Are they trying a little too hard to make us like Colonel Mitchell

[deeman]

After watching the recent SG-1 episode Collateral Damage I got the feeling that the producers of the show are trying a bit too hard to make us the fans like the latest addition to the team. I have nothing against Ben Browder, quite the contrary Farscape will always be one of my all time favorite shows and his portrayal of John Crichton had a lot to do with that. I think he's an amazing actor and I really like the character he plays in SG-1.

 

The problem is that in the minds of the fans he's replacing one of the most beloved characters in the show, maybe even in then genre. Frankly if it had been anybody else but Ben Browder I'm sure the fans would take even longer to accept the change, maybe even reject it. Still this puts a lot of pressure on the producers and writers to make a smooth and quick transition. My problem is with the latter.

 

With Colonel O'Neill's character we were told parts of his backstory very slowly. The show just went along, and fans saw the character and liked him. Fans wanted to know more about him before episodes were written about his backstory. Not the other way around. In this case I feel that it's almost like they are pushing more of Mitchell's backstory on us in an attempt to make us like him and accept him as one of the team. I like the character and have a lot of faith in Mr Browder. I'd rather see things develop at a slower pace. I like it when the writers make the audience wait, it builds anticipation and make it's all the more enjoyable when things are revealed.

 

The things we found out about Colonel Mitchell was good stuff, made us understand him more, and I agree did make him more interesting and likable as a character, so on some level it worked. But my regret is that if that episode was released later when more questions about him had built up in the minds of the fans we would have been blown away. Hmmm interesting vs WOW that explains a lot.

[mateya]

hmmm, we knew oneill story from the beggining (stargate movie) so its hard to say. I know that movie helped me a lot in getting into caracters.

[Mav]

I thought he felt a "little" forced at the start of the season. Not so much cause he was going to have "new guy" syndrome but cause they like rehashed his backstory every other episode for the first two or three episodes.

 

Since then I think not only did he shed off the new guy thing in no time, he's probably the only real replacement they could get away with. I mean not to knock Ben, I love'em to death as an actor, but Anderson is one tough act to follow. He was the heart and soul of SG for over 8 years , thats some big shoes to fill.

 

Personally they are giving us doses of him in the right amounts. I didn't care for the episode in which he "murdered" that scientist woman but thats just cause I really hate the whole wake up/be informed you've randomly killed someone on an alient planet all of a sudden out of nowhere (they do it on just about every show at some point).

 

His one liners are on par with O'Neills, thats for sure ;)

[ank329]

His one liners are on par with O'Neills' date=' thats for sure ;)[/quote']

 

His one line about the asgard was great, I could have seen o'neill saying that as well

[dizzyg]

im finding it really hard getting into season 9 of SGS1 ... and i really think its cause O`Neill is gone, why did he actually leave the show? anyone got the story on that? the new guy is okay, but he's like a carbon copy of O'Neill so im really not sure if i like him yet. it also irks me how easily everyone else got used to him! the new general excluded cause he's new, but hes about 1 000 000 times better than the old one.

im also 100% with mav, those wake up and done something / killed someone / someone been killed, storys are pretty dumb, it took me 3 tries to actually finish that episode.

well thats my rant for the morning. maybe i will end up likeing "the new guy", Sheppard from Atlantis eventually grew on me.

heh

[pauljs]

I think they have had to get his back story up and running fairly quickly, as the other chracters are well established and they need to move on with the story arc. Also at time of writing the early episodes, did they know they were going to picked up for season 10?

[USWhoFan]

Actually... I have a hard time not looking at him as John Critton. Kinda like he returned from his Farscape mission and because of his knowledge of aliens he got the job on SG1. :thinking:

 

But I do miss O'Neil,:mad: even if he was MacGyver.;)

 

[Tenebrae]

They were in a hard position with having to replace a central character (even if he had effectively been ebbing away for a couple of seasons) but having Browder as some bastardised Crichton/O'Neill hybrid whose backstory is being pumped forcibly into us would have been a bad idea at the best of times.

 

But sadly it's not the best of times - just the worst of times. The Orii present a rather tedious threat. For what amounts to bad guys on a scale of Replicators on the power scale, they've not really been involved much. Could there be a more boring way to attack humanity than a plague - especially when all we get to see is Sam and a kid sitting around.

 

Suffice to say, I don't think SG-1 will pull out of this nosedive. I just hope it gets put out of its misery sooner rather than later.

[Ksenia]

To answer a query above, Richard Dean Anderson left to spend more time with his daughter. He had cut back his time in season 7, then even more in season 8 before leaving altogether.

 

Amanda Tapping was out 5 shows in Season 9 for a baby, and Michael Shanks is taking off 4 episodes in Season 10 for a new baby and family time. It's nice to see that they all love their families. :)

[NumbahWon]

I didn't like that they made browder the head of SG1, and I'm still trying to get use to that, he's COMPLETELY NEW TO THE SHOW, sure he's a good actor, sure I like Farscape, but I still don't like the decision to make him *POOF* head of the team in his first episode

 

They could've had him do something spectacular to EARN the position on screen, maybe even so spectacular that Carter REQUESTS he is promoted to team leader... Sure it's good that they care for their families, but the administration side of the show doesn't spend enough time when they make changes, it's all 2 dimensional and bland when a major change occurs, as meaningless as Tasha Yar's death.

[darthbrandon]

The way i saw it he DID to summat spectacular.. didn't o'neill say browder played a key part in the dogfight over the antartic?

 

Then o'neill offered him any job he wanted..

[Tenebrae]

It's lame how he keeps going "Oh, I read the mission report for X, Y and Z" STOP BEING A WANNABE.

[Amnot Borg]

How can he help it? After he was introduced to the reality of aliens and alien technology in the Antartic, he was offered a position as SG-1 commander, allowed to read all that the prior SG-1 team had done for Earth and he wanted to be part of it but the original members were ALL scattered. Wannabe describes him perfectly. He wanted the gang together so they could show him what it was like out there. He was like a little kid following his older friends into a candy store but then left alone with no clue where the best candy was located or how to get to it. He needed the team. We the fans, needed the team or the show would lose its charisma...

 

I'm kind of wondering if the ORI appearance isn't just a new villain but a way for the writers to present views about the effect of religious intolerance in the modern world. It seems to be on the increase lately and this does get people to think about it. Forcing your own views on others isn't going to make your views accepted on friendly terms. Sorry, serious things on my mind lately. Should I make a new topic for this?