eusebius123 Reviews

Stargate SG-1: Ascension (2001) Season 5, Episode 3

Sam should get an alien restraining order

[3/10 · 20 December 2016]

I don't know what to make of the previous reviews of this episode. Touching romance? Were they watching the same episode as me? Were they being sarcastic?

Lessee:

Step 1: Alien guy knocks Samantha unconscious with no explanation or warning.

Step 2: When Sam gets home, she starts noticing a presence in her house.

Step 3: Alien guy, who it turns out followed Samantha back, starts hanging out in front of her house randomly trying to chat her up as she comes out her front door.

Step 4: Alien guy SHOWS UP IN HER HOUSE. Upon being asked how he got in, he explains that he followed her into the house and then camped out there overnight. He's been watching her television to figure out how to speak her language. Also, he's been watching her sleep. Oh my God.

Step 5: Alien guy explains that when she got knocked unconscious, it was because he tried to do some kind of mind-meld thing with her without her consent.

Step 6: When asked why he's doing all of *this*, the alien guy says it's BECAUSE HE HAS FEELINGS FOR HER.

Step 7: The alien guy then continues to not leave Sam's house, even when she explicitly tells him to. Alien guy forces Sam to let him to do the mind- meld thing again, consensually this time, in exchange for promising to leave.

Step 8: The alien guy shows up in Sam's house *again*, this time having made himself human. So they can be together, you know. After having known her for like 2 days. During which time she's been sending clear signals that she wants to be left alone.

This is not a touching romance. This is a stalker situation. It doesn't help that the acting of the guy playing the alien couldn't possibly be any creepier if he tried. Yeah, I know at some point Sam suddenly and abruptly falls for him for no discernible reason, but still. Yeesh.

I could go into the other idiotic aspects of this episode, like the rest of the team assuming Sam's nuts even though it's only like the 4,257th time SG-1 has run into this sort of situation, or the lack of any kind of epilogue explaining why Sam's not going to get court-martialed for aiding a creepy alien in stun-gunning some US military personnel and blowing up a strategic asset (yes, she was right and it was dangerous, but none of the brass seemed to believe her on that, so I don't know how that will exonerate her), but you know what, that's all I want to talk about this episode. Ugh.

Easter Yeggs (1947)

Inconsistent characterization my ass

[8/10 · 19 April 2011]

The people complaining about Elmer Fudd hunting for food clearly haven't watched many Bugs Bunny cartoons. "Wabbit stew" was always what Elmer was after when he went hunting — it was one of his catchphrases well before this cartoon was made (example: "Hare Tonic" from 1945, directed by Chuck Jones). It's part of what makes that line so funny in this cartoon! Jones didn't ret-con Elmer into being a vegetarian until "Rabbit Fire" in 1951, so it's hard to understand how McKimson should have been able to foresee that four years earlier. And the mention of Elmer as a vegetarian was just for the sake of a gag anyway, not to establish a running character trait — after all, in 1953, Jones was back to having Elmer hunt for "wabbit stew" in "Duck! Rabbit! Duck!".

As for Bugs being mean-spirited, the same comment applies — Bugs was always somewhat of an amoral character in the 1940s cartoons, even going so far as to be an outright jerk sometimes (particularly in his earliest appearances, such as "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" and the Cecil the Turtle shorts). Jones didn't make him into a goody-two-shoes type character until later in the 1950s.

And of course it's not like the WB cartoons ever cared much about canon or continuity anyway. Next thing you know, someone will be complaining about inconsistency in "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century" because Daffy Duck usually isn't a space marine.