese enslaving women from occupied countries to serve as concubines. The “comfort women” system was never directly addressed during the war crimes trials. Survivors from the system were issued a formal apology decades later, but no restitution for their suffering. The United States bares some responsibility for that. Survivors filed suit under the Alien Tort Claims Act in federal court only to have it quashed in the name of Japanese sovereign immunity and the preservation of good diplomatic relations. There is general concern when dealing with war crimes that the change in political winds can render justice obsolete, particularly when there is a question whether it is justice or revenge sought.

The circumstances surrounding Teal’c’s crime are very similar to the ’comfort women” system. Years ago, Apophis lead an assault on the planet Cartago to gather hosts for Goa’uld larva instead of as concubines, but the principle is the same. The military is forcing civilians into service, personally violating them in the process, without fear of retribution in the future. The Japanese even thought they were blessed by their gods the same as the Jaffa.

The people resisted, so Apophis ordered Teal’c to kill a random person to show of power. Teal’c chose a one legged man to shoot dead. His young son, Hanno, witnessed the murder and vowed revenge. It is Hanno that recognizes Teal’c when SG-1 arrives. Teal’c agrees to stand trial for the murder. He even admits he did it. The murder of Hanno’s father is but one of many war crimes Teal’c committed, but never faced punishment for. He believes he ought to do so.

The story nearly backs itself into a philosophical corner with no way out. Not only does Teal’c want to stand trial, he argues against jack’s assertions that he was a0 just following orders and b) is a changed man now. There is an underlying feeling here that jack feels guilty over some of the things he has done in the line of duty for which he will not only never face punishment, but is hailed as a hero. But the bottom line is that jack killed soldiers in the line of duty--some of them fathers, no doubt--but Teal’c committed an atrocity on a civilian.

Hanno sees the difference as well. While he acknowledges SG-1’s testimony that Teal’c has reformed is valid, he nevertheless has committed a crime he has not been punished for. The matter stands even after it is established teal’c shot the one legged man as a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Apophis had ordered him to kill one or all of them would die. Hanno wants Teal’c executed. Teal’c cooperates with the sentence.

The resolution is the weakest part of the episode. The goa’uld return to capture more slaves. Teal’c proves himself reformed by defying the Jaffa and killing Shak’l. His actions prove his worthiness to Hanno, who finally admits teal’c is not the same man who murdered his father. Actions certainly speak louder than words, so teal’c fighting on behalf of Hanno’s people is more meaningful than his friends’ testimony, but is a Jaffa attack right before talc’s execution a wee bit contrived?

So “Cor Ai” ends on a weak note. It still produces some thought provoking questions about redemption versus paying the consequences for past actions. Hanno granted teal’c mercy that he does not necessarily deserve. Had we not already become emotionally attached to teal’c, that fact might be more obvious. I am going to award four stars even if the ending does peter out. The issues raised were right up my alley. Your mileage may vary.

Rating: **** (out of 5)

Jessica Alba

2012-01-15T00:36:00.002-05:00

Full Metal Jacket Reach Around #133

2012-01-14T16:33:00.002-05:00

It is time once again to round up all the bloggers gracious enough to link to me this week.

Proof Positive links to Luisana Lopilato, Kate Up ton, and Erica Durance.
Say Anything links to Luisana Lopilato, Kate Upton, and Erica Durance.
Pirate's Cove links to Blogroll Spotlight #127, and FMJRA #132, Emaa Stone.
Motor City Times links to Palmetto State Primary.
Sentry Journal--Alec Baldwin Used Potential NYC Mayoral Run as Bargaining Chip in Contract Negotiations.
Classic Liberal links to Erica Durance, Kate Upton, Kaley Cuoco, and Luisana Lopilato .
Randy's Roundtable links to Eliza Dushku and Alyssa Milano.
Fishersville Mike links Kaley Cuoco.
Atlas Shrugs links to the 2011 Zilla Award Winners.
American Perspective links to Judy Greer.
Adrienne's Corner links to Blogroll Spotlight #127.
The Other McCain links to Luisana Lopilato.
Reaganite Republican links to Kaley Cuoco.
Dell's Bottom Line adds the eye to his blogroll.

A sincere thank you to all who linked this week. If you linked to me in the last week, but I do not have you here, you unfortunately fell through the cracks of Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Sitemeter. Please drop me a note in the comments and I will update with your link.

Stargate SG-1--"Hathor"

2012-01-14T15:54:00.002-05:00

“Hathor” has a reputation as one of the worst episodes of Stargate SG-1. It is well earned. Even the writers have acknowledged its weak elements, some of which become a running joke in later episodes such as clip shows and retrospectives. My biggest lament in a wide field of bad aspects from which to choose is that Sam takes center stage yet again, but not only is she the main focus of a bad episode, the side character of Janet Frasier takes the lead before the incapacitated Jack is revived to take charge again. Come on, folks. Let Sam have her moment already!

Archeologists in Mexico uncover a sarcophagus with Egyptian hieroglyphics written on it. A woman emerges in a pseudo-wonder woman outfit, mistakes them for Goa’uld, and kills them when she discovers they are not. The surviving members of the archeological team, who believe the others were murdered by tomb robbers, send the sarcophagus to Daniel. Ergo, it winds up at the top secret Stargate Command. Sure, a bunch of nerdy academics must know all about Daniel’s top secret activities. Did I mention they know the sarcophagus can raise people from the dead? Except for the killed members of the archeological team. Screw them, I guess.

Hathor also makes her way to Stargate Command. What do these people do, dial information and ask where would be the best place to send a stolen resurrection chamber? “what? A secret mountain facility in Colorado Springs? Run by the Air Force? Thank you. Yes, I will look into Pike’s Peak while I am there. And the Olympic Training Center. No, I am not interested in restaurant recommendations. Look lady, I’ve been waiting 3,000 years to take over the world. Give me a break! Goodbye!” As you might expect, Hathor walks right in and takes over by controlling all the men with some pink pheromone gas stuff.

Hathor is the Egyptian god of fertility, inebriety, and music--sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll--so she can make every man fall under her spell. They do, like a bunch of drunken frat boys. Hathor plans to turn them all into a Jaffa army in order to take over Earth and everywhere else. The women are unaffected, so Sam and Frasier take the lead in thwarting Hathor’s plan. Teal’c, whose symbiote prevents him from falling under her control, joins in with the women.

There is a major battle, Janet seducing a guard, Jack being saved from a symbiote by the sarcophagus, the revelation Daniel fathered Hathor’s new batch of symbiotes (ew) and Hathor’s escape through the stargate which breaks the hold she had over the men. Sam gets to play the hero for about ten minutes in all that. It is not enough, but the rest helps establish Teryl Rothery as incredibly hot. Just sayin’.

“Hathor” is pretty bad. It is a bottle show taking place almost entirely inside Stargate Command, and it both looks and feels cheap. I did not get into the plot. The male actors hammed up the lovesick schoolboy thing to the point of camp. I do not even think Hathor is as stunning a woman as she is made out to be. I would skip this one. You would not be missing much.

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Adriana Lima

2012-01-14T15:53:00.001-05:00

Stargate SG-1--"The Nox"

2012-01-13T12:52:00.004-05:00

The albino Dee Snider up there is played by none other than Quark himself, Armin Shimmerman. He is the first of many Star Trek alumni to make an appearance on Stargate SG-1. For those suffering from Star Trek withdrawal, the plot of “The Nox” closely resembles that of TOS’ “Errand of Mercy,” wherein the heores attempt to protect a seemingly primitive, pacifist society only to learn in the end they are far more than they appear.

Under increased pressure from the Secretary of defense to bring back more useful technology from their expeditions, SG-1 travels to the planet Gaia on Teal’c’ advisement there is an animal native to the world that can turn invisible. After the SG-1 tram arrives on Gaia, the stargate disappears behind them and they are killed by Apophis and his men., who just happen to be there hunting the invisible creature as well. Great minds think alike, I guess.

The SG-1 team awakens in an Ewok village surprised to learn they are not dead. The village belongs to the Nox, primitives whom nevertheless have some medical skill that can apparently raise the dead, thereby making them a prime target for Goa’uld enslavement. The SG-1 team offers to capture Apophis and take him away in order to keep the Nox’ existence a secret, but they refuse to return SG-1’s weapons because of their pacifist beliefs. The Nox want them to go back to the stargate and leave forever.

In the interim, a captured Jaffa named Shak’l who was also returned from the dead kills a Nox woman and a young boy attempting to track down Apothis himself is killed. Both are brought back through the same process as SG-1 and Shak’l. They are vulnerable during the ceremony. Jack surmises Apothis’ plan was to kill the boy and attack the Nox during the revival process. The Sg-1 team builds bows and arrows to defend the Nox whether they want it or not.

During the battle, the Nox make apothis disappear before Jack can kill or capture him. The Nox refuse to suffer any further violence. They escort SG-1 back to the stargate with the promise they will bury it once they have returned to Earth. Before leaving, SG-1 learns the Nox live in a highly advanced city in the sky. The primitive village is merely a ruse to trick enemies. Had Sg-1 trusted the Nox instead of fighting apothis, a cooperative friendship could have been formed/. Alas, with the stargate buried, such cannot happen. Bridge burned, lesson learned.

I am not sure how much I buy into said lesson. There is something to be said for sending your enemy back home with his ears pinned back that feels much more effective than hiding. One wonders if the Nox might feel that way if they could not easily bring their victims of enemy attacks back from the dead. Suffering loss of innocent life but doing nothing about it is more cowardly than principled. The scenario brings up the question of where would pacifists be if there were not someone with a big stick behind them keeping either cheek from being slapped. I am in the mindset that one cannot be a pacifist until everyone else is, that is a discussion for another time.

A couple of the names used in ’The Nox” beat you over the head with their meanings. The Nox live on Gaia, which is a word for Earth, but has modern connection with the environmentalist movement. You know, the types who live in harmony with nature because of spirit animals and such. The Jaffa is named Shak’l, like shackle, to denote he is a slave to the Goa’uld. Of course, the Nox live in an invisible foating city, so they are not necessarily faeries of the forest. Considering Richard dean Anderson’s heavy involvement in environmental causes, the message Shak’l is a slave to the Goa’uld but the Nox are not slaves to extreme environmentalism is not there. You can make up your own mind.

“The Nox" originally aired as the eighth episode of the first season. It was rushed due to a tight production schedule, so several intended scenes were not in the aired cut and some dialogue from Apothis was edited out because the actor’s voice was not computer enhanced. The DVD episode not only corrects these issues, but moves it back in sequence to the thirteen episode. I am unsure whether there is any impact story arc wise. “The Nox” is contrived, preachy in parts, and very much “Errand of Mercy’ sans Kirk and, but it is still difficult to fault a whole lot. It reminds me of something TNG would have done in its first season before the show found its own voice.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Gillian Jacobs

2012-01-13T10:44:00.003-05:00

Part of The Other McCain's Rule 5 Sunday.

Formspring Question #337--Romney Rah Rah Edition

2012-01-12T18:03:00.004-05:00

If Romney becomes the GOP nominee, as it looks likely he will be, are you going to blog on his behalf?

I imagine blogging on the 2012 race will be much like it was in 2008. I had no enthusiasm for John McCain, so I mostly wrote about reasons why Barack Obama would be a bad choice for president. Unless Mitt Romney can impress me greatly in the general election, I doubt I can find a way to root for him other than his not being Obama.

Generally speaking, that is what resonates with voters anyway. Most people are inclined to vote against an opponent they do not like more than they are to enthusiastically support his opponent. How many candidates have you ever been really psyched up to vote for, particularly on the national level? Better question--have you ever been enthusiastic about one tat could win? The first presidential ballot I ever cast was for Bob Dole. He did not send my heart to fluttering. I have had low expectations since.

Obviously, I am not much of a cheerleader when it comes to politicians. Blogs that do little more than cut and paste campaign talking points are incredibly boring and uncreative, even if I am going to vote for the candidate in question. You will not see much of anything in that vein here at any point.

Formspring Question #336--Guilt by Association Edition

2012-01-12T17:12:00.001-05:00

Rick Santorum’s grandfather (with the big hands) he likes to talk about…was a communist! I don’t know if there is a question here so much as I just think this is hilariously funny given how much he brings him up.

I love it when someone expresses a sentiment like this one. Guilt by familial association. The dumbest one that comes into recent memory was that Prescott Bush did business with pre-war Germany, therefore Bush 43 was evil because he may have reaped the benefits of those businesses somewhere down the line. Gustav Schawarzenegger was a member of the Nazi Party, so Arnold cannot be governor of California. Those are just the Godwin rule examples. Family does not have to be involved. Anyone remember the 1983 photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein that “proved” the war in Iraq was…well, I do not know. A conspiracy over oil of some description, I guess.

Meanwhile, not only do progressives get a free pass for their familial and friendly connections, Robert Byrd was a recruiter for the KKK.

Why do you find it amusing Rick Santorum speaks fondly of his grandfather when the two have political differences. Should Santorum disavow his grandfather for being a communist? Or are you expressing amusement Santorum sees wisdom in a relative on the opposite side of the spectrum--being hypocritical, in other words? Whichever the case, you might be taking politics way too seriously. Were you one of those who took Barack Obama’s marching orders seriously and lectured your conservative relatives over thanksgiving dinner to vote for him?

There is way more important things in life than progressive politics, and holding someone in contempt for the past activities of a relative is ridiculous.

I suppose you are in intellectually company, though. I used to see this mindset back in my apologetics days. Skeptics constantly brought up the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Crusades, Manifest Destiny, and slavery as an indictment of Christianity to the point I had even heard it suggested denominations should sell off its assets in reparations. Who in the world cries crocodile tears over the Inquisition in 2012/ No one worth paying attention to, in my book. Then again, how much of a push would it take for people to be charged and punished with the “crimes” of their ancestors? It is probably not so far fetched we should not pay attention to people with the mindset to push us in that direction.

Formspring Question #335--Eat, Drink, and Breathe Edition

2012-01-12T16:56:00.003-05:00

What do you do for a living?

Nothing. I inherited the stock portfolio my mother inherited from my stepfather after he died. I have typed away at various efforts of the great American novel in order to justify my existence, but otherwise, I jusy fill space.

If any troll wants to dismiss me as an over privileged brat with no clue how the real world works, I request you roll up a big sheet of paper into a dunce cap and go sit in the corner. Click on the Health and Personal tags if you need further incentive to do so.

I am fortunate, in the bitterest of ways, that others in my life wore less optimistic my health would hold out than I was. Small comfort, that.

Stargate SG-1--"Fire and Water"

2012-01-12T13:25:00.002-05:00

“Fire and Water” helps establish that Daniel, who is not comfortably a part of the military culture, is nevertheless considered an integral part of SG-1. The episode also offers up the opportunity to introduce another weird alien. Since I am struggling to come up with anything else to add as part of an introduction, how about we get on with it?

Jack, Sam, and Teal’c return through the stargate hours ahead of schedule, in shock, and without Daniel. They report that Daniel is dead. He was burned in a fire. The only way they survived is by submerging themselves in a nearby ocean. Daniel is given a memorial service with full military honors. The rest of the team is taken off active duty for a week while they deal with their grief. They continue to feel a nagging suspicion that Daniel is still alive, with the notion becoming much stronger around water.

It is not until the second act we learn Daniel is alive. He is being held captive by an aquatic alien named Nem. Nem forces Daniel to translate some cuneiform fron ancient Babylon in an effort to uncover what happened to his wife, Omoroca. Daniel has no way of doing that, as he futilely explains to Nem. Much of ancient history has been lost to time and fate. It takes time to even get from nem what Omoroca even is. When he does learn Omoroca is Nem’s wife, empathy renews his dedication, particularly as it becomes more Omoroca opposed a goa’uld in Babylon and was killed for it.

Back on earth, it is slowly but surely established the remainder of SG-1 are suffering from repressed memories. Under hypnosis, Sam recalls meeting Nem on the planet, them being captured to implant false memories of Daniel burning to death, and a mental prohibition to never return. Knowing all this to be true, they do. In the interim, Daniel has given up believing all the knowledge he can recall off the top of his head can help determine Omoroca’s fate, so he agrees to submit to the memory device in order to dig it out. The procedure is risky enough for Nem to not want to do it, but Daniel insists. The procedure extracts the knowledge that Omoroca did die at the hands of a goa’uld. The SG-1 team arrives shortly thereafter to retrieve Daniel. They leave in peace with nem.

I liked the emphasis through on memory and emotional connection. Nem has been waiting 4,000 years to learn what happened to his wife. He knows good and well she is dead, but he needs closure even after all this time. All that time not having dulled his love for her. Daniel is willing to risk using the memory extracting device, something even Nem does not want to do, because he empathizes with Nem. His wife, Sha’re, has suffered an as yet unknown fate by the Goa’uld, too. In many ways, SG-1’s reaction to Daniel’s ‘death” is even more poignant. Jack in particular is interesting. All three have supposedly been conditioned to not want to return to the planet, and when he suggests it, Sam and Teal’c forcefully and in unison insist no to a return trip. Jack overcomes the conditioning, though it is unspoken, because of his connection to Daniel. Sam does not come around until hypnosis brings out the truth and she breaks down when she realizes they left Daniel behind.

“Fire and Water” is quite good. I knew good and well daniel was not dead throughout the first act, yet I was drawn into the idea anyway because of how well the characters’ grief was presented. These days, I look back on the fad of “retrieving” repressed memories as a pop psychology fad from the ’90’s, but I can appreciate nostalgia for the dumb stuff, too. While repressed memories are a major plot element, it does not detract much from the story.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Kaley Cuoco

2012-01-12T09:56:00.002-05:00

The general consensus is Kaley Cuoco bombed hosting the People's Choice Awards last night. I did not watch, so I cannot weigh in. Perhaps it is the less said the better on this Kaley Cuoco Day.

Formspring Question #334--Dalek Dilemma Edition

2012-01-11T15:28:00.006-05:00

What invasion of a Doctor Who villain would you be most useless against?

Daleks. It is difficult to aim for the eye stalks. Even then, all I could do is blind them. Beyond that, I would at a loss other than run like I was being shot at.

Because I would be.

Formspring Question #333--Munnday Morning Quarterback Edition

2012-01-11T15:08:00.006-05:00

You've recently posted some Olivia Munn pictures. Do you think she is hot or is it her geek appeal?

I am sure having a geek fan base helps a lot, but she is above average looking. Not exactly Hollywood glamorous. More like a hot prom date. that is still pretty nice, though.

I do not think she is much of a geek anyway, so she has to rely on something. Her career has been as a model, actress, journalist, and sidekick eye candy without an intentional geek theme. That just happens to be the side of bread her butter is on. I get the impression she is not too happy about it, in fact.

Stargate SG-1--"Bloodlines"

2012-01-11T14:15:00.006-05:00

“Bloodlines" sees SG-1 return to Chulak in order to help Teal’c rescue his son from bonding with a Goa’uld larva and bring said larva back to the CIA for study. Mission priorities are in that order. This is the first time we meet talc’s family and the recurring character of Bra’tac, talc’s mentor. The episode deals primarily with the weight of Teal’c’s sacrifice in betraying the Goa’uld, but there are other subtle moments for the other main characters.

After a failed experiment to safely remove Tral’c’s symbiote so it can be studied, he suggests a mission to Chulak to steal a symbiote that has not yet been bonded with a Jaffa. Hammond nixes the idea. Jack agrees because of the risks, but notes his refusal appears to have unusually bothered the otherwise stoic Teal’c. teal’c confides in jack that he abandoned his family in order to join SG-1. His son is about to come of age when he will be bonded with a symbiote. Teal’c does not want his son, Rya’c, to become a slave to the Goa’uld. Jack empathizes, though Charlie is not invoked. Hammond eventually relents.

On Chulak, SG-1 discovers the teal’c family home has been burned down. According to Bra’tac, who greets teal’c warmly, his family have become outcasts due to his betrayal. They now live in a primitive, budget saving village . Jack, enhancing the paternal protection notion, orders sam and Daniel back to the stargate while he joins Teal’c and Bra’tac in rescuing Rya’c from bonding.

Teal’c interrupts the bonding ceremony. His wife, Drey’auc, is none too happy. Not only have the family’s fortunes dropped, but Rya’c has contracted scarlet fever. Only a larva could save him. Jack suggests taking him to earth for treatment. Rya’c takes a turn for the worse on the journey back, forcing Teal’c to give his symbiote to his son even though it will cost him his life.

Meanwhile, Sam and Daniel watch as a group of priests arrive through the stargate with a container full of larva for the temple. They follow in order to steal one of the larva. They capture on of the little buggers, but afterwards, Daniel has a crisis of conscience. He wants to destroy then tire container so the larva cannot enslave anyone. Sam says it would be immoral. To kill them would make him no better than the Goa’uld. Daniel seems convinced for the briefest of moments, then opens fire, killing all the larva. The personal pain of losing his wife to a larva motivated him to do so. Sam says nothing about his act. Presumably, ashe understands.

The two meet up with the others in time to offer up the symbiote they took to Teal’c before he expires. He says goodbye to his family, whom he orders to say he kidnapped them against their will, and bra’tac, who helps SG-1 make it to the stargate. Through his actions, Bra’tac establishes himself as an ally for the future.

‘Bloodlines” is a fine example of Stargate SG-1’s strengths, that is to say character driven, rather than plot driven stories. If I have any complaints about the episode, it is that Sam does not get a moment to shine. Teal’c, jack, and Daniel’s actions are motivated by emotional connections to family. Sam is just along for the ride. In fact, there are only two proactive bits for her. One is when she reaches into the tank to grab a larva. It is played for laughs. The other is her appeal to the better side of Daniel’s nature to not kill the larva. She is ignored, and says nothing at any point later over her concerns being dismissed. This even though the next scene with Rya’c’s life being saved by a larva demonstrates they can have a possible benefit. I understand sam is going to become a much stronger, more interesting character, but she is really trampled on in the early going.She is still about about nine layers of awesome, though. she is not the main emphasis of “Bloodlines,’ so I cannot hold her treatment to harshly against the rest of the episode.

Rating; *** (out of 5)

Eliza Dushku

2012-01-11T11:58:00.001-05:00

Five Minutes 'til Doomsday

2012-01-10T18:39:00.006-05:00

No, not a rod Serling scripted episode of The Twilight Zone. It is an even bigger flight of fancy. Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to five minutes until midnight. Midnight is, of course, the end of everything. Brace yourselves for some strange alarmist ideas and some even stranger praise for unlikely allies in creating a new utopia.

I have a difficult time taking the doomsday clock seriously. In the past, the hands were moved closest to midnight after an American nuclear test in 1953 and again in 1984 when arms proliferation talks between the united states and the Soviet Union were not progressing to the BAS’ liking. The Cuban Missile Crisis, as a for instance, did not seem to raise any alarm bells. The furthest away we have been from midnight was in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet union. So the world was seventeen minutes away from total annihilation when former soviet republics broke off and took nukes with them to do with what they would. So, yeas, the Bas struggles a bit for perspective and relevancy in predicting areas of trouble.

I will give the BAS some props for moving the hand closer for 2012. It expresses concern for rogue states gaining nuclear weapons and the possibility of their use in regional conflicts. The BAS also raises awareness of outdated nuclear power facilities as evidenced by the potentially calamitous effects of the tsunami on Japan’s Fukushima reactor last year. Both are legitimate concerns and issues I would expect atomic scientists to work towards resolving.

That said, why does the BAS spend five paragraphs of its published argument for moving the Doomsday clock’s hands five minutes to midnight and eighth paragraphs--including six bullet point suggestions for policy changes--on global warming? The policy suggestions are quite arbitrary at the moment, as the BAS not only declares the current political processes are currently inadequate to make the necessary changes, but expresses optimism in the Arab Spring, the occupy movement, and the protests in Russia to overthrow the old order and replace it with a much more agreeable one.

Yes, the Arab spring and Occupy movement. The Egyptian military and police car pooping hippies are going to keep humanity from destroying itself. You cannot make this stuff up, folks. The Arab Spring praise is particularly ironic considering the use of nuclear weapons by unstable Middle East countries is a specific concern expressed early in the paper! Sheesh! The fantasy of a progressive utopia turns even nuclear scientists into idiots. Like I said, the doomsday Clock has no real relevancy. Grasping onto the hot button issue--no pun intended--of global warming just make it even more laughable.

But do not laugh too much. The BAS is pushing for three major policy changes. One, stronger global warming treaties. Two, regulating the coal industry out of existence. Three, investing all conceivable amounts of money into the research and development of alternative energy sources without offering any guidance towards what those sources might be or their effectiveness. Sound familiar? They are three big tenets in Barack Obama’s energy policy--and that is not enough for the BAS.

Formspring Question #332--Greatest Gater Edition

2012-01-10T16:15:00.002-05:00

I know it is early going yet, but fav stargate character? Would be interested to know if your opinion changes from now until the end of your reviews :)

Jack. Cynical attitude, sarcastic wit, but with a personal moral code that does not necessarily line up with the consensus.

He sounds vaguely familiar...

New Hampshire Primary Predictions

2012-01-10T12:12:00.002-05:00

Continuing with my primary and caucus predictions, I am less certain about New Hampshirew than I was iowa, but here goes my best guess:

1. Mitt Romney
2. Ron Paul
3. Jon Huntsman
4. Rick Santorum
5. Newt Gingrich
6. Rick Perry

Mitt Romney is definitely going to come in first. If he wins with less than 30% of the vote, I would be shocked.

I am fuzzier on the second place finisher. I was torn between Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman. When it comes down to it, Paul’s rabid supporters combined with the New Hampshite idendence streak will make him a fairly distant second.

New Hampshire is going to wind up the best Huntsman will ever do, and the best is going to be third place. Something tells me he will hang on at least through Florida. Maybe he shares Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 fantasy he can turn the race around in the Sunshine state. More likely, he is trying to prove his worth as a running mate. For all I know, he assumes the eventual nominee will lose to Barack Obama and is utilizing Romney’s strategy of getting his name out there for a 2016 bid. Whatever Huntsman is thinking, 2012 is not his year.

Rick Santorum’s Iowa surge will be felt, but I doubt his social conservatism will play to very large numbers in New Hampshire.

Newt Gingrich is in the process of imploding. Better now than in the general election, I guess. Though I am disappointed.

Rick Perry gave up on New Hampshire in favor of South Carolina. He will wind up at or near the bottom in both regardless.

Stargate SG-1--"The Torment of Tantalus"

2012-01-10T11:03:00.002-05:00

“The Torment of Tantalus” alludes to the ancient Greek myth of Tantalus, who could never have that for which he was reaching. From this myth, we get the word “tantalize.” The title refers to Daniel’s quandary, but the episode’s main plot focuses on escaping from a world in which the stargate’s dial home device no longer works. There is lots of foreshadowing and, lo and behold, Jack suggests a MacGyverism that allows the team to escape.

Daniel discovers Pentagon film footage from 1945 depicting early military experiments on the stargate. They got it to working, and the footage shows a scientist named Ernest Littlefield (Played by Stargate: Atlantis‘ Robert McGillion) traveling through the stargate and being lost when it shuts off. No effort to retrieve him was successful, so an official story that he died in a lab explosion was concocted. Daniel is able to extrapolate the address of the planet to which Littlefield traveled. Taking along his now in her seventies fiancee, Catherine, he and Sg-1 go to the planet in search of him.

On the planet, they discover Littlefield is still alive, though a wee bit off his rocker. He has spent the last 52 years living in an abandoned castle on a stormy rock cliff while studying strange alien writing and devices. In particularly, there is a room in the castle which houses a device which projects representations of atoms and the and basic elements. There are four types of writings on each of the four walls, signifying four alien races met here. Daniel becomes obsessed with the idea of translating all of it in order to determine its meaning of life implications. There are two complications. One, the DHD was destroyed some time ago and a huge storm is about to push the castle into the sea.

Sam believes she can get the DHD working by utilizing the power of the atom projecting device. Daniel objects, but is overruled, but it does not matter because the plan does not work anyway. Jack suggests, in full macGyver mode, harnessing the lightning. That does work, and the team goes home with the elderly lovebirds in tow. They are unable to return, presumably because the stargate is now buried under storm debris, but they have Littlefield’s notes from fifty-two years of research. They are untranslatable due to no alien Rosetta Stone, but the notes keep the escapade from being a total loss.

There are a few points about ‘The Torment of Tantalus” which botther me. Littlefield himself is the biggest. For a man who love for Catherine sustained him for fifty years, he3 is quite subdued when he sees her again after all those decades. What did he eat for all this time? No one else is on the planet but him, so he had to sustain himself by his own wit. One would guess he fished, but who knows? The plot complication is way too convenient as well. A storm just happens to destroy the castle a few hors after SG-1 arrives even though it has withstood for at least fifty-two years? I know television drama has to be somewhat contrived, but that stretches credibility to the breaking point.

“The Torment of Tantalus” is a neat idea and is done in an effectively moody setting with the isolated castle and stormy setting, but the story is terribly unfocussed. The decades long reunion between Ernest and Catherine should have had much more emotion. The SG-1 team risked taking a seventy year old woman through the stargate in the hopes her true love is still alive, for crying out loud. (It would have been cruel if they had found his skeleton dangling from where he had hung himself decades before in despair. They could bring two corpses back after catherine suffers a heart attack at the sight.) but the name of the episode, not to mention the dramatic point we are to focus upon, is that Daniel does not want to lose the chance to study the alien writings, even if it means risking the castle falling into the sea before he is done. Both are worthy concerns that could resonate emotionally, but with them both crammed in, neither works as well as it should. Pity. Not a bad episode, but it tries to do too much.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Anne Hathaway

2012-01-10T09:57:00.002-05:00

Formspring Question #331--Not in the Hunt-sman Edition

2012-01-09T21:09:00.003-05:00

Do you think Huntsman would have a better chance in a general, as he has not had to vere as far right as Romney? (yes, I know it doesn't matter as he will never win, but in any other year he would be the kind of candidate the party loves.

Interesting that someone would ask this question. I ran across Is Jon Huntsman the Future of the Republican Party? last night and contemplated a post on it, but never could nail down what I wanted to say. The article is not a careful analysis of the ideological changes in republican politics, but another of James Joyner’s frequent laments that Christians are allowed to vote. I would advise reading the piece, if for no other reason that it begins with how the republican Party has been taken over by religious zealots and warmongers--Joyner’s exact terms--who used to have the good sense to accept whatever red meat a candidate threw them in campaign speeches, but shut up when such promises needed to be ignored in governing.

Those religious zealots and warmongers could not stop good presidential candidates like Bush 41, Bob Dole, and John McCain--reelection/election losers all, as Joyner neglects to mention--but *sniff* they have kept his beloved Jon Huntsman out of the running.

The article does not even get to the virtues, such as they are, of Huntsman until the penultimate paragraph. By that time, you are wondering why joyner is not a centrist Democrat. Of course, the answer is that he is eaten up with the same mindset as Bill maher--get rid of the Christians so everyone will agree with me!

Meh. I did not feel like writing a whole post in response to that. It destroys itself, really. Religious zealots and warmongers have destroyed the country club elitist atmosphere of the Republican Party? Quit listening to social conservatives so we can nominate more winners like Bush 41, dole, and McCain instead of those losers like Reagan and Bush 43? Huntsman could lead the way to the republican Party becoming…well, Democrats.

I have have said Huntsman is not much of a republican and been soundly trashed for it, but I ask you--if you did not know better and saw him in a debate among Democrat presidential candidates, what would tip you off that he did not belong there? I say next to nothing.

All that said, would Huntsman have a better chance in a general election? No. He has no charisma, displays an open contempt for voters who do not understand how awesome his ideas are, and is an all around snob. There is a reason he is barely registered as a blip on the radar. He is a bored rich guy who cannot stand for his legacy to be governor of Utah and his sense of entitlement to rule over the unwashed masses shows. He would not have to run to the right in the general? Huntsman would quit the race if it meant running to the right.

I am skeptical that Mitt Romney has been forced to run to the right, either. He skipped the Iowa straw poll back in the summer to keep above the fray, then won Iowa last week regardless. When he makes comments about opposing gay marriage or believing Roe v. Wade should be overturned, everyone in the room has to smother snickers because no one thinks he means it. I sure as heck do not, and neither does any of the left leaning medias. Like McCain in 2008, they will not lay a glove on him until he gets the nomination.

Formspring Question #330--Browncoat Brownout Edition

2012-01-09T20:37:00.003-05:00

So, you ended up reviewing every episode of Firefly as a 3*. Since your rating are for within the series themselves, shouldn't there be a 1* and a 5* for the best and worst? Which was your fav/least fav?

When I agreed to blog, I was told there would be no math.

Technically speaking, since all ratings are relative to the series, half the episodes should have above average scores and half below. Here is the problem with that--I began awarding strs to first run, prime time series that were still producing new episodes, so I did not have the entire series in mind when rating individual episodes. The math could not work out, so the star system worked on a standard that ignores the series as a whole:

* = Poor.
**= Bad, but with a redeeming factor of some sort.
***= Solid, watchable episode, but nothing special.
****= Something kicks it up a notch.
*****= Excellent

Making the star ratings were relative to series was not an exact science. How exactly do you compare episodes of The West Wing to Lost, The Big Bang Theory, and 24? it maybe had to define, but surely one understands a four star episode of one series is not the same as a four star of another. For simplicity’s sake, I have kept the same system rolling through the daily reviews even if I have seen every episode of the series and probably could get the below/above average ratio worked out correctly.

In my added defense, I had never seen Firefly before, so I had no preconceived notions about any episodes. I could have watched them all before writing any reviews for them, but I did not figure anyone was going to get uptight about the numbers. Since that has happened anyway, here is the star ratings with the whole series in mind:

Serenity ****
The Train Job: ***
Bushwhacked; **
Shinbig; ***
Safe: ***
Our Mrs. Reynolds: * (Least favorite)
Jaynestown; ****
Out of Gas; ***
Ariel: ***
War Stories: ***** (Favorite)
Trash; **
The Message: ***
Heart of Gold: ***
Objects in Space : ***

Is that satisfactory, or have I opened a whole new can of worms?

Stargate SG-1--"Thor's Hammer"

2012-01-09T09:41:00.001-05:00

“Thor’s Hammer” is a pseudo-introduction to Sg-1’s eventual allies against the Goa’uld, the Asgard The Asgard are one of the few races of Stargate SG-1 with whom I am already familiar. Mt general science fiction geekiness demands appreciation for little grey aliens. I say it is a pseudo-introduction because we do not get to see the little buggers in person until the second season, so we will get to them in about three weeks or so.

A couple other interesting points of note. One, “Thor‘s Hammer“ was written by Katharyn Powers. She has not exactly set the woods on fire thus far with her scripts for this show, but “Thor‘s Hammer“ is a definite improvement. Hopefully, she has turned the corner as a writer, because I still have to sit through nine more of her efforts. The other point of interest is that James Earl Jones provides the voice of a reptillian creature called an Unas. You might think hearing that baritone voice of his coming from yet another intimidating character might be cliché by now, but it is still awesome thirty-five years after he first voiced Darth Vader.

After comparing Egyptian and Norse mythology, Daniel surmises the Thor of Norse legend was an alien posing as a godd who opposed the Goa’uld. Perhaps he and his race are still out there and can prove to be valuable allies. Daniel’s theory is strengthened by Teal’c’s anecdote the planet Cimmeria is banned by the Goa’uld because any of them who have gone there have never returned. Cimmeria is symbolized by a hammer, the weapon used by Thor.

The SG-1 team travels to Cimmeria to meet a mocking crowd of humans. They are scanned by a strange device erected in front of the stargate. Upon being scanned, Teal’c’s simbiote becomes a target of the scan. Jack tries to knock Teal’c out of the beam’s way, but they both disappear. Sam and Daniel head to a local settlement to find out if anyone knows what has happened to their friends and how to get them back.

Jack and RTeal’c awaken in a cave. A recording from a holographic Viking. The recording informs then they are Goa’uld and therefore condemned. The only way to exit the cave is through a device called Thor’s Hammer which will kill the Goa’uld symbiote. Jack can make it out safely, but Teal’c is forever stuck there. It does not matter. Jack refuses to leave Teal’c anyway. On the outside, Sam and Daniel discover the same explanation in a less hostile manner from Kendra, a former Goa’uld who fell into the same trap as Teal’c, but survived the walk through Thor’s Hammer to eventually be free of her symbiote. The revelation perks Daniel’s attention. He believes the device can save his wife, sha’re. Kendra takes Sam and Daniel on the journey to the cave.

Inside the cave, Jack and Teal’c encounter an Unas, the original hosts for the Goa’uld. Teal’c’s weapon is useless in the cave, but bullets do the job of killing the Unas just fine--or so it seems. The creature has amazing regenerative powers, so they wind up being stalked by the creature. Teal’c has a final confrontation with the Unas, throwing it into Thor’s Hammer, just as sam, Daniel, and Kendra show up. The only way for teal’c to escape is to destroy Thor’s Hammer blocking the exit. Danierl objects, because he would be destroying the only means he knows of to save sha’re, but jack orders him to blow up the device, which he reluctantly does. The SG-1 team leaves Cimmeria, but leaves behind a gift box in hopes of building a friendship with the Asgard.

I am impressed Powers could pull off an entertaining episode. This must have been a writers room effort wherein everyone else had all the input and she was stuck typing out the script. For a man in suit costume on a relatively low budget, the Unas is an impressive villain. Bonus points for Jones voicing it, of course. Good episode all around.

It was kind of cruel for Jack to order Daniel, who is heartbroken over his wife, to be the one to destroy Thor’s Hammer instead of doing it himself or ordering Sam to do so, but I assume it was a way to prove Daniel’s loyalty to Teal’c after the Jaffa offered to stay imprisoned in the cave in order to keep Thor’s Hammer around and save Sha’re. a tough moment to watch for the emotionally invested.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Alyssa Milano

2012-01-09T07:51:00.001-05:00

Stargate SG-1--"Cold Lazarus"

2012-01-08T08:31:00.009-05:00

“Cold Lazarus” is a compelling, often very emotionally moving exploration of Jack’s past. Impressively, the story works well with what is usually a predictable and tired science fiction concept--that of a doppelganger of a main character. But ‘Cold Lazarus” handles the concept in a unique manner. It is quite good, aside from what can only be intentionally humorous visual innuendo that does not quite fit the mood of the story.

The SG-1 team visit’s a desert planet littered blue shattered blue crystals scattered about. Jack, moving off alone, becomes intrigued by a crystal that knocks him out with an energy blot. The bolt seems to take a special interest in jack as it becomes a replica of him. Meanwhile, the rest of the team finds an intact crystal and decides to take it back to earth for study. They leave the planet, unknowingly taking Crystal Jack with them.

On Earth, Crystal Jack goes through jack’s photographs of his wife Sara, and son, Charlie, from a cigar box in his locker. Crystal Jack uses the photos to find his old house for some purpose. Simultaneously, we learn from eavesdropping on a conversation between Daniel and Sam that Charlie accidentally killed himself playing with jack’s gun years ago. Jack blamed himself, and he and sara split up soon after. He has never forgiven himself.

Crystal Jack returns to the old O’Neill home to awkwardly “see’ Charlie. Sara and her father are both distraught over his visit. Crystal Jack does not understand what he is doing wrong, but as he empathically reads the love that used to permeate the family home and the sadness that resides there now, he begins to understand the foreign to him concept of permanent death. He and sara go to a park to talk more. Crystal Jack begins suffering attacks of some sort, so she takes him to the hospital.

Meanwhile, the real jack returns from the planet. It takes a while to convince SG-1 he is the real deal, but in the process they also learn the crystals are living, intelligent beings who will die if not returned up. By die, I mean explode and spread deadly radiation. They figure out Crystal Jack went to see Sara and learn she is now at the hospital with him.

The real Jack encounters the dying Crystal Jack at the hospital. Crystal Jack explains everything. Years ago, the crystals accidentally killed a Jaffa. In revenge, the Goa’uld gathered them all together and shattered them to pieces. This one attacked Jack believing him to be a Jaffa, but once he realized his mistake, wanted to make it up to him by alleviating Jack’s pain. Realizing the loss of his son hurt more than anything, Crystal Jack wanted to bring the two closer. He was not aware that death to humans is a permanent loss, but assures Jack he carries his son with him forever in his memories. Crystal jack shifts to look like Charlie and the two walk off hand in hand to return to the planet.

Let us get this out of the way:The crystals are blatant phallic symbols. I would like to think the resemblance is unintentional, but the two photos I have posted above occur before any of the Jack and Charlie moments so as not to break the hold on the viewer’s emotion, so I think the images are meant to be comic relief. It is fine, I suppose, but there are scenes of Teal’c learning about the outside world by watching television which are far more amusing without the addition of juvenile jokes about phallus. Just my $ .02 worth.

Otherwise, I really like “Cold Lazarus.” The powers that be mange to create a compelling episode without using an over the top villain while still demonstrating the cruelty of the Goa’uld. We are given a lot of insight into jack, including some hint that Sara still loves him even though she blames him for Charlie’s death and would like to reconcile. It is Jack who seems unable to resume his life with her. Fans care far more for a Jack/Sam hook up, so this idea must go by the wayside eventually. I hope it does so well rather than is unceremoniously dropped. One is left to wonder why Sg-1 considers the second Jack a fraud without rounding up the first one, too, just in case, but that is the only big flaw I can find with “Cold Lazarus.” It is one of the best episode since the pilot.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Emma Stone

2012-01-08T06:23:00.001-05:00

Full Metal Jacket Reach Around #132

2012-01-07T10:53:00.006-05:00

It is time once again to round up all the bloggers gracious enough to link to me this week.

Say Anything links to Olivia Wilde and Jewel Staite.
Proof Positive links to Olivia Wilde and Jewel Staite.
Sentry Journal links to My Predictions for 2012.
Pirate's Cove links to FMJRA #131, Blogroll Spotlight #126, and Jewel Staite.
Motor City Times links to A New Year is Upon Us.
American Power links to Kaley Cuoco.
Adrienne's Corner links to My Iowa Caucus Predictions.
Randy's Roundtable links to Kate Upton and Erica durance.
Fishersville Mike links to Kaley Cuoco.
Nice Deb links to My Iowa Caucus Predictions.
Teresamerica links to Predictions for 2012.
American Perspective links to Judy Greer.
So Kaley Cuoco links to Kaley Cuoco.
The Gormogons links to My Iowa Caucus Predictions.
Maggie's Notebook links to Kaley Cuoco.
Reaganite Republican links to Luisana Lopilato and Jewel Staite.

A sincere thank you to all who linked this week. If you linked to me in the last week, but I do not have you here, you unfortunately fell through the cracks of Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Sitemeter. Please drop me a note in the comments and I will update with your link.

Stargate SG-1--"Brief Candle"

2012-01-07T09:25:00.007-05:00

"Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow,
a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing."

--Macbeth: Act V, Scene V

In case there are any purists out there bothered by such things, there is a difference in episode order from the original airing and the DVD sets. Working under the assumption the network interferes with scheduling, but the production staff has control over the DVD releases, I am going to go with the DVD order. It make not make a significant difference, but I have to go with one or the other, and the DVD order is it.

Literary references and rear end covering aside, “Brief Candle” is pretty awful. It not only features a reset button that would be considered notorious even for Star Trek: Voyager, the plot revolves around nanotechnology, which is an all to convenient ploy device for the latter seasons of the accursed show. I will give Stargate SG-1 some credit. “Brief Candle” aired in August 1997 before Seven of Nine’s Borg nanotech became the escape clause of the week for VOY, so some effort was made to be original. I hope nanotech is not going to be a big part of the series. Or too many reset buttons, for that matter.

The SG-1 team visits Argos, a planet that has been settled by what looks like misplaced ancient Greeks. There is a statue of Pelops in the same temple as the stargate. Daniel and teal’c surmise that Pelops was a Goa’uld who visited ancient Greece and took people for some mysterious purpose. Argos appears to be a paradise, and when one of the beautiful women takes a liking to Jack, he spends the night with her. The woman, Kynthia, is played by Bobbie Phillips, a native of Charleston, South Carolina. Kynthia is one of the few roles she has played without a nude scene. Yes, she is one of those actresses, but we still claim her down here.Phillips was previously seen at the Eye in War of the Coprophages" for The X-Files.

I will keep this short. The Argosians have a disease that causes them to live their entire lives within the span of a hundred days. Now Jack has contracted the disease. Sam says he contracted the disease by eating the food, but I have to wonder if the original idea was not for it to be a sexually transmitted disease and the powers that be chickened out over the implications. Whichever the case, Sam discovers the disease is actually caused by nanotechnology, but cannot find a way to stop it. On Argos, Jack is quickly becoming an ornery old man who inspires the Argosians to destroy the statue of Pelops ovr what he has done to them. They do so. In the process, Jack discovers the transmitter that controls the nanotech inside the statue. With it turned off --yes, a literal reset button--everyone returns to normal. Jack’s immune system will revert him back to his normal age within a week.

Everyone appears to have either specialized knowledge in “Brief candle’ or acts like a complete idiot. Daniel knows how to deliver a baby. When did they start covering that in anthropology classes? Sam appears to know more about genetics and the immune system that does Dr. Frasier. How is that? The biggest problem is Jack, who sleeps with someone from another planet. Granted, he was drunk and Krynthia is human, but he does not know how the environment might have effected her versus a woman from Earth. None of the other Sg-1 team members made any effort to stop him, either. Very, very dumb.

“Brief Candle” is another dud from Katharine Powers. you may have blotted out "Emancipation" from your mind. I do not blame you. She has written ten more for the series. I dread them all. As with her past efforts like TNG's "Code of Honor" and the aforementioned "Emancipation," Powers writes women as sex objects. Tasha Yar and Sam were (sex) slaves in their respective episode. Krynthia is just a hedonistic bimbo. Draw your own conclusion as to whether that is an improvement. powers' mindset continues to baffle me.

There is nothing to recommend “Brief Candle” other than the fairly good make up job done on Richard Dean Anderson as he ages more after each scene cutaway. But that is too superficial a reason to watch the episode. It is mindless, illogical filler. It is way too early in the season for that sort of thing, particularly when it is this bad.

Rating: ** (out of 5)

Laetitia Casta

2012-01-07T08:09:00.000-05:00

Is Amy Pond Not Long for This or Any Other World?

2012-01-06T23:56:00.001-05:00

Karen Gillan will be departing Doctor Who in the middle of the next series, but will the powers that be kill off her character? Probably not, but they are hyping the possibility anyway:

"I have known for ages that I am leaving," she said. "It's such a massive relief that it is out and I can speak freely about it. I'm back next year for a few episodes but it's not actually confirmed when I go." When she was asked if she knows how she'll be written out and if Amy Pond could die, she said, "I don't know, it could be possible."

I tend to doubt there would be a tragic fate for Amy Pond during the series that would commemorate Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary, but showrunner Steven Moffat has a habit of tugging on ye olde heartstrings, so who knows?

Alec Baldwin Used Potential NYC Mayoral Run as Bargaining Tool in Contract Renegotiations

2012-01-06T23:55:00.003-05:00

Alec Baldwin joins Joe Scarborough, who threatened to run for the Senate from Florida, and Donald Trump, who toyed with a run for president, in using the threat of turning political candidate into more cash from NBC-Universal. The company must be a real sucker for it.

I must also lament Baldwin's decision not to run for mayor. The Big Apple deserves a worm like him.

Formspring Question #329--Research Review Edition

2012-01-06T07:31:00.003-05:00

You seem to have some future knowledge, but you said you haven't seen a lot of stargate. Do you research the episodes for these reviews?

The way I have done these reviews since starting with Star Trek back in 2009 is to watch the episode and then write up what I want to say about it. Then I look the episode up on a wki and/or some comphrehensive fan site in order to confirm odd character or places, check spelling (quit laughing) and look for any interesting trivia that might explain something peculiar or add some color.

I usually throw that stuff into the paragraph prior to the concluding one, but like with Paul Broca for “The Broca Divide” review yesterday, some bits of trivia are so pivotal to understanding the episode, I need to start with it right off the bat and perhaps weave some knew insight into the review portion. I look up some things that have been alluded to with which should probably be elaborated upon. Jean-Paul Satre’s existentilist theory about objects possessing no meaning other than what individual’s perceive it have for the “Objects in Space” review, for instance.

I figure summarizing the plot and offering up my general opinion would make for boring reading it certainly makes for boring writing. I had a heck of a time making Red Dwarf and The Wild Wild West reviews anything more than fan boy fawning because there is not a lot of insight out there from which to draw.

For the record, I have seen 20-25 episodes of Stargate SG-1 scattered throughout the seasons, I do know a few things here and there about what is coming.

Stargate SG-1--"The First Commandment"

2012-01-06T07:27:00.004-05:00

“The First Commandment” (Thou shall have no other gods before me) can best be described as Stargate meets Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Or Apocalypse Now, if your allusions run more towards the cinematic than literary. The episode firmly establishes the running theme of the series, which is what it means to be god worthy of reverence. A hint for the future--we are going to run into many, many false gods unworthy of reverence.

The team is sent to the planet Avril to retrieve the Mia SG-9. When they arrive, they discover a lone member of SG-9, Lt. Lawrence Connor, who the previous night witnessed his team leader, Capt. Jonas Hanson, murder another team member, Lt. Thomas Frakes. (Lt. Thomas Riker/Jonathan Frakes, for those of you suffering the Star Trek DTs.) Hanson has set himself up as a god among the natives. At first, he believed he was helping them by coaxing them out of the caves they lived in to avoid the intense ultraviolet radiation of the sun, but he has come to believe his apotheosis. Hanson has discovered a Goa’uld device which will create an orange shield in the sky to protect them from the radiation. In order to buy himself time to figure out how to use it, he has forced the people to build a temple in his honor. He is literally working them to death as slaves.

The SG-1 team has orders to either bring Hanson back or kill him if necessary. To further complicate matters, Sam was once engaged to be married to Hanson. She remarks that he always had a need to control, which both explains why she broke off the engagement and why he easily slipped into the role of a supreme ruler. Jack fears her lingering feelings for Hanson may prevent her from taking the extreme measures that may be necessary to stop him. His fears are valid. After Sam is captured while saving a slave worker from being beaten to death, she cannot bring herself to shoot Hanson when she has the chance. In fact, she is forced to decipher the writing on the shielding device in order to get it working for him. Hanson continues to have some swat over her. Jack is ultimately forgiving for Sam's lack of action. Killing another man is no badge of honor, he tells her.

Unbeknownst to Hanson, it takes two of those devices in order to raise the shield, so SG-1 uses talc’s knowledge of the technology to find the location of the other. In the interim, Jack is captured along with Connor, and the two are set to be sent into the portal to hell--the stargate programmed to send them back to Earth, but with the iris not open. Daniel and Teal’c intervene and demonstrate it is not magic, but technology that creates the shield. The people realize they have been duped by hanson, so thet throw him into the portal to hell instead.

I have to give credit to “The First Commandment” for, as I mentioned above, establishing the theme of opposing false gods that will run throughout the remainder of the series. The episode is generally solid, It probably will not wind up a favorite of mine, but definitely solid.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Luisana Lopilato

2012-01-06T05:37:00.006-05:00

I believe this outfit is supposed to be considered prohibitive. Perhaps it is just meant to be a warning about what is inside. Either way, she is married to Canadian singer Michael Buble, so beware regardless.Part of The Other McCain's Rule 5 Sunday.

Formspring Question #328--Palmetto State Primary Edition

2012-01-05T06:44:00.003-05:00

Has the tempo of political advertising picked up there in SC? Who's advertising and who's bashing who?

Judging by completely personal, unscientific observation, media buys appear to be Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney--in that order.

Perry has been airing advertisements for quite a while. It has been clear he was staking his fortunes in the Palmetto State since well before Iowa. South Carolina has a large evangelical voter base and is currently suffering from 12% unemployment, so Perry has been hammering home his Christian faith and the Texas Miracle in hopes he can prove he is our man.

Gingrich is attempting to establish himself as an elder statesman with plenty of leadership experience in his media ads, but has been relying more on personal appearances where he can offer his support on the Confederate flag remaining on the state house grounds and the voter ID law the Justice department recently declared racist without leaving a trail of media recordings that may haunt him in other states.

Eomney has the fewest ads, and they generally tout his economic expertise in comparison to Barack Obama’s policies. Romney has been cautious about south Carolina. Local operatives running his ground game know RomneyCare is not going to play well considering the extreme unpopularity of ObamaCare and his Mormon faith scares off a lot of people here in Bob Jones University country. Gov. Nikki Haley’s surprise endorsement a couple weeks ago was a risky attempt to win voters over. I do not see it working, but yes, haley thinks she is the next Sarah Palin.

Surprisingly, I have not seen anything from Michele Bachmann even before she dropped out.. The rumors she had no money to compete passed Iowa had to be true. South Carolina would be an ideal place for her to win big. The writing was on the wall when Haley, who has allowed Backmann to stay at the governor’s mansion, ignored her in favor of Romney. Rick Santorum is absent. Ron Paul has the usual small, but vocal crowds around university towns, but he is not competing here. Neither is Jon Huntsman. A few weeks ago, Huntsman appeared on Carolina Week, a Sunday morning show about politics and business, to discuss unemployment a couple months ago. We have not seen hide no hair of him since.

Candidates have learned from the contentious Bush 43/John McCain primary battle how to handle South Carolina. They know they have to demonstrate their Christian fait while not committing to viewpoints that might not play as well outside the Bible Belt. The state constitution requires the governor to declare belief in God. Though an unconstitutional religious test for office, no one has ever challenged it. This is also a state in which Gov. Mark Sanford explained he was ordained by god to be leader, so he must be forgiven his adultery. The tactic not only worked, but his protégé haley succeeded him in office. South Carolina is a different world, folks. Considering the economic downturn, we are more open to candidates offering economic solutions, but still weigh faith and social values as more important. That dictates who can compete here and how they can go about it.

Stargate SG-1--"The Broca Divide"

2012-01-05T06:27:00.003-05:00

You learn something new everyday. “The Broca Divide’ is a reference to Paul Broca, a 19th century physician and anthropologist who identified the part of the frontal lobe of the brain, now called Broca’s area, responsible for articulated language. Broca abandoned his research into human speech when he discovered a fascination with anthropology. Broca became a pioneer in the field of comparative anatomy of primates. He is famous in anthropological circles for the theory brain size designates intelligence. Broca’s research relates to the episode in the sense that SG-1 brings back a disease which causes its infected victims to revert to primitive savagery.

The team is engaged in the process of determining which planet ro which Apophis escaped by process of elimination. They travel to a planet of perpetual night and are immediately attacked by savages. They run into normal people who lead them to the bright side of the planet in which a Bronze age society is thriving. The People of Light believe the gods have cursed certain individuals to become savages, so when it happens, they are exiled to the Dark Side like lepers. After determining the Goa’uld are not the gods the People of Light are referring to, SG-q leaves, albeit under Daniel’s protest. The society is a fantastic study opportunity.

Upon returning to Stargate Commands, team members begin exhibiting symptoms of the disease. They slowly give in to their base emotions and engage in extreme violent acts. Eventually everyone save Teal’c, Daniel, and Dr. Janet Frasier. Frasier sends daniel and teal’c back to the planet to get blood samples from the uninfected, but Daniel is soon captured by the savages. The other will not cooperate with Teal’c, so he has to punch a guard’s lights out to get a blood sample. That is one way to do it.

Frasier determines that she and Daniel have remained unaffected because the antihistamines they take for allegies starves the disease. (Teal’c’s symbiote protects him.) The cure is a large dose of antihistamines, which in accordance with television rulwes, works immediately with no consequences whatsoever. The team locates daniel, who has reverted to savagery without his allergy medication, and cures him. They offer the cure to the People of Light. In gratitude, they become frequent allies in the future.

“The Broca Divide” has several interesting points of note. One, the episode marks the first appearance of Teryl Rothery as Dr. Janet Frasier. This is the first of many times she plays the medical miracle worker. Two, Jack, while infected with the disease, expresses a desire to use himself as a guinea pig for Frasier to find a cure. So while the other infected team members are complete brutes, Jack still has enough sense of his strong moral character to offer himself up as a sacrifice to save others. Finally, SG-3 is added to the roster. The team is made up of Marines. No surprise they would be the first branch to join up after the Air Force.

While it is odd to have an episode which alters the main characters’ personalities so early in the series run, “The Broca Divide” is good overall. It still manages to demonstrate elements of Jack’s true character, as I note above. The episode’s greatest virtue is that it establishes a far better formula for first contact with new people than the previous clunker. For that alone, it deserves kudos.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

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