Season 9 started on Comet. It's at this point that the show was completely overhauled. O'Neill is out and Landry (Beau Bridges) is in as General. And Ben Browder takes the lead as "Cam Mitchell". Bridges is a natural in the role of patriarchal commander. Browder on the other hand brings a ham and cheese sandwich approach to the role he plays. Granted, he's supposed to be the wise-crackin' replacement to Jack O'Neill so it's understandable that his character is written that way. Plus he's bringing his shtick from
Farscape, so I can't really hate on the guy too much. His performance isn't bad, it's just very forced to fit into the already established SG-1 story. The writers obviously wanted to endear him to the fans as quickly as possible.
Claudia Black also joins the cast as "Vala" and she does an amazing job right out of the gate. They gave her some hilarious lines to spout: "
I'm pregnant." "
The reason you (men) go through the stargate is to meet women." Michael Shanks does a fairly good job of playing her foil. As we all know Daniel Jackson can be a real douche but luckily the writers decided to make him more comedic by this point, so that is a welcome relief.
They also brought in Lexa Doig to play both the doctor and Landry's daughter. Clearly the writers intended to use this familial dynamic to create (needless) drama in future episodes. From what I recall they failed on that part because it was a dumb idea and no one gave a hard turd about that lame character anyway. And also because Doig is a huge bore. Sorry guys, but she is. I don't care how "hot" she looks, there's something incredibly dull and unappealing about her. In every role she plays she blends into the wallpaper. (Apparently she married Michael Shanks which is fitting because they clearly deserve each other.)
Also, they started the Ori/Merlin story line. The King Arthur thing is kind of dumb and makes it hard to suspend one's disbelief. There's also a shitload of Renaissance Fair crap going on by the second episode of the season, and it's not going to stop. Plus they have fully employed those heinous "communication stones". At this point we are stuck with them, sigh.