I can usually watch any episode out of sequence and not wind up confused as all get-out.

It's made the incessant re-runs even more of a pleasure. Because it often wasn't until the third viewing I could go "Oh! That thing with Martouf!" and get the whole scenario.

In a way, I don't mind this about SG1. Even though there are bits in some episodes where I know I'm missing some backstory, I can usually watch any episode out of sequence and not wind up confused as all get-out.

Oh, no, I don't either really. I find it kind of charming. ("Whaddaya mean we're completely contradicting ourselves? Look, over there, a spaceship!") Also it's fun when they *do* bring back old things, which they do more often than one might expect. But it means that actually having a bunch of fiddly canonical detail in my head feels a little silly.

Can you give me some of the heinous examples? I'd never thought it worse than an XFiles, or something.

Oh, well, not usually so much in personal continuity - they're pretty good about that - as in practical. (Comparing anything to the X-Files is dirty pool.) Stuff like trying to make the depiction of goa'uld reproduction in Hathor line up with anything we see later, or trying to make sense of how fast goa'uld ships can go (it's going to take three months! No, wait, never mind, for the purposes of this plot it needs to take a lot less time!").

I just want them to agree how to pronounce goa'uld. My goals are low.

That Hathor stuff makes little to no sense. Really don't like that ep at all, except for seeing Carter's discomfort.

As for ship speed, I'm assuming that's like Buffy's variable strength.

Which makes me wonder -- aren't they neurotic SF fans too?

I just want them to agree how to pronounce goa'uld. My goals are low.

Heh. See, that I kind of like. Mispronouncing it in a simpler fashion than is strictly correct is just so American. (Note that Shanks, at least, is perfectly capable of saying it the right way; he does in Holiday when he's playing Ma'chello.)

Which makes me wonder -- aren't they neurotic SF fans too?

I'm not sure they're so much of the nitpicky mode.

I'm not sure they're so much of the nitpicky mode.

I'm guessing it can't be possible to be, really, in an endeavour with that many people. How was JMS in that regard?

You'd have to ask someone who followed B5 - I tried it a couple of times and bounced off.

I swear I followed it, but I don't remember a thing.

Definitely not an acolyte.

How was JMS in that regard?

My memory of B5 is that JMS was kind of pugnacious about claiming he had a plan, and had always had a plan, and yes that too was part of the plan. There were a couple of episodes that tied themselves in Gordian knots to be canon-compliant (the whole B-squared thing), but they were indeed canon-compliant.

For things like ship-speed, well, JMS had a thing for killing off minor characters with all pomp and tragedy, so there's more than one instance of, e.g., somebody being stranded in a starfury and eventually making it back to the main ship, only to die of radiation poisoning. Right after he explains the key plot point he witnessed.

(JMS had an escape-clause though: whenever something snazzy and potentially logic-busting needed to happen, he had the Minbari or the vacuum-cleaner guy do it. They were sort of his own personal flabotinum.)