I have to admit that these days, I find Battlestar Galactica more riveting than I do my beloved SG-1. This weekend I figured out in part why: no Jack O'Neill. And not just because I think he's a smorgasboard of sexy hunkdom.

I miss his commanding presence. See, Jack never sucked up to the rest of the team. With Daniel, he could be brutally honest because they were both driven to rid the universe of the Go-oulds, and Daniel was only on the team because of Jack, in the beginning. Jack was definitely the leader. He and Daniel were kind of ying-yang on the show: Daniel was intellectual, curious, and could put himself in other people's shoes (which meant that he often times would rather risk death and destruction in order to learn more about a culture, etc). Jack, though, was action-oriented, determined to fulfill the mission and keep his team alive. He usually didn't care for ancient cultural integrity, especially if it meant a danger to Earth. That doesn't mean he was insensitive or lacked intelligence, it just meant that his priorities were different than Daniel's. And Jack rarely whined (except about politicians and fools - and even then, it was more of that satirical word punching than a nagging complaint). Daniel, though, often whines, IMHO.

With Sam, Jack is also a superior, so she does what he tells her to, though she will present her opinion and argue. But he still doesn't have to worry about pissing her off.

With Teal'c, Jack was a peer when it came to being a warrior, but Teal'c still respected O'Neill as the leader. And he felt grateful because O'Neill saved him from Apophis and gave him the opportunity to free the Jaffa.

Currently, we have an imbalance of power on SG-1 because the leader, Cam Mitchell, has had to woo the other three members back to the team. He has not been able to be an aggressive, bottom line leader. Thus, Daniel has been the main decision maker. We also now have a much more active General in Landry, whereas Hammond trusted Jack's judgment and rarely stepped in to interfere.

So until Cam feels like the rest of the team is so committed to defeating the Ori that he can make decisions that they won't like but they wills till follow because he's the leader, we will have a power imbalance. I hope after last Friday's episode, Cam will stop acting like a supplicant and start behaving like a colonel.