Write or Wrong? Writing Stargate SG-1

"Stargate is a tough show to write for," continues Glassner. "One of the reasons for this is that we want to give something to all of our leads to do in every episode and occasionally that's a challenge if the plot centres on just one of them."

Jonathan Glassner, Executive  Producer, Stargate SG-1 Seasons One - Three.

PhoenixE: An open letter to Mr. Joseph Mallozzi continued

Conflict

Conflict: noun.  Disagreement; struggle or fight. Verb: be incompatible.

Red Sky and Between Two Fires

I wish we'd got to hear a teeny tiny bit more of the conversation between Sam and Teal'c before Nareem shows up.

Sam and Teal'c.  We've hardly gotten to see them exchange three words to each other or do any significant interacting through the entire series.  Daniel and Teal'c,  is a little better, but not by much.  Sam and Teal'c has certainly been the least explored relationship of all, but I guess now with Daniel completely gone and Jack being gone for a third of the next season you'll finally have time to get around to Sam and Teal'c.

Nareem gets a wee shock when Jack and Daniel return and inform everyone what the deal is - and is going to be.

Nareem becomes a very interesting character through the course of this episode.  I thought he was a little 'much' in Enigma, a bit of a stick in Pretense, but he makes the transition from head up his ass sheltered, complacent idealist to horrified, outraged, indignant/disillusioned to man of action determined to do the right thing even though he knows he's condemning both his race and himself to most probable death.   Nareem definitely proves out to be the best thing about his people. Without being allowed to fall too deeply into the overly maudlin mooning about Sam or having their never-to-be-consummated or even acknowledged passion take over the bleeding episode.

Reminding us he still has feelings for Sam was handled in a way that wasn't too absurd and intrusive and in fact added a little depth to the man and some human humour to their interaction.  Yeah, it was funny that  Mr 'We're so much more advanced than you' forgot to turn off his Sammified computer voice before bringing the real deal home and getting found out.

I'm not a really big fan of romance in my sci fi, to be honest with you. I watch sci fi for the action/adventure stuff, I want romance I'll go and rent a chick flick.  I don't at ALL care for the 'babe/dude of the week' hit the reset button at the end sort of romantic interaction the episodic format dooms the characters to experiencing by the very nature of the fact unless you want to introduce a new continuing character  he/she has to go away at the end and because you guys also don't tend to do resolution/consequences, emotional follow-through or fall-out having the members of our team even briefly fall in love and then emerge from their fleeting liaison the next week completely unchanged by the experience - what's the point?

If the romance doesn't serve a specific function for generating more possible storylines and character development through its existence - then we don't need it.  Either on a temporary basis or between members of the team, thank you very much.  Especially between members of THIS team. And as you also don't tend to use these liaisons to reveal anything new to the character or to us about them - again, they're pointless.

Having said all that, I've thought, once or twice the exception to this rule was in fact Nareem.  Because of the potential the character had to become just what he is in this episode, a 'rebel' against the limiting, arrogant views of his people.  Someone who had an opportunity to 'wake' up and realise people who had the Goa'uld suppressing technology alone (imagine the difference those little devices could make to a lot of oppressed and suffering people) and yet choose not to use it while hiding behind the justification of their own judgements of the worthiness of others to be allowed the benefits and advantages they keep to themselves.

Maybe there were things that it would not be politic to share with races like ours - like Ion canons, to be sure, but there are other things as well which could do a lot of good, and to deny everyone everything across the board based on one cursory 'you're not advanced enough' - it's harsh.

There was so much potential in this conflict, so much murky and interesting ideology implicit in the Tollan - they and their motives were screaming to  be examined closer - and I figured having Nareem break with his people and come after Sam, if only to be 'friends' - and thereby allying himself with the SGC would have been an interesting way to go.  Not  that I wanted to give Sam a boyfriend just for the sake of that - pfffft.  But the potential Nareem represented for taking this stupid technology thing in an interesting direction - by holding up the Tollan as a mirror to ourselves...

And now, of course, that's all gone up in smoke.  As have the Tollan.  As well, it would seem, has Nareem. Dang. The Cartwright - I mean Carter curse strikes again.  Double dang!  You guys seriously gotta stop killing off all your interesting characters from the first three seasons because quite frankly, the crop what have sprung up to replace them since season four - blech.  Other than Lotan, Shifu (but he's really a third season character, isn't he, along with Oma Desala), Chakka and Sveltlana (hey, I liked her) you can keep the rest of them.  ESPECIALLY Marty!  Take Haley as well.  Please. (I used to like Sarah/Osiris until I read the character(s) was basically created as a Sha'uri substitute to supposedly give Daniel motivation to remain on the team - like he needed it!)

Anise is NO substitute for Martouf.  But I guess you heard that one loud and clear already.

Back to the briefing room scene where Sam gives them the absolutely stunning news they need THIRTY EIGHT (completely with Jack and Daniel saying this in unison, sigh) ion canons to properly protect the planet.

Thirty eight?  Excuse me?  Is anyone else absolutely appalled by the stupidity of this announcement?  Or this scene?  Or once they found out this appalling piece of news one single person in this briefing entertained any serious notion of going one step further with the whole ridiculous idea?  Thirty EIGHT ion canons?  Come on, people!

Does anyone else but me find it highly likely any of us would survive longer than thirty seconds if some rabid terrorist group got a hold of one of these canons?  Thirty eight of them, deployed, of course, all over the globe which would be impossible to keep secret or conceal and for all the security around them, sooner or later, especially the ones in parts of the world not controlled by the US - the crazies would get a hold of one an then the fun would begin.

Totally insane to seriously entertain this notion. That Hammond and Jack and Sam are still behind making this scheme happen once they discover it will take thirty eight canons to make using them practical - I simply can't believe this.

This is too ridiculous a scenario to even consider as viable given the current socio-political climate of our planet.  We might as well just invite the Goa'uld to come and blast us now, this 'plan' to defend ourselves against them will come to the same thing.  Global destruction, except from within.

I can' believe not only Sam suggesting it but Jack, Daniel and the General calmly going along with trying to make it HAPPEN!  To slightly paraphrase Upgrades, I didn't realise needing to score the big one made them THAT stupid.

Yikes.

Daniel does bring up the possibility we could end up getting blown up by our own people from this deal during the scene back on Tollan with Nareem, nice to see it being even dimly acknowledged. The scene is okay, I suppose, but because I have problems with the idea of Omac being permanently dead in the first place the idea he's been murdered it's just another 'oh, isn't that convenient for the plot' moment.

To my way of thinking it would have been much more effective and telling if something had gone WRONG with the resurrection process and for some strange reason he wasn't revived.  Say it happens, once in a blue moon.  Sad when it does, but occasionally it does, but the fact it does in this case, given what Nareem already knows about the situation makes him suspicious.

I don't know how to explain this but given who these people are and what they are capable of a mere 'murder' plot seems too mundane.  Not clever enough, certainly not with the ease Nareem realised  Omac had been murdered.  What, it took the docs ten minutes to get to his house instead of five? Pfffft!  And the Tollan let the evidence in the form of Omac's unaltered health records fall into Nareem's hands?  How stupid is that?  For a big piece of the puzzle this detail needed to be handled a little better.

But back to the team on their way to get the guns.  After a very funny little pep talk from Hammond Jack and Daniel are on their way to try and spring the 'new deal' on Trevel.  Again, very cute the way they sort of hedge around and play off each other to finally get the thirty eight out but again, I'm sorry,  Trevel's extremely calm reaction to their upping the ante doesn't start seriously ringing their bells?  Way more than we hear them being suspicious in their subsequent discussion?

 I mean, come on!  One to thirty eight and she doesn't even blink?  That's QUITE a leap and Trevel, of all of them got to sneer at us the most and tell us how undeserving we are of their advanced technology and all she says to a request for thirty seven more canons than she was originally putting on the table  is in effect, no problem, see what I can do and I'll get right back to you.

Hey, Daniel didn't even need to resort to batting his eyelashes at her.  Sheesh!

Having a very hard time believing either Jack or Daniel decided to go a step further with this plan after Trevel's behaviour in this meeting.  They both should have picked up after her completely unconvincing show (she might be good at doing the 'I am a superior being and you so are not' schtick but she's a lousy actress/con artist) getting the canons is NOT in the Earth's best interests.

They're sceptical, it's true in the shoulder to shoulder scene, but not enough.  I guess what would have made me a LITTLE happier with having them appear to seem be so gullible, all but handing themselves to the Tollan on a silver platter by hoping so desperately even though things looked hinkey this really WAS a straight deal (meaning this time we really get the guns, woo hoo!) would be having someone - somewhere acknowledge their attitude needed a little adjustment because something was 'off' and our weapons obsession almost got us killed.  It was off the whole time and we didn't see it because we were too busy focusing on the guns.  This - really needed to happen in this one.

Someone - most probably Daniel, needed to take a moment to examine the chain of events and just how close the Earth came to selling itself down the river in the name of trying to make us bigger, badder and better.  Walk the team and the general through the whole thing and make a plea for him to consider mentioning to the joint chiefs it's time to take another look at standing orders and the danger they are exposing the Earth to through what they're requiring the SG teams to do trying to follow them.

It never happens though.  There's little sign of growth, of emotional repercussions, of follow through, of any sign whatsoever anything the characters go through has any impact on them except at a very superficial, last minute kind of 'throw in' to up the angst level at a given moment/

Like Sam's reaction to Nareem's probable demise at the end, strangely highlighted given she hasn't given us any indication she's thought about the guy since she last saw him in Pretense. Also strange she's the only one showing any grief over his loss seeing as how all of the team have been rubbing elbows with him and have gotten to know him pretty well.  But, I forgot, only Sam LOVES him.

Since when?

I really wanted to see the SGC LEARN something from this one and take a good hard look at their 'standing orders' and the sort of compromises and chances trying to fulfil them is driving the SG teams to.

THAT'S what this episode ultimately should have been about.  The Tollan's arrogant reliance on their own technological superiority has made them isolationist and incorrectly convinced of their own superiority.  Because they imagine themselves untouchable and 'better' than everyone else they pass judgement, but their 'superiority' does not stand up to a true test of character.

When they are called upon to stand firm to their convictions - upholding them to the point of being willing to die before being used to harm others - they fail.  And yes, they are summarily and simplistically judged, found wanting and 'executed' in the course of the episode, but the reasons why they fail and are killed off in the end aren't examined carefully, and they should have been.

Especially as the Tollan could be us.  At the very least, they could have been the END of us, because we are being just as blind as they are, closing our eyes to what is really going on in our quest to get what we want (as in scenarios like the Other Side) demonstrating we are prepared to be just as judgmental, just as arbitrary, just as 'expedient' to preserve our race at any cost. (except for Jack's little moment in Red Sky saying 'okay save them we'll take our chances' to the Asgard.  Nice.)

If we don't agree 'the end justifies the means' as it applies to the Tollan (they certainly don't get to save their lives at our expense, thank you very much) than neither should WE get to continue on this 'get the guns no matter what we have to do to get them' mindset as we rampage through the galaxy greedy and obsessed.

At some point in time someone - most probably Daniel, and this is one of the ways in which his character is so completely VITAL to the dynamic because he is US looking at all these soldiers going, 'uh, excuse me, but - can I say something?'  - should have taken a step back and at least gone - 'do you realise what almost happened here and why?  Do you think maybe we should take a look at where this weapons focus is taking us?'

I'm really, really disappointed this didn’t' happen.  It really should have happened.  This point was ultimately more important than whether Sam and Nareem got to spend a few minutes smiling sweetly at each other while they looked through the record archives searching for clues. While those scenes are 'nice',  because the relationship has not been acknowledged often enough in canon for us to believe it's particularly significant enough for Sam - and it certainly isn't to us - seeing it resumed only to have Nareem killed in the end - the whole thing is actually pretty pointless. And again, a waste of screen time when there were other, neglected aspects of the script which should have been explored and would ultimately have MATTERED more to us.

For all her little look of pain at the end I haven't been properly sold Nareem is important enough to Sam overall warrant having this 'relationship' featured yet again, only to have it ultimately go nowhere - again  - when there were better, more interesting possibilities in the script begging to be explored, which never were.

Like I said, my bottom line is I would rather have had an exploration of the moral issues and us going 'hmmmm, maybe we should take a closer look at OUR behaviour' than scenes of Sam and her pointless romance of the week.  Or any of the members with their pointless romance of the week, but seeing as Sam is the one getting the most action without actually scoring lately in the dead almost but not quite lovers department (sheesh, she doesn't even get to KISS them before they pop off, never mind anything else!)

You want these stories to be really special you need to take a look at the issues you raise instead of brushing them aside unexamined, passing them by for the stupid, pointless sappy stuff, the obligatory 'isn't Sam wonderful' scenes and the shoot 'em up endings.

Again, bearing in mind, your core audience are women, educated, informed, mature women for the most part. We like to think.  We like to be challenged.  When we say we like character development what we mean is an exploration of these characters through what they learn about themselves through the scenarios.  There should be growth, development, some sort of sign what happens to them has an IMPACT on them.  Changes them, changes their outlook. Evolution! This is the way it is in real life, this is the way it should be with them.  But the stories are not doing this, they are not going deeper, not dealing with issue they raise and with one exception, the characters are showing NO sign of growth - except in a negative direction.

Interestingly enough the only character who has grown and changed, evolved and developed in a logical direction consistent with what has happened to him through the course of the series is - you  guessed - Daniel.  He's not the same man we first met in the movie, nor should he be.  He's much more interesting now, more complex, layered, utterly fascinating.  He's darker, yes, but that is to be expected.  More reckless, definitely more confident and - (and this is my personal pet peeve with the way Daniel is perceived not only as a member of the team but in fic as well) HE'S NOT BLOODY INCOMPENT OR A LIABILITY ON A MILITARY TEAM!

Jesus Christ, look at the way the man handles himself and the ordnance in Enemies.  He might not be a 'soldier' but he's been a member of SG-1 for FIVE YEARS.  If he was still dropping things and not knowing what end of his gun to shoot with he'd either be dead or Jack would have booted his ass off the team ages ago.  He's not going to risk his life or the rest of the team's life with someone who's going to cower behind a rock every time the shooting starts.

Daniel can hold his own in the field.  He can shoot, he can fight, he can CERTAINLY take care of himself.  He's not stupid, or clumsy, or uncoordinated.  He's brave, resourceful, he's pulled his own ass out of the fire more than once and more than any other members of the team.  He's not dead weight on the team, he's not a liability, he's a big strapping boy perfectly capable of doing the shoot 'em up stuff.  (and as long as I'm on this rant Daniel does NOT disobey orders, wander off and constantly get himself and the team in trouble, either)

Yes, he can do the 'action man' stuff and when necessary he should along with all the rest of them - but you need to find ways to make the scripts not about shooting things up all the time.  That's not the way the show started out, and there's no excuse for it to be this way now.

There was a real opportunity in this story to hear from the 'outsider's point of view - in this case, Daniel, shining a light on the military attitude and asking maybe it's time we reassessed our priorities.  Unfortunately not taken, and neither was the chance to give Teal'c something to say in Red Sky.

SG-1 really should have taken a look at their techno obsession before this episode ended. Especially, logically after this little adventure not only should the Stargate program be history but they should be putting that gate off planet so fast...

But I'll discuss this in a minute.

Sigh, one nice little Jack Daniel banter moment complete with a 'you're good' and we get the breakthrough we are looking for.

I'm still trying to get my head around a culture that surveilles itself so closely and thinks that’s a good thing, but it certainly makes it pretty easy to track down proof something is indeed rotten in the state of Tollan.  However, the fact it is so easy to uncover the cover up seems to suggest the Tollan really aren't good at this covert stuff. Trevel definitely shouldn't try to become a con woman for a living.

Oh, and then we get the team split up again and we get to see some Sam and Daniel interaction, which also doesn't happen much any more.

Another reminder when Sam and Daniel and Nareem are trying to use Omac's code to break into Trevel's office how tight security is on this planet.  Again, other than a detail to artificially up the drama I can't see why it would need to be this way, the Tollan didn't strike me as this paranoid before.

I'm afraid I really didn't get why Jack seemed to need to make so much of a fuss over showing us how reluctant he is to hold Teal'c's hand.  He didn't seem to have any problems with holding Daniel's hand in the Other Side....

Question?  What I said up above about security?  Now goes right out the window.

You've gone out of your way to show us the Tollan are surveilled up the waaahzoo and their security is tighter than Scrooge McDuck is with his money - how is it then, Jack and Teal'c are able to waltz into the secret cache of the secret doomsday weapons and no security alarms seem to be raised, and I guess this area isn't surveilled because no one seems to notice them hanging about and poking their noses in the nice big, secret bombs.  From the looks of things the boys could stay there and throw a party and the Tollan security wouldn't have a clue where they were and what they were up to.

Unhappily Daniel and Sam aren't so lucky.  They are just on the point of uncovering the entire, sordid scheme before Trevel and her boys - and Tanith show up, while Jack and Teal'c have to go all the way back to Nareem's before the security forces can find them.

I really can't believe the Tollan security don't relive Nareem of his 'walk through the walls' device the same time they disarm Sam and Daniel (sloppy, very sloppy.  And can I say, just an observation but on the prop side the Tollan 'guns' look like a reworking of the device Nareem gives Jack in Pretense as his summons to Triad).  But good thing for the team they don't, because Nareem is able to get away and then hook up with Jack and Teal'c and take part in the clever plan to foil the good guys who are now the bad guys.

And it is rather clever.  Although to slip one by the Tollan who do not, as Teal'c tells us in Pretense 'think strategically' - not too difficult. Anyone who would believe anything a Goa'uld tells them...

The Tollan might be 'superior' when it comes to technology but they sure seem to be dummies every other way.  Why in the WORLD would Trevel or anyone else believe co-operating with the Goa'uld would ensure the survival of the Tollan?  You and I both know Tanith has every intention of blowing the Tollan to kingdom come once he gets what he wants from them. That the Tollan don't know it as well and believe they have ANY chance at all of surviving once Tanith gets the goods - are they really that naïve?

In a strange way this misguided belief their 'deal' is going to save them is even more monstrous than the decision the Tollan make they deserve to live more than the other worlds their technology is going to condemn. They won't share their technology to benefit more 'primitive' societies but it's okay if the fruits of their knowledge are used to destroy them just so long as the Tollan get to continue.

Phooey, but I really wish you guys had dealt with this more, or at the very least not killed off Nareem so there would be at least ONE member of the Tollan society left who had learned SOMETHING from the fate of their race and was prepared to try and do something to not only atone for what was almost done but to make sure it never happened again.

Killing off Nareem was another stupid, pointless waste of a potentially excellent character now he was finally getting INTERESTING and able to contribute future tantalising possibilities for future stories - not all of which had to do with his 'feelings' for Sam.

Especially as all we got for his sacrifice was the inspiring sight of Sam grieving over the loss of yet another almost lover she really hardly even knew complete with the 'love theme' from A Hundred Days (we can't very well use the Point of View Sam and Jack love theme here, can we, that's SACRED) to musically explain to us exactly what she's broken up over, just in case we don't understand how deeply she regrets his loss and how much he means to her based on all the abundant evidence in canon of how profound an impact Nareem has had on Sam's life and how often she's thought about him and mentioned him to us.

Sam has gotten to 'grieve' over more lost loves in the course of the last two seasons than Daniel was allowed to even remember Sha'uri existed over the course of the entire series - never mind show any grief over her loss.  Hell, the week after she dies they have a new chick throwing herself at him, and him letting her.  Ditto for Teal'c getting to angst over Shan'auc - a woman we are 'told' he has history with but whom we actually only see for a few scenes before she is toasted. 'Our love does not end in death.'  No, I guess not, and it is also extremely useful in that it provides a nifty motivation for Teal'c to go pointlessly rampaging after a Goa'uld hell bent on revenge, doesn't it?

You let Daniel tell Sha'uri he loved her - after she was dead. We don't even really get to see his face.  After the huge build-up we're given in FIAD of how much of Daniel's supposed reason for being on the team has been all this time bound up in trying to find her (although to be fair, this is the first we hear of it because based on the number of times the writers actually reference her existence or have Daniel pausing the odd time to reflect and go, you know, if Sha'uri was here, she'd really think this was.... Which happened exactly NEVER times in three years) the strangely 'flat' and incredibly unsatisfying ending of the episode and the chance we never get to see how her death has really affected him - or see him grieve over her properly  or - practically anything but mention her name a couple of times to Shifu a year after she dies...

Meanwhile Sam gets to bleed on screen for every Orlin, Joe and Nareem with way less reason or justification than Daniel had to rightly do the same and yet was denied - the whole non-event the Daniel and Sha'uri romance was turned into was and still is a damned cheat!

Knock if off with Sam and her phoney romance of the week already!  If you can't treat the one, established, genuine (and really loved and popular and accepted) romance of the series with the attention and focus it deserved and allow it to be acknowledged, processed, experienced and dealt with by the character it most affected in a way that would have allowed us to participate as well - then please keep your cheap, exploitive substitutes for what you want us to accept over the 'real thing' we actually wanted and you never let us have.

You wouldn't do the romance we really wanted to see more of and  you should have, shouldn't have done the Sam and Jack thing we never wanted to see and can't make us buy Sam is falling for these guys she gets to bury every week, so please stop putting both Sam and us through it and put the whole romance thing on the back burner like maybe forever, okay?

Oookay, now I've got that out of my system maybe I should wrap this puppy up.  There isn't actually too much left to talk about.

Hammond's comment at the end, 'We can reasonably assume the Goa'uld didn't get any of these weapons,'

'We can only hope,' Jack replies.  Indeed.

We can?  Really?  It's true Tanith's convenient 'don't start shipping the weapons until you've nuked the Tau'ri' instructions insured the weapons were still warehoused so Nareem could blow them up, but that doesn't mean the Goa'uld don't have at least one, and certainly they SHOULD have the specs.  They're fools if they didn't get them, because I'm certain once the Tollan had outlived their usefulness the Goa'uld would want to take over manufacturing the weapons for themselves.

At the very least, the Goa'uld now have the phase shifting technology of the Tollan, which is why I say the SGC should be packing that gate off the planet as soon as they possibly can.

The 'assumption' the Goa'uld don't have the weapons wouldn't work in the real world, and if there are any 'assumptions' to be made it should be the other way, namely even if the Goa'uld don't have any of the doomsday weapons at the very least they now have the means to equip an army of Jaffa (or whatever race they can force into acting as their agents to keep  it from looking like they are violating the treaty) with the ability to walk right though the iris and invade Earth. With the little Tollan gismos Tanith must most CERTAINLY have scooped and sent on to his boss - if he didn't he's too stupid to live, and so is his boss for not telling him to get some.

So, like I said before, if the logical consequences of this ep were being acknowledged, the Stargate program is now officially over.  It's too high a risk to the security of Earth to leave that gate open if there is even the SLIGHTEST chance the Goa'uld have either the weapons or the phase shifters.

Also I'm  sorry, Hammond's vast experience over mine in these matters to the contrary, but 'hoping' the Goa'uld's fear of the Asgard is going to keep them from using the weapon gives the SGC enough of a safety factor to keep operating?

Um, I wouldn't think so, would you?

Now, the way to get around this would be to have a Tollan survivor who knew some way to neutralise/counteract the units, or in fact for us to learn (through the survivor) there was indeed some sort of built in fail safe mechanism that ensured the things would all turn to sludge in twenty four hours or something like that and the specs had some kind of virus in them that wiped the system clean of the plans, and there is a way to defend against the phase shifting units themselves - something ANYTHING a bit more substantive than 'we can only hope'.  For crying out loud!

If you do decide to bring Nareem back - and given what I am about to get into by way of closing this off I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to - it would be wonderful if you took care of this loose end vis a vis the phase shifting stuff as it's rather huge.

And speaking of those phase shifting units....

Why would a people who can press a button and make themselves go out of phase so they can walk through walls and generally be beyond anything made of normally phased matter to be able to affect them be worried about getting shot at?   By anybody?

Providing they keep their heads and phase themselves the Tollan should be able to push a button and be completely impervious to any attempts to blast them into oblivion.  They might lose a lot of real estate while they are running around aimlessly with the Goa'uld trying to hit them, equally aimlessly and only succeeding in levelling the buildings but not being able to hurt the phased people.  Heck, the Goa'uld might even get as far as blowing up their entire planet until the Tollan stop running and squawking and realise all they have to do is go up the Goa'uld ship and take IT out -   Easy as pie for people who can phase.

Which is what they should have done the instant the damned thing showed up.  Right after it took it's first pot shot at them.    While Trevel etc kept the Goa'uld talking a team should have gone up to the mothershipship, however (no shields could stop them, I can't believe the Tollan don't have some kind of matter transporter), and make the damned ship go boom.

They could go through the ship wherever and however they wanted, do anything to it they wanted, how would the Goa'uld have stopped them? THEY CAN PHASE THEMSELVES!  D'uh!!! Why didn't they USE it to defend themselves by blowing up the ship with the nasty shields that can stand up to their ion canon but they can walk right through with their phase technology  rather than play footsie with the Goa'uld?

Too late to say that the Goa'uld shields couldn't be phased through either.  You didn't indicate anything of the kind during the course of the episode and it's highly unlikely they would have a way to counteract technology they didn't previously possess (or they wouldn't have had to invade Tollana to get their hands on it.)

And if the Tollan were too stupid to figure this out 'til after they sold their souls and almost had to act as the human race's executioners and they're faced with getting blasted at last why don't they use their little phase boxes to make like a bunch of ghosts now so they won't be.

I'm sorry, I see no reason for the Tollan to have been exterminated.  Hopefully some of Nareem's people figure this out so we're not talking total, needless extermination here.  Of course, if the Tollan allow the Goa'uld to wipe them out, after all the previous bullying they've needlessly submitted to, it does indeed bring the expression 'too stupid to live' to mind.  Most emphatically.

That's about it for this one.  In conclusion, absolutely love the team characterisations in this one.  Based on this script, of all of the 'new writers' Mr Wilkinson has best grasped the characters, understands the concept of the proper balance and proportion between the interactions, doesn't want to marry Sam, knows the difference between an original character and a Mary Sue and grasps the stars of the show are the ones featured in the opening credits, not the newest, neatest character he has come up with who is so much cooler, original and darned fun to be around than those bores on SG-1.

The plots definitely, definitely need work, though.  Between being riddled with holes you can drive Stargates through - the really, really bad science and coming SO CLOSE, but not quite 'hitting' the mark with the issues they dangle out to us without dealing with them.   Basically, if more thought and care, went into them but especially a little more thought....

I don't know, I see a lot more promise in these two scripts than I have in a few others which just totally crack me up - even when I know they're not intended to.

Holding that thought, we will move on.  Next time, definitely - humour

Humour, Interesting Concept.  Explored as I work my way through Upgrades, Window of Opportunity, Wormhole X-treme and The Tomb.

PhoenixE

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