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SGA 4x04: Doppelganger
Last night's Supernatural was a TON of fun; I should probably write up a reaction post for it, but it's "Doppelganger" that possesses the majority of my squee at the moment.
I do not know where to BEGIN with this one, although at this rate, I'm starting to wonder if it's even remotely useful to write h/c for this show anymore. Not that I'm complaining.
... seriously, I don't know where to begin here. It was pretty much solid squee from Ronon whacking off the flower blossom with his machete/sword and the team banter at the beginning, all the way to the gorgeous (literally as well as emotionally -- I loved the tower lights shimmering on the water!) teaminess at the end. The climactic scene, with Not!Dead!Rodney walking down the stairs in the gateroom, is currently one of my favorite SGA scenes of all time (I'm a sucker for that sort of melodrama *g*) -- but then there's John's brokenness when Rodney "died", and Teyla hugging John for mutual comfort (and his "OMG, my cool stick-fighting buddy just inexplicably turned into a girl and is clinging to me and crying, HELP!" reaction, which was just such a very GUY thing), and incredibly hot evil John, and the team lunch and breakfast ... (Teyla telling Rodney and Ronon about her dreams! And everyone teasing her and John... ! They're killing me with the cute! And I just don't think the family vibe can get any stronger...)
I am falling in fannish love with Keller; I loved her scenes with everybody in this episode, and her "Alien"/Replicator hybrid nightmare hit just the right notes of simultaneously cheesy and chilling -- it was the sort of nightmare that you could imagine for a young woman (steeped in pop culture) having to face bizarre medical emergencies in another galaxy. (And Keller's a geek! I knew it! She dreams "Alien"-inspired dreams; how could she NOT be a geek?)
The nightmares are a whole world of squee to analyze, in fact! I felt horrible for Ronon; his biggest fear is being alone again, and then his fear of being betrayed by a friend crops up too -- a callback to "Reunion" and "Trinity". Teyla's dream interested me because her "worst nightmare" is ... being mistaken for John's girlfriend! But it makes perfect sense to me, because her world is in very precarious balance -- Athos and Atlantis and Earth, all in constant flux as their situations change, and in the middle there's Teyla with her little makeshift family of misfits. Especially given all that she saw in the beginning, how Atlanteans were willing to turn on her at the drop of a hat, perhaps her worst fear really IS rumors and innuendo that would undermine her position on the team, threaten her place in Atlantis, perhaps shame her in the eyes of her people ... and cost her the closeness that she shares with her friends.
(Incidentally, I loved how they did the dreams -- they felt very ... dreamlike! Teyla's really stands out here, because my own dream landscape consists largely of places from my childhood, and it felt very realistic to have her dream take place in an Athosian tent rather than on Atlantis.)
And Heightmeyer! That really, truly shocked me; I had no idea she'd die. In fact, it took me a little while to accept that it had really happened and it wasn't just another dream of Teyla's.
During the first part of the episode, I was convinced that waking-world John was actually evil -- mind-controlled, replaced a la half a dozen episodes of SG-1, or something. It was the hug with Teyla where I finally realized that this was John, and then I had to rearrange all my emotional reactions, which had been geared towards this NOT being John...
And then, of course, post-hug, we launched into my (unsurprisingly) favorite part of the episode, which Tipper actually wrote back in season 1 ... although the canon version has MORE h/c than the fanfic it made me think of! I couldn't believe they actually WENT THERE with the friendship, and then KEPT GOING THERE all the way to the ultimate h/c conclusion! Have I mentioned that I adore "presumed dead" stories? and I believe I've mentioned my fondness for defibrillator scenes with loved ones watching (or, how about breaking into teeny tiny pieces with grief), and then there's the making-tangible of their subconscious fears and Rodney being brave and saving John and just ... guh. I believe this episode hit at least a half-a-dozen of my fan kinks all at once; it not only pressed my fangirl buttons but held 'em down 'til all the monitors redlined ...!
Joe Flanigan's facial expressions were amazing. I think the scene where I noticed it most clearly was when they woke up ... you can plainly see his initial confusion, followed by fear (was the dream real? is Rodney still dead?) dissolving into relief when he sees that Rodney's okay -- playing out on his face everything that's going on in the character's head in a span of about 4 or 5 seconds. And his shell-shock and grief when Rodney died was just wonderfully depicted. The thought occurred to me while chatting about this episode via email (yeah, I was one of those who was weak when the original iTunes snafu occurred, so I've had awhile to ponder) that maybe John's emotions are telegraphed so clearly on his face in that particular scene because it's a dream, so he can't lock it down the way he normally does -- his reaction to Elizabeth's terminal diagnosis was a little more understated, and I wonder if the fact that we're in his head makes any difference. (Of course, he also thinks it's his fault with Rodney, plus there's no crisis distracting him, which probably also makes a lot of difference...)
... and seriously, I just can't believe they WENT there! John tries to save Rodney, fails, watches Rodney die, blames himself, gets saved at the last-minute by a not-so-dead Rodney inside John's head -- it's just such a total fanfic scenario that even after two weeks, I'm STILL wrapping my brain around actually having been GIVEN this by the show's writers. And all without getting overly maudlin (a peeve of mine, yes), or dropping out of character or being anything other than the emotionally repressed and rather messed-up bunch of weirdos that we know and love. A "habit of saving each other's lives", indeed!
In summary, SQUEEEEEEEEE!
I do not know where to BEGIN with this one, although at this rate, I'm starting to wonder if it's even remotely useful to write h/c for this show anymore. Not that I'm complaining.
... seriously, I don't know where to begin here. It was pretty much solid squee from Ronon whacking off the flower blossom with his machete/sword and the team banter at the beginning, all the way to the gorgeous (literally as well as emotionally -- I loved the tower lights shimmering on the water!) teaminess at the end. The climactic scene, with Not!Dead!Rodney walking down the stairs in the gateroom, is currently one of my favorite SGA scenes of all time (I'm a sucker for that sort of melodrama *g*) -- but then there's John's brokenness when Rodney "died", and Teyla hugging John for mutual comfort (and his "OMG, my cool stick-fighting buddy just inexplicably turned into a girl and is clinging to me and crying, HELP!" reaction, which was just such a very GUY thing), and incredibly hot evil John, and the team lunch and breakfast ... (Teyla telling Rodney and Ronon about her dreams! And everyone teasing her and John... ! They're killing me with the cute! And I just don't think the family vibe can get any stronger...)
I am falling in fannish love with Keller; I loved her scenes with everybody in this episode, and her "Alien"/Replicator hybrid nightmare hit just the right notes of simultaneously cheesy and chilling -- it was the sort of nightmare that you could imagine for a young woman (steeped in pop culture) having to face bizarre medical emergencies in another galaxy. (And Keller's a geek! I knew it! She dreams "Alien"-inspired dreams; how could she NOT be a geek?)
The nightmares are a whole world of squee to analyze, in fact! I felt horrible for Ronon; his biggest fear is being alone again, and then his fear of being betrayed by a friend crops up too -- a callback to "Reunion" and "Trinity". Teyla's dream interested me because her "worst nightmare" is ... being mistaken for John's girlfriend! But it makes perfect sense to me, because her world is in very precarious balance -- Athos and Atlantis and Earth, all in constant flux as their situations change, and in the middle there's Teyla with her little makeshift family of misfits. Especially given all that she saw in the beginning, how Atlanteans were willing to turn on her at the drop of a hat, perhaps her worst fear really IS rumors and innuendo that would undermine her position on the team, threaten her place in Atlantis, perhaps shame her in the eyes of her people ... and cost her the closeness that she shares with her friends.
(Incidentally, I loved how they did the dreams -- they felt very ... dreamlike! Teyla's really stands out here, because my own dream landscape consists largely of places from my childhood, and it felt very realistic to have her dream take place in an Athosian tent rather than on Atlantis.)
And Heightmeyer! That really, truly shocked me; I had no idea she'd die. In fact, it took me a little while to accept that it had really happened and it wasn't just another dream of Teyla's.
During the first part of the episode, I was convinced that waking-world John was actually evil -- mind-controlled, replaced a la half a dozen episodes of SG-1, or something. It was the hug with Teyla where I finally realized that this was John, and then I had to rearrange all my emotional reactions, which had been geared towards this NOT being John...
And then, of course, post-hug, we launched into my (unsurprisingly) favorite part of the episode, which Tipper actually wrote back in season 1 ... although the canon version has MORE h/c than the fanfic it made me think of! I couldn't believe they actually WENT THERE with the friendship, and then KEPT GOING THERE all the way to the ultimate h/c conclusion! Have I mentioned that I adore "presumed dead" stories? and I believe I've mentioned my fondness for defibrillator scenes with loved ones watching (or, how about breaking into teeny tiny pieces with grief), and then there's the making-tangible of their subconscious fears and Rodney being brave and saving John and just ... guh. I believe this episode hit at least a half-a-dozen of my fan kinks all at once; it not only pressed my fangirl buttons but held 'em down 'til all the monitors redlined ...!
Joe Flanigan's facial expressions were amazing. I think the scene where I noticed it most clearly was when they woke up ... you can plainly see his initial confusion, followed by fear (was the dream real? is Rodney still dead?) dissolving into relief when he sees that Rodney's okay -- playing out on his face everything that's going on in the character's head in a span of about 4 or 5 seconds. And his shell-shock and grief when Rodney died was just wonderfully depicted. The thought occurred to me while chatting about this episode via email (yeah, I was one of those who was weak when the original iTunes snafu occurred, so I've had awhile to ponder) that maybe John's emotions are telegraphed so clearly on his face in that particular scene because it's a dream, so he can't lock it down the way he normally does -- his reaction to Elizabeth's terminal diagnosis was a little more understated, and I wonder if the fact that we're in his head makes any difference. (Of course, he also thinks it's his fault with Rodney, plus there's no crisis distracting him, which probably also makes a lot of difference...)
... and seriously, I just can't believe they WENT there! John tries to save Rodney, fails, watches Rodney die, blames himself, gets saved at the last-minute by a not-so-dead Rodney inside John's head -- it's just such a total fanfic scenario that even after two weeks, I'm STILL wrapping my brain around actually having been GIVEN this by the show's writers. And all without getting overly maudlin (a peeve of mine, yes), or dropping out of character or being anything other than the emotionally repressed and rather messed-up bunch of weirdos that we know and love. A "habit of saving each other's lives", indeed!
In summary, SQUEEEEEEEEE!
no subject
And Heightmeyer's death took me completely by surprise. It was... almost kind of random, the way it happened. I was thinking it was Teyla dreaming again, too, at first.
And the clown. I loved the setup and JF's delivery on "I hate clowns." And how he was so careful with Rodney in that scene, telling him not to listen to evil!Shep. And... I'm rambling, but you get the picture. ;) Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
no subject
Heightmeyer's death was a total shock, but a good shock! (Well, inasmuch as losing a long-term character can be good.) One of the problems I had with some of the episodes last season, like "Game" and "Irresponsible" (well, not the ONLY problem I had with "Irresponsible") was the lack of a tangible sense of danger. You didn't really believe that the characters were in jeopardy. Losing Kate was like a sharp knife-blade through the fabric of the episode; I mean, obviously we know John or Rodney isn't going to die, but they don't know that, and it really heightened the tension.
no subject
That was exactly the image I had during that scene.
As for Kate...I love it when shows kill off long time characters. If the person's death is suppose to painful for the other character's it should be someone who we (the viewers) know. I am not sure if I would say Kate H was a beloved character (I often had problems with the role the writers assigned to her) but she was a known character.
no subject
Oh yes, I agree, absolutely! The death of a "red shirt" is kind of cheap. As these sorts of shows go, I think SGA does a good job of humanizing its red shirts and reminding you that they're people (Griffin, Gaul, etc) but it still has so much more impact to kill off a long-term character. Like you say, if we're going to see the characters being affected, then we should be affected too.
I wasn't that fond of Heightmeyer as a character, but I find that I'm really going to miss having her in the cast ... if only because that's one less thing we can do in fic now!