(no subject)

Why having some actors play characters who are older than they are and simultaneously having other actors play characters who are younger than they are is a bad idea. I'm going to use Stargate SG-1, home to Michael Shanks as Daniel Jackson, one of few actors to play someone older than he is -- if Daniel were Michael Shank's age, he would have had three Ph.D.s and be on his way out of the profession at twenty-three, which seems rather excessive. (Sadly, Sam Carter's age has never been given on the show, so we're going to have to leave her out of this discussion.)

So. Michael Shanks (1970) playing Daniel Jackson (1965), Ben Browder (1962) playing Cam Mitchell (1971ish; he was ten in 1981), and Richard Dean Anderson (1950) playing Jack O'Neill (1952 or 1957). This means that, while Michael Shanks is the youngest of these actors by eight years, his character is in fact supposed to be sixish years older than Ben Browder's character. And no wonder everyone's having trouble working out Mitchell's past and his interactions -- he's the youngest of the four current members of SG-1, but Ben Browder is the oldest member of the group of actors. Whoops?