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Half a season in, Stargate SG-1’s Nine is
looking mighty fine.
The odds were stacked against it. A natural
conclusion to many long-running storylines,
the tying of a lot of loose ends, resounding
defeat of the biggest and baddest of
villains. A shiny new show everyone wanted
to play with. Maternity leave. Lead actor
exiting stage left, lead character stepping
into a new role and off our screens. The end
of everything.
Also, the beginning.
In Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell, Stargate
SG-1 has regained something sadly absent for
several seasons.
A team.
Not the team we started out with, but then
Stargate hasn’t been about that since the
movie. Two became four and the original
journey of Jack and Daniel had to be
broadened to encompass new players Carter
and Teal’c, our first team replacements. A
noble sacrifice of self cost the team of
four Daniel and saw him replaced by Jonas
Quinn, at best complicit in Daniel’s death,
whose ‘redemptive’ journey failed to
convince. Daniel descended, Jonas exited,
Jack was too often missing in action and our
team of four effectively became a team of
three.
Stargate SG-1 doesn’t have a happy history
with replacements. Carter, Teal’c, Jonas,
Cameron, Vala – all new and non-original.
All replacements. They didn’t open the gate,
they didn’t start the journey. But they have
continued it. Like or loathe any or all of
them, they’re part of Stargate’s history.
They’re part of SG-1.
This editorial isn’t about slamming Jack,
but it’s impossible to review Cameron
Mitchell’s impact and contribution as a
character without establishing a baseline.
For me, that’s the slow and painful
withdrawal of one of the two defining
characters of Stargate, the ones who were
there at the start to open the gate. Jack’s
pale presence in the latter seasons, his
broad-stroke humour and ‘Cosmic Giddiness’
materially damaged, if not crippled, the
essence and energy of that team of four.
Stargate SG-1 actually *works* with four
equal and counter-balancing characters. It’s
the exact formula that kept fans from the
movie and drew in new fans who’d only ever
known the team of four. The quality of
‘team’ is the one most often singled out as
the grace note of the golden seasons: One,
Two and Three.
Season Nine is a golden season. It has the
grace notes of my favourites, Two and Three,
and is a more encouraging beginning for a
new evolution of Stargate than I even
considered Season One to be.
It’s not solely due to Cameron Mitchell, of
course. This *is* a team of four: Daniel,
Carter and Teal’c leading and new guy
Cameron following. A cool, substantive
change right there. New guy isn’t laconic,
damaged, done it all, cynical,
stick-it-to-the-man Jack Jnr.
Cameron is reverent. Of our team of four, of
their characters, history, accomplishments.
He’s amazed and awed by them, he wants so
badly to learn from them the promise of
being one of them was enough of a motivator
to get him back on his feet. Literally. He
wants SG-1 so completely, so openly, even
our favourite all-beautiful sex goddess
thinks he should *try* playing hard to get.
Cameron is enthusiastic. Brimming over. In
fact, he has a quality of enthusiasm we’ve
never quite seen. It’s not based on the
beautiful, idealistic academic obsessions of
our peaceful explorer Daniel Jackson. It’s
not based on stepping into another man’s
life, taking his place, his books, his tools
and even his fish. It’s the enthusiasm of a
military man who hasn’t done the damned
distasteful things Jack has done and isn’t
soured by what life and service in the Air
Force have demanded of him. It’s the
enthusiasm of a man who still respects – and
salutes – authority. It’s the informed
enthusiasm of a smart, accomplished,
combat-experienced Type-A personality who
wholeheartedly believes what Daniel Jackson
does is beyond cool. It’s *fantastic.* Blows
new guy away every time. Now, when have we
ever seen *that* on Stargate?
Cameron is a hero, but that’s not really the
point. His heroism has been tempered by
combat, loss and self-sacrifice but because
this is a smart man, a thinking man, he
understands being a shining example in his
conventional sphere doesn’t really mean
squat. What he knows, what he’s done, that
stops at the gate. On the other side of it,
he needs direction. He never meant to be
team leader, he meant to learn from the
best. And maybe it’s in being open, being
willing to learn and take direction, he’ll
earn his place as team leader. And not
giving in to insecurity, not pulling rank or
blindly rushing in where SG-1 fear to tread,
admitting to the seriousness of the
consequences if he screws up, that’s a
different kind of bravery right there.
Cameron doesn’t have all the answers. That
sets him apart from Jack and even from
Carter, who launched into our team not only
with her PhD in theoretical astrophysics,
extensive Air Force scientific projects
under her belt as well as flight
credentials, but also somehow managed to
find the time to acquire the self-same
skills, competences, confidence and
experience in field combat as Special Ops
Colonel Jack. You go, girl.
Cameron has energy. He engages. I felt sad
for what's been missing from Stargate SG-1
for so long, watching him in action this
season. Not firing big honkin’ guns, not
doing the ‘pull the pin and throw’ thing,
not even the fancy pants Sodan kick boxing,
but using his intelligence, his life
experience, his character and morality not
to kill but to influence, to win an enemy
over from vengeance to alliance. No ‘Cosmic
Giddiness’ in sight, although the guy has a
nice line in deprecating humour.
The energy, the engagement are there in his
excitement over solving an Ancient puzzle,
seducing our favourite stoic Jaffa away from
government and back into humping the
off-world boonies, getting a rush from his
first flight since crashing, touching
techno-toys he shouldn’t, demanding respect
for a female colleague, playing the
archaeologist and the aliens at basketball.
Energy. Commitment. Every day, in every way.
And maybe that’s the essence of this
character, who isn’t Jack Jnr or a
cannibalised construct of Daniel’s puppyish
qualities from the early days. Cameron isn’t
a cipher, a constant reminder of another’s
absence, or a mere foil for all the ways
Daniel and the others have grown up and
changed on us over the years, he’s a
presence. Real and whole, complex and
layered, learning his way, earning his
place, instead of having it handed to him
pat and whole, gift-wrapped and tied up with
a big bow.
As much as Cameron is being affected by his
experiences with SG-1, he’s affecting our
loved, established teammates. Cameron isn’t
taking anything away from Daniel, Teal’c or
Carter. He’s helping renew and even build
them. His presence enriches theirs. Teasing
out new layers in their characters, opening
up new ways for all of the four to interact
and even counter-act, building an entirely
new team dynamic.
Cameron is a replacement. Everyone but Jack
and Daniel started out that way. His
addition to Stargate SG-1 has helped
accomplish something I haven’t felt or truly
seen since Season Three.
Synergy.
The sense that the team of four, the team of
SG-1, is greater than the sum of its
constituent characters.
Season Nine is about a team of four. Not two
- not your fave pairing, my fave pairing, or
theirs - not three or one. Four. And all of
them equal.
Team.
That’s what Cameron Mitchell brings to
Stargate SG-1.
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