Techtite Feature Article!

"Claudia Black will always be remembered for her role in Farscape...which is a very good thing, when remembering her role on Stargate."

---from the article

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Number 2? Really? Be all this as it may, some may wonder if placing Vala at #2 on this list is a little harsh. Worse than Colin Baker as Doctor Who...? Worse than Wesley Crusher? Worse than Ewoks? Really? Well...yes. The fact is: none of the above characters ---nor any character prior to Vala on this list--- made it nearly impossible to watch the rest of that series. Doctor Who is solid and strong. Star Trek survived through three separate spin-off series regardless of Wesley's annoyances. As for Ewoks, they have hardly ended Star Wars legacy, and never will. Vala was so annoying, the end of Stargate SG-1 as a series actually seems a bit merciful, in that she can no longer make the series barely watchable. Yes; she was that bad, Claudia Black or not. That's pretty bad!

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It may seem a bit harsh to put Vala at #2, especially for those who snuck a peek at #1 already. Surely she wasn't as bad as him, right? Yet what places Vala so high on this list isn't how annoying she was, as much as how misused the actress was who played her. Casting Farscape's "Aeryn" (Claudia Black) around the same time as "Crichton" (Ben Browder) sounds like an awesome plan, to any fan of that series. After all; their characters had awesome chemistry then, so why not on Stargate? There's a slight problem with that. For one their characters hate each other(?!?). To make matters worse; "Vala" (Black) was annoying. If Vala is #2 on this list ---and sorry, she is--- it isn't because we hate her with the gravitational intensity of a thousand black holes. She was one huge, horrifically missed opportunity.

Unfortunately, Vala would also be the clearest sign of why Stargate had to end. With "Aeryn" and "Crichton" on hand, it would seem as though they could set their script writers on cruise control and still have a hit episode every week. Yet Vala would become the hub of every flub, mistake, err, and outright peculiarity in the series' final seasons. Vala's character went through so many contradictory rewrites, it was clear the writers just didn't care about cohesion to the plot anymore. One minute she's got super strength while another minute she's barefoot, pregnant, and as weak as a baby. One minute she's seemingly witty with an amusing tête-à-tête with Daniel, while another minute she's screeching such inane dialog gibberish as, "Yeah! Let's Make Babies!" Eeesh.

It's perhaps the most predictable slap in the face that Vala was the character who would give birth to the final season's "female demon," or whatever she was supposed to be. Man; did the script writers for Stargate's final seasons hate Farscape, or what? They could've brought in tons of new viewers from the Farscape crowd with some nice romantic angst. Instead they decided to tick all "Aeryn" fans off, as they all turned off their TVs asking, "Just what the frack was that?"

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