AP2 Draft 5, Chapters 20-28: COMPLETE!
Once again, it feels good to be able to move quickly through the chapters. I can experience the flow. Pacing, as I’m told it’s called. 😅
In the early drafts there is very little flow. I always have to stop and shuffle paragraphs around. Then I go backwards and read things again. It’s like I’m stuck in a time loop, and I’m changing the past to alter the present.
But now the timeline is complete and I’m cruising straight through the book’s climax!
Okay, Spoilers for the Hellsing animes and Stargate SG-1, Season one.
Hellsing (2001) – I saw this on Crunchyroll and decided to check it out. After all, it was just 13 episodes. And when I’m at the comic store I notice the manga volumes on the shelves. They look awesome, so the Hellsing anime should be a great watch. No problem, right?
Let me just outright say it: this 2001 version is the WRONG one. It was animated BEFORE the manga finished, so most of it is filler. But I had no idea; I watched it ALL without realizing there was an ULTIMATE Hellsing anime that covers the entire manga.
Thankfully, Crunchroll provided a link to ‘Hellsing Ultimate‘ when I was done with the first series. I’ve never been so thankful for a streaming service’s ‘WATCH THIS NEXT, IDIOT’ suggestion.
Hellsing Ultimate (2006) – Ah, here we go! That first one was okay, but THIS is a masterpiece! Alucard and the Helsing Organization vs. an army of vampire Nazis! Let’s go over the characters. The ones whose names I can remember, anwyay.
Alucard – Yes, a vampire named Alucard. He’s super violent and overpowered. He has two heavy-hitting pistols, demon familiars, and regenerates from any damage. Nobody ever seems to come close to beating him. He’s pretty much an undead ‘One Punch Man.’ In the first episode he ‘saves’ a young woman by turning her into a vampire.
Seras Victoria – And this is that woman! She joins the Helsing Organization to fight evil alongside Alucard. Unlike Alucard, she hates violence and will not drink blood. (Even though it’s donated.)
She is also a sniper. And Oda, author of One Piece, needs to take notes here: THIS is how you do a sniper character right. (Usopp gets worse every arc I swear.) Seras, like Usopp, is sometimes unsure of her new vampire prowess, but she always comes through in the end.
Integra Helsing – I’m not typing out all her names. (She has like two middle names. TWO.) She is the leader of the Helsing Organization and Alucard’s master. Her superpower seems to be screaming at people, and those people, no matter who they are, follow her commands. 😮
Walter – Integra’s butler, an aged man of many secrets. His first secret is that he’s a retired Helsing solider that still knows how to fight. (He has razor-sharp strings that he can swing all over the place to cut things up.)
His second secret is that he’s a friggin’ traitor that works for the bad guys. And this is yet ANOTHER thing Oda from One Piece should learn from: When you make a traitor character, give us a good resolution! A good fight, like we get with Walter!
I won’t spoil who the traitor is in One Piece, but they do NOT get a good fight against the people they betrayed. Super lame.
Pip – A human mercenary that joins the Helsing Organization after most of the rank-and-file soldiers are all slaughtered. Seras Victoria becomes friends with him, and is left with no choice but to drink his blood when he is killed. This was one of my favorite moments, seeing Seras go ‘Super Saiyan Vampire.’
It’s one of those events that’s SO predictable, but so fun when it’s done right.
Alexander Anderson – This guy wears the same round glasses that Alucard does; I even thought that he WAS Alucard in disguise when he first showed up. But in fact Alex is the catholic rival of Alucard, complete with an arsenal of blessed blades and holy artifacts straight from the Vatican.
Every time this ‘paladin’ showed up I knew it would be a treat. I’d get epic speeches, wild battles, and AAAAAMENS!
Rip Van Winkle – An enthusiastic sniper on the side of Millennium. (The Nazi bad guys that have been hiding in South America the past fifty years.) I think it’s funny that she never faces off against Seras, the sniper from Helsing.
I’m not sure why she’s named this, though. The ‘Rip Van Winkle’ story is part of U.S. folklore, not Germany’s. I suppose she has been ‘sleeping’ along with the rest of the Nazis, biding their time until they make themselves known again. 🤔
Schrödinger – Now this guy’s name is so in-your-face it’s absurd. Not only is he a humanoid cat, but he also has the power to be both alive/dead and everywhere/nowhere.
And he’s the perfect example of a ‘minion that shows up all the time; seems unimportant; actually has the most important job out of anyone.’
The Major – Leader of Millennium. He loves war and carries one out upon London—all so that he can finally kill Alucard. In fact the entire SERIES is just one massive undertaking to find a way to finish him off.
I thought it was a brilliant story. I had been getting ticked off at how unkillable Alucard was, and here we have a villain that was thinking the same thing.
Anyway, I enjoyed this whole series—both versions. The second, more accurate one, was just better in every way though. So watch that one if you MUST choose.
Stargate SG-1 –
My Crunchyroll subscription (A gift from Kim.) ran out after I watched Hellsing, so I went to see what I could watch on Netflix. I’ve always wanted to check out Stargate SG-1, but it is ten seasons long, so let’s hope it doesn’t follow in Supernatural’s footsteps and vanish before I’m done.
And I don’t know anything about this show, either. I saw the original movie, but that was decades ago. I never even GLIMPSED it on TV after that. The only episode of SG-1 that I ever saw was from a later season. I remember this: the main actors from Farscape were trying to keep Baal from discovering where Merlin’s secret weapons were located. They somehow caught multiple ‘Baals,’ locked them all together in a room, then they all merged together to cause a singularity. 🤔
So let’s start at the beginning this time!
E1, Children of the Gods – I do know that Richard Dean Anderson plays the main character, Jack, in the early seasons. What I didn’t know is that there’s FULL FRONTAL NUDITY in episode one. 😲
There I was, thinking that this was something that had been broadcast on NBC. But nope—Showtime. I hate looking stuff up THIS early, but I was so shocked I had to know. I mean, I don’t remember hearing so much as a swear word in the first half of the episode, then suddenly some brainwashed woman is getting her clothes ripped off and violated by a parasitic snake monster.
E2, The Enemy Within – They pull the trick where the guy you think is going to be part of the Stargate team forever dies immediately. Pretty heartbreaking. Not for his loss, but because the parasite controlling him tricked Teal’c into thinking he had a friend. 😥
E3, Emancipation – I knew it would be like this: boring ‘first season’ crap after the budget-busting series openers. This one is about a planet of woman-oppressing Mongols, something that Next Generation did early on as well.
What’s really weird is that there has been NO additional nudity. And here we have an episode about woman being treated as property, and NOW they’re being tasteful with the breasts? So strange.
E4, The Broca Divide – Now everyone gets turned into cavemen. I just have to laugh at the typical ‘first season-ness’ of it all. At least it’s fun to see Richard Dean Anderson whimper like a chimpanzee. His Macgyver role just never let him release the inner ooga-booga.
E6, Cold Lazarus – This is the first stand-alone episode that made me take notice. ‘Okay, Brad, this is a show you need to respect now.’
We see Jack’s backstory through the eyes of a crystal-based clone. The real Jack is knocked out, leaving the clone free reign to interfere in his life. Or rather, his ex-wife’s!
I mean, I heard that Jack had been married before in a previous episode, but I had NO IDEA his son accidentally shot himself with his gun. And then died, ending his marriage.
And the clone, unsure of how human lives work, goes to the ex-wife’s house and ASKS to see the dead son. Because it’s the only way to ‘fix’ the real Jack’s pain. It’s crazy and touching. 🤯
E7, The Nox – Oh boy, Armin Shimmerman guest-stars already? And as a humble space hippie? What would Quark and Andrew Ryan think!? 😱
E8, Brief Candle – And what sci-fi show’s season one would be complete without the ‘turning old in a single day’ plot! It’s a better title than ‘The Naked Now,’ anyway.
E9, Thor’s Hammer – Okay, here we go: Thor shows up. Or at least, his hologram. The ‘hammer’ is a weapon that can destroy Goa’uld (The evil Egyptian-themed aliens), and it’s at the end of a labyrinth set up by the Norse gods themselves. (Also aliens, I guess.)
And if that wasn’t enough, JAMES EARL JONES voices an ancient Goa’uld that inhabits said labyrinth. A+ episode.
E10, The Torment of Tantalus – Daniel (The nerdy linguist.) decided to watch some de-classified tapes from the Pentagon about the past 50 years of stargate research. To everyone’s shock, the footage shows that one person went through the stargate in the 40’s!
Since the ‘address’ is on tape, the crew goes to the same planet to see if he’s sill alive. And he is! He’s also the owner of Melville’s from Cheers! 😳
E11, Bloodlines – Teal’c has a son and a wife that he never told anyone on Earth about. No way; what a deadbeat. It doesn’t really make sense to me, but I’m not a dad so what do I know? 🤔
E13, Hathor – An ancient Goa’uld queen is awakened in South America. She somehow makes her way to the stargate mountain base, where she hypnotizes every male member of the team and even mates with Daniel. (Still, no nudity. When she takes off her top she has an ancient Egyptian bikini. This really is very odd.)
It seems as though the Goa’uld queen must mate with the race they want to enslave, then she gives birth to compatible parasites. Disgusting. I suppose I should be thankful the clothes stayed on. 🤮
E14, Singularity – Another heart-wrencher. In this one the Goa’uld wipe out an entire colony and put an organic bomb inside the sole survivor—a little girl named Cassandra. Sam (The woman on the team.) bonds with her, but eventually has to abandon her at the bottom of a fallout shelter so the bomb doesn’t kill anyone.
Shoot, I don’t even have kids and I was crying for her. 😭😭
But the girl doesn’t even explode! The Goa’uld were trying to destroy the stargate, so it will only go off when it’s around the ‘stargate material.’ And yes, for the first time in history I’m GLAD that there were less explosions on a show.
E15, Cor-ai – Another Star Trek staple: the trial episode. In this one Wesley—I mean Teal’c—is being judged by a man that thinks he killed his father (When Teal’c was a bad guy). There’s some interesting lawyering, but I saw the ending coming a mile away.
Oh, look! The Goa’uld arrive just as the trial ends! And they want to enslave more people! Then Teal’c heroically saves the very person who accused him! Then everything he did is forgiven and he’s set free. 🙄
E16, Enigma – This episode is only impressive because previous planets and their people were considered by the characters as a way to solve their problem. A shame Armin Shimmerman didn’t show up, though. It was just the hippie girl. 😑
E17, Solitudes – This is probably my favorite episode of the first season. I was falling asleep in the first half, then my mind was blown with the reveal of a SECOND stargate on Earth.
E18, Tin Man – Then everyone gets turned into robots by some nutcase. They can’t leave the planet, and their original bodies have been destroyed. But there’s a twist! Turns out the robots had just been implanted with SG1’s memories, like the H.A.R.D.A.C. episode of Batman.
The original SG1 team was actually just sleeping the entire time. They go home and the robot copies accept their fate as slaves. 😐
E19, There But for the Grace of God – Daniel touches a weird mirror and gets sent to an alternate reality. On this Earth, most of the major cities have been destroyed by a Goa’uld attack. And Jack is… ENGAGED TO SAM!? 😲
Daniel barely escapes with his life, and passes on a warning: “ARGH! They’re coming!”
E20, Politics – Why would you name an episode this? I guess it’s a better title than ‘Snooze-fest of a Clip Show,’ which is what we’re getting here. 😭
You see what happens is a U.S. senator has a problem with a line item in the latest budget bill. It reads: Area 51 – 8.4 billion dollars, please. This senator, played by Captain Jellico from Star Trek, meets with the SG-1 team to discuss why they need all that money for stargates. Cue the clips as they argue over every single previous mission!
I guess the parts BETWEEN the clips are pretty funny. The senator points out some of the sillier things that happened throughout the season, like one of Apophis’ ships being taken out by a simple Earth bazooka. “Why do we need to worry about these guys if they’re defeated so easily!?” 🤣
Much to my surprise, the senator did not agree to fund the budget, and the Stargate program is shut down forever.
See you next time! 😭