A word to the wise: what I love best about Stargate SG-1, what I respond to best, are the characters and characterisation, the interactions and relationships - the human element.  I'm very forgiving of ropey plots, erratic pacing and shaky sets.  I hate when the team gets messed with ;)

Flesh And Blood scored with me as a team episode; it had to introduce Vala as a regular character and I also think it had to even out the somewhat erratic characterisation of latter Season 9's Cameron Mitchell.  I'm not suggesting the writers have had to hit the re-set button on Cameron, but the man we saw last night was dimensional, capable and hitting those deep emotional notes missing while different writers in Season 9 struggled to find this character's voice with varying degrees of success.  Vala and Cameron were central to the action, but I love both characters and didn't feel that the old gang were short-changed.  They've all had their moments in the sun.

Daniel wasn't central to the plot in this one but I liked how he was once again the only member of the team to get up close and personal with the enemy, to see both its human and its inhuman faces.  I love Daniel, I love Vala, I love Daniel and Vala together, so colour me thrilled their character arcs have been so firmly cemented together.  The snark and banter were there between the two, but Daniel had a smidge more patience and understanding in his eyes, face, tone and body language.  I liked his recognition that the better he got to know Vala, the better he understood her. 

Stargate, bless it, is not what you could call a gritty show and it's better at hurting its characters than comforting them, or setting up the characters for a fall we never actually see them have to get up from, but Daniel's hard line over regretting not shooting Adria while he had the chance was a fascinating character moment.  I'm not prepared to say that it was out of character for Daniel because we've had ample evidence from the movie onwards that he's not a pacifist but a man who picks his fights, he's a thoughtful and moral man, and he's a man you can rely on to take, if not the high road, certainly the hard road.  We still don't know how much of his ascension Daniel remembers, but he takes the antithetical beliefs of the Ori to heart and has already shouldered the burden of responsibility for bringing them down on our galaxy. 

As a former ascended, Daniel has to represent for the Ori not only the epitome of 'evil' but also the ultimate trophy conversion.  Both Daniel and the Ori take their fundamental conflict personally. Daniel's belief he should have killed Adria while he had the chance arose from bitter experience, not a choice he made lightly.  Not the old Daniel we know and love, but a believable evolution of the Daniel 'fallen' back to earth.  I want to see how this plays out and I hope the writers don't drop the ball.

I love Vala.  I absolutely love her.  I missed her terribly while she was gone and my biggest thrill of the episode had to be seeing Claudia Black in the main cast credits :)  I thought Vala was both toned down and beefed up as a character.  I do agree with the writers and the actors that Vala has a real place, a real contribution to make as SG-1, a voice as uniquely distinctive and individual as Daniel's, a counterpoint perspective.  She was fun, but she needed depth and this emotional journey she's made through a relationship with a kind and ordinary man, pregnancy and giving birth, losing her child to her enemy, her child complicit with her enemy, this worked for me. 

The fun, the wittiness, the energy and humour were still there, but there were also love for a child, commitment to raising that child, caring for a good, deluded man who loves her, trying to save what even Daniel would have killed and Vala once again being prepared to stand and fight for what she believes in.  Her moral code isn't exactly straightforward, but she does possess one and it'll be fun seeing how she both supports and thwarts Daniel and the rest of the team.

It was interesting to see the foundation being laid down for Vala earning her place with the team.  This is the second time she's sacrificed herself unstintingly for others.  The first was in Beachhead when she tackled the supergate, the second last night, when she took the blast meant for Daniel.  She's willing to kill and more importantly to die for others; her loyalties may be as complicated as her moral code, but she's halfway there.

I loved the subtle reference back to Children Of The Gods last night too, when Adria asked Vala if she'd been to Chulak before.  Vala's reply - "Once." - I hope was a reference to her being chosen as a host in the same ceremony we saw in the series premiere.  There are some obvious parallels between Vala and Sha'uri that I want the writers to explore, use to deepen her connection to Daniel.  And of course, Vala having been enslaved by the Goa'uld gives her a point of commonality not only with Teal'c but with the victims of the Ori.  There's also an interesting parallel with Sam, also once an unwilling host.  I'd like to see that shared experience drawn out.

I really like Cameron.  I was a little disappointed by the many different directions the varied writers dragged the character in during the latter half of Season 9 trying to work out who this man was, but I was delighted to see the early season reverence and weight captured again.  Cameron is smart and committed, loves what he's doing, he admires and respects his legendary teammates, and if he's somewhat uncertain of what he can contribute or how he can match up to these people, it only makes for a more interesting and dimensional character. 

That occasional uncertainty or frustration make for a very human Cameron.  It makes for a distinctively different SG-1 leader than Jack O'Neill.  I do like the feeling that Cameron is a man among peers, leading by negotiation and consent.  He can't match the knowledge and experience the others bring to the table, he doesn't have the privilege of rank and he isn't the natural powerhouse Jack was.  And he's much more like Sam in his respect for the Air Force hierarchy and rules.

I liked the feeling Cameron showed for the loss of Daniel and the people from the Korelev.  In fact, I thought he was quite devastated over Daniel.  Seeing the emotion from Cameron and from Sam reconciled me quite happily to Daniel's late arrival to the action.  Overall, I liked the 'weight' Cameron had in the premiere. The seriousness. I think my favourite scene had to be the ending one where Cameron, Daniel, Sam and Teal'c were gathered around Vala's bedside discussing their unholy ass-kicking and what in hell they were going to do about it.  I had that lovely sense of togetherness and synergy, a team bonded in shared purpose and commitment.  I felt Cameron was part of it all now, that he'd earned his place, and that he was more of a leader than he had been all last season.  I liked the fit.

I'd also like Cameron to PLEASE stop calling Daniel 'Jackson.'  Isn't a year long enough to be pissed Daniel wouldn't stay and play when he was asked nicely?

I loved Sam in Flesh And Blood.  I thought she was funny and gently snarky as her options ran out, I enjoyed her instinctive negativity resurfacing naturally when the Odyssey was bearing down on her at speed.  I've always liked how Sam would declare something wasn't right or wouldn't work, and then made it right or made it work.  It's the natural antidote to the SuperSam syndrome she was afflicted with in seasons past. 

I loved how deeply and obviously Sam cared for the fate of Cameron and Teal'c, and particularly her affecting feeling for Daniel.  This was wonderfully heartening for a huge Sam/Daniel friendship fan.  I loved how she was prepared to go on the suicide run for the remote possibility Daniel was alive and she could help him.  Together with the final scene, these were my favourite moments from the episode.

Sam was caring towards all her teammates.  It was nice to see her break out of exposition mode, to see her natural, capable, caring - a good soldier, a good scientist, a good and loyal friend.  Just lovely.

I really do want to see Sam and Vala working together, how the two of them will affect one another, how they might change.  I'd also like to see Sam's reaction to Vala's amorous designs on Daniel.

Like Daniel, Teal'c didn't have a lot to do last night, but he did it terribly well ;)  I was disappointed that we didn't get to make more of the impact Adria's attack on Chulak had on Teal'c and Bra'tac.  I wouldn't want to lose anything we had in the story, but thought it needed more.  It needed this.  Both Teal'c and Bra'tac had friends, neighbours, fellow warriors - over a hundred years each of life among the people being slaughtered. 

The writers didn't allow them any more opportunity to react to that than their willingness to die suicidally, something that was, weirdly, mostly established through the commentary on their actions by first Sam and then by Cameron.  Sam knows Teal'c and Bra'tac so well that her observation worked well in its context but Cameron's felt off.  That was a classic tell, not show.  It was poorly handled - better to have Teal'c and Bra'tac actually do something for Cameron to react to, instead of having Teal'c and Bra'tac merely react in bemusement to his reaction to them.

Teal'c's interactions with the Lucian Alliance supremo could be an interesting set-up for conflict to come.  Better that than a throwaway torture scene.  I'd like to see more of the contrast between a man who tortures to make himself feel better, and our favourite Jaffa, who's always a man of purpose, a man of means and ends.

The plot of Flesh And Blood I would best describe as serviceable.  As I said above, it had to finish off last season and start this season, get Vala into the mix, big up the Ori villains and put our teammates on the path of their latest quest.  It did all that in a pretty reasonable way.  It rated a 'very good' from me for the warm fuzzies of the character moments and for being a solid team episode, my favourite kind.

The pacing was off, I thought.  We had too much cutting away from one story thread to another and back again.  This was presumably meant to ramp up the tension, but tended to defuse it instead.  A lot of the immediacy of the threats faced by the gang was lost.  Too much time seemed to pass between the dramatic set-up and the kind of deflating denouement.  Stargate has done it better.  See The Serpent's Lair for reference.

The special effects when Sam was being scooped up by the Odyssey were excellently done.  They got the 'bug on a windshield' scale down cold :)  The space battles were quite dynamic and I liked the different angles of the various attacking spacecraft.  The Ori ships are distinctive in design and quite beautiful, and the weapon looks and feels powerful when its pulverising home team ships. 

The costumes and sets were quite lovely, particularly Vala's blue satin gown and Daniel's armour.  I like spotting the customary Ancient design codas with their little Ori riffs and I do appreciate the level of detail that goes into costumes, armour, sets, furniture and furnishings.  It's easier to lose yourself in a world that can look and feel real.