L.E. McMurray

Resurrection (Stargate/Buffy)

Reviewed by Kathryn A on 1st January 2003 (4)

Yes, I had a peek at some of this year's Stargate Fan Fiction Awards crossover nominees. This one opened promisingly enough:
    He stood in the basement of the burnt out shell of a building. It was out of the way and was also good shelter from the sun. His altar was in the safest corner of the building. He wasn't going to let anything happen to that. It was almost the time when his God would return. First however he had to feed.

Unfortunately, while the plot had potential, the execution was somewhat on the banal side. Or perhaps it was a tendency to be told the obvious:
    "Nothing is more boring in Sunnydale than a Saturday night with no monsters," Buffy Summers, the Chosen One, pouted slightly.
    "On the up side though," her best friend Willow Rosenberg said, "No monsters."

That might have been a fun bit of dialogue if we hadn't been whapped with phrases such as "Buffy Summers, the Chosen One" and "her best friend Willow Rosenberg". There are similar examples all the way through.

Also I always get frustrated when I miss out on what I consider to be the most fun part of a crossover: the bit where people try to explain things to each other. But here, this is all I got:
    "I know I'm probably asking a dumb question," Xander interjected, "But who or what is Ra?"
    "Ra was the Egyptian Sun God, the father of the rest of the Gods," Giles explained.
    "And until a few years still alive," Daniel added absently.
    The looked at him in sheer disbelief.
    "Jack, I think we'd better explain who we are and where we work," Daniel said.
    "Classified," Jack argued.
    "Jack."
    "NO."
    "YES."
    "NO."
    "Gentlemen," Giles shouted over them, "How about this, we'll tell you something highly secret then you'll have no qualms about telling us what you do. Because I have a feeling we're going to have to work together on this."
    The door opened again and Buffy and Angel walked in empty handed, "What's going on?"
    Everyone got comfortable as each group explained who they were.

Personally, I don't really think that Jack would ever agree to tell these complete strangers everything; he'd rather lie like a trooper. (Why is it that nobody ever seems to take that option in crossovers? Well, very rarely.)

Also, regarding the plot, while I did say it had potential, unfortunately the central premise required a little more than "Oh they can do this impossible thing because this is Sunnydale" -- we could have done with a little more plausibabble (Like tech(Trek)nobabble, only not about technology).