ALL HAILS
FOR FRUMPY MUM
Meow! Meow! Meow! Kch! Kch! Kch!
Of all the female characters that have made an appearance on Stargate SG-1, Laira, widow and hard-working mother of a handful of kids from a planet called Eudora, has certainly the doubtful honour of being the most disliked one, along with Anise/Freya and cadet Haley (not to mention my personal favourite here, the tour guide from "2010").
While I admit that I, too, have a hard time to stomach Jack being with anybody else but Sam (deep inside me, there's a sappy woman hoping for a sappy happy end), the extend of this character's rejection is amazing. There was whistling and boo-ing at Gatecon last year when the kiss between Jack and Laira was shown in a video ...
"SHE'S SO UGLY!"
So far for "reducing people on their appearance" - isn't this a "typical male behaviour" women so often criticize? That they can better look than think? Laira is not ugly - she's a mature woman who has to work hard for a living. Her society is a simple one, people work on the fields - you can't expect her to look like a supermodel .
And that's what I like about "A hundred days": this episode was a very rare example where it's not the BBBB (Blonde Big Boobed Bimbo) who gets the hero, but a woman like you and me. Most of us see rather a Laira when looking in the mirror than a Cindy Crawford (that's on a good day. On a bad day, I see Jabba The Hut).
That Jack went for an "ordinary woman" rather than for the silicone enhanced model makes the character of Jack O'Neill all the more likeable.
Laira was lonely. I think all of us can identify with this - so her wish for a child is neither surprising nor "low". Jack never pretended to be madly in love with her, and she accepted this, and I'm sure that, if he had denied her wish, she'd accepted this as well - every question is allowed, as long as every answer is accepted.
Having said this, I wouldn't want to see this story arch to continue, though. I like the fact that this episode has an open end - life doesn't give answers on all questions, either, and this is one of the things that makes "Stargate SG-1", beside being a science-fiction show, so realistic, and easy to identify with.
And I don't blame Laira the slightest bit, in contrary: the woman had class - if I'd been in her place, and Jack O'Neill had stranded on my planet, I had sure as hell dumped that radio in the swamp, and whacked every Jaffa trying to drag el colonel back to earth over the head with a rolling bin!
"SHE MADE JACK DRUNK!"
First: Jack O'Neill doesn't need anybody to make him drunk. He's perfectly capable to get himself in a state of booziness himself.
Second: from a strictly medical point of view we just have to mention here that, if Jack had really been too drunk to realize what's going on, fun would have been pretty limited for both parties ...
Third: oh come on ... stranded on an alien planet, no hope to get home - what else can you do but adjust to the circumstances? If all relationships on this planet here which are not based on true love only had to separate, earth would be known in the universe as "the single planet".
