butterfly | Robots and Abydos and Jack&Daniel

First off, anyone else still waiting to see the Angel finale? Anyone care if I use a spoilery icon?

I can't sleep when it's hot. And without a fan, my room is staying far too warm at night.

I really need to get a fan.

In Stargate news, I enjoyed Atlantis. Liked most of the mains. Really enjoyed the guest appearances of Jack and Daniel (who are such old marrieds).

Was thinking recently on Scorched Earth and Menace and how very much they track together. The difference, naturally, being that in Season Four, Daniel can find a win-win situation in time. But they both feature the ethical difference between Jack and Daniel, and robot antagonists that Daniel reaches out to with human compassion. It may even be the fact that he won over Lotan that makes him try so hard to do the same with Reese and so certain at the end that he was succeeding.

But Menace's robot is the inverse of Lotan, as is the ending. Lotan was the product of a culture, set out to re-create that culture. Reese was condemned by her culture and created a new one.

Menace is Daniel's big personal failure. Once again, he ends up next to the body of a dangerous dead woman, unable to stop her from being killed by one of his friends.

In The Sentinel, he's that snarky that he does when he's annoyed. And in Meridian, he's clearly tired with all of this. "I just wish there was another way." But he's given up suggesting better ways, because several times recently his 'better ways' have just led to more pain (set up by Season Four's Absolute Power). In Oma, I think he not only sees a chance to do more good, but also to perhaps know more good. Know when to help.

And actually, his year with Oma does teach him that -- teaches him that, sometimes, no matter what the cost or even the consequences, you have to cross the line to at least try to help the people that you love. Even in Full Circle, where he's far too comfortable with being thought of as god-like, he's still acting out of the best of intentions.

The destruction of Abydos feels incredibly symbolic. That's where Jack and Daniel started, where the seeds of their friendship and of their tradedies were sown. Sha're dies in season three -- not far before half-way between the beginning of the series and the destruction of Abydos.

Abydos is destroyed and Daniel Jackson comes back to the SGC with a clean slate, at least in theory. His only home now is the SGC. Sometimes you have to leave to find out where you belong (there's no place like home).

Abydos and Sha're and Skaara may be gone, but Jack and Daniel endure. Together.

On a totally different subject, Tara and Willow are definitely still my top canon BtVS couple. Even with... how it ended and what happened, I have this fierce 'forever' spark in my heart for them. Maybe even especially. Willow went utterly off the deep end when she lost Tara. And it was losing Tara that finally made Willow look at herself and see the bad parts and confront them. She'd always been so good at denying her own darker sides. After Tara's death and her rampage, she couldn't ignore those parts of herself anymore.