I'm rating this one as good because a pretty average plot was used to effect insight into characters and relationships between old and new team members and because there was actually some continuity between previous events and current ones.

Daniel

Daniel's day clearly keeps getting better and better: this time he was off exploring the ancient Arthurian library of an English earl.

Vala

Vala appears to annoy and slightly horrify her team mates in all kinds of ways that are all kinds of fun.  Without Daniel there to soften the blow of her unadulterated personality, she's more than Cameron, Sam or even Teal'c can handle.  Needless to say, I'm enjoying their suffering. 

I rather liked Vala's upfront honesty about her mercenary motives for interest in the creature.  At least the rest of the gang can't say they don't get fair warning.  I liked it more when Vala used an unsubtle threat of spending quality time together to manipulate Sam into capitulating to the creature hunt.  I don't think either one of the girls quite knows what to do with the other.  It's nice they're not instantly bonding - the friction is amusing and it's being played with such a light hand, neither character is suffering for it.

As flighty as Vala is, she keeps her head and takes prompt action when things go bad.  I was pleased she went for help for the injured under her own initiative.  She cares enough for them to risk her ass.  The scene that played out with Teal'c was delightful - that sexy, vixenish vibe never quite goes away and it is funny to see Teal'c treated without the reverence and caution he's usually afforded.

I also liked the briefing scene where a hard look from Cameron was enough for Vala to take the hint she'd overstepped the mark yet again.  She might not be able to suppress her essential personality, but like Daniel did before her, she's learning the rules of her adopted tribe.

I do find it interesting that the rest of SG-1 and the SGC give her such a hard time - Stargate's writers do seem to be doing everything they can to play up her natural affinity with Daniel and to give every possible motivation for that relationship deepening. 

I also find it interesting that Vala doesn't seem to take the prickly  closed ranks of the military personally.  She gets something of a rough ride but doesn't appear to be bearing a grudge that I can see.  Resilience seems as much a part of her makeup as of Daniel's.

Cameron

This was a great episode for Cameron, not so much for his part in the fairly pedestrian action or cheesy FX, but in the insight we were offered into his character and his role on the team. 

I was delighted to see that the difficulties of his ambivalent role as leader of the team were acknowledged and addressed in his uncomfortable encounters with General Landry, who was totally messing with his head throughout.

Landry told Cameron pretty much what I've been saying about the dilemma facing the character - that his job isn't so much to lead the team but to facilitate, to make it possible for the others to keep working together and keep doing what they do.  Landry laid that out and Cameron took it well, despite his natural desire for a clearer chain of command.  Like Sam, but quite unlike Jack, Cameron is not one to stick it to the man.  He still has that natural respect for the rules, the hierarchy that Jack bucked. I was really pleased to have this struggle made canon and for confirmation of so much intrigued fan speculation.

I also liked the admission from Cameron that he's much more comfortable through the gate, with the team, in the thick of the action.  He's as active and driven as everyone else on the team and shares the group discomfort with the notion of downtime.  His reference to the difficulties of relaxing when the fate of the galaxy was on you was trite but true.

Best of all was his admission to Landry that his fight back to health had part of him believing he could do anything, but that since coming to the SGC, he'd come to realise he couldn't do any of it without the rest of SG-1.  For me, that provides a reasonable explanation into his sometimes boorish behaviour and occasional arrogances in the spotty latter Season 9.  I'm happy to accept this retrospective rationalisation and that the shocks of almost losing everyone in the events of the Ori invasion through the Supergate was enough to make him face up to their mutual interdependence and wise-up.  That was a really satisfying scene for me.  Very nicely done.

I also have to say how much I enjoyed Landry messing with Cameron.  That moment where he emulated the plaintive call of his rare whistling duck was just classic.  The expression on Cameron's face made me laugh out loud.  More, please!

Sam

Sam fared much better in this story than in last week's.  I think she handled events pretty competently at the SGC, solved the mystery reasonably and looked comfortable in command.  It was a fun beat for the character to see her sitting on the far side of Landry's desk and for Vala to comment on her phobia of sitting in the general's chair.  There's a nice continuity there, a discomfort she shares with Cameron when it comes to superior officers, one that's been with her for a long time.  The hierarchy, the institution of the Air Force is important to her.

While Sam's role in the story was fine, what I enjoyed most were the smaller personal moments, like her gentle taunting over Vala's blatant interest in the value of rare beasts, her prompt sacrifice of Teal'c on the altar of quality time, her teasing of Teal'c using ironic in a sentence and that lovely wide smile, her poker face at the end and childlike delight in totally bluffing him and winning.  Some lovely stuff in Uninvited.  It's nice to see Sam so comfortable in her own skin, happy in her work and warm with her team, to have that come out in humour, kindness, naughtiness and teasing.

Teal'c

Teal'c fared better in Uninvited too.  I absolutely loved his smirk when Vala was threatening Sam with quality time, the congealing horror on his face when Sam sacrificed him and then bolted before he could protest.  She got him but good.

When he caught up with Vala at the DHD on P3-Whatever, that he didn't entirely trust her.  I wondered if he thought she was running out on the fight and didn't quite believe her explanation that she'd been going for help.  Then he showed concern for Vala after throwing the grenade at the creature and her at the ground.  His recounting of the Jaffa version of strength in numbers added another little beat to their relationship. 

I like the comedy moments when Vala is so obviously trying to cut Teal'c down to size, or at least to less than his larger-than-life size, but I'd like the other beats to develop too.  The contrast between Teal'c's brand of competence and Vala's makes for lively scenes.  She shares a lot of personality quirks with Jack O'Neill, including his Alpha tendencies, something he tolerated in Jack but tries his patience severely from her.  Teal'c and Vala remind me of nothing so much as a mastiff and a terrier; the smaller, livelier dog always worrying at the imperturbable larger, which could swat it with a single paw if it wanted to.

Teal'c in action is awesome.  He's a rock.  Love that about him.

Plot, pacing and that other stuff

As our editor Michelle said of Insiders, Uninvited wasn't exactly organic to Stargate's arc, but it did come from a writer that knows the characters and their history and referred us all back to it, and at the very least the fairly pedestrian and uninvolving POTW (Parasite Of The Week) plot was used to good effect to generate team and character moments, and for that it rates a good from me. 

We got great insight into Cameron, how both he and Landry see and feel about his role on SG-1, a lovely recognition that Cameron truly is part of that team, some fun intel on Landry's personality and hobbies, and a lot of funny manoeuvring between Sam, Teal'c and Vala that lightened up the sciencey stuff.  I recognised the girl from Jack 2.0 in the xenologist and hope to see her again. 

I loved how much we got to see of the inside of Jack's cabin, immortalised in a thousand fanfics :)  I'm sure the new detail will be exploited down to the last dial on the kitchen stove in future works.

The Deadly Creature itself was dreadful.  My sibs on The Alpha Gate list christened it cheesy and I think they were bang on.  It reminded me of nothing so much as the Tandoori Monster from Red Dwarf, only not played for laughs.  Dire CGI, guys.  You're never going to top the rubber purple chicken that menaced the team in Season 5's The Tomb, but this came close.