Vala Mal Doran - Reception

Reception

The character of Vala was immediately popular with the Stargate writers, producers and crew. During the filming of "Prometheus Unbound", people on set responded "very well" to the chemistry between Vala and Daniel. Director Andy Mikita called executive producer Robert C. Cooper during the first lunch break and told him to "hire this gal", and Cooper thought Vala/Black "was absolutely wonderful. The character really worked out." Writer Damian Kindler "really loved" what Black brought to the show, believing that "her character, when used properly, is just absolutely wonderful grist for the mill on SG-1." Stargate writer Martin Gero called Vala "so much fun to write, almost too fun. You do kind of get carried away." Michael Shanks repeatedly stated in interviews that Claudia Black revitalized his interest in acting.

While TV Guide called Vala a "saucy bodacious babe who immediately clicked with viewers", GateWorld's Darren Sumner and TheScifiWorld's Gilles Nuytens commented on her "warm reception by fans" and her being "an instant hit with fans of the show". 71 percent of over 8000 GateWorld readers rated Claudia Black's portrayal of Vala in season 9 as "perfect". In a later GateWorld poll among over 12000 participants, 51 percent answered that Claudia Black's joining the main cast was "about time!", while 22 percent were concerned or had no opinion. The actress was not as confident about the character's reception, and Robert C. Cooper advertised Vala's last season 9 appearance as the return of "a much loved and much hated character." Vala Mal Doran ranked second (25%) out of five behind SG-1's Cameron Mitchell (27%) in the viewer-voted 2006 Spacey Awards for "Favourite New TV Character", and was voted third (22%) out of five places in the 2007 Spacey Awards for "Favourite Character You Love to Hate" (26% Battlestar Galactica's Gaius Baltar, 28% Smallville's Lex Luthor). Per popular demand, Diamond Select Toys included Vala in their third series of Stargate action figures.

The Sun Herald thought of the character as "a thoroughly charming intergalactic thief famed for using her allure to get what she wants", and Matt Roush of TV Guide called Claudia Black "great fun to watch in ". TV Zone's Stephen Graves believed that Browder and Black's first post-Farscape encounter in Stargate SG-1's "Avalon" was "somewhat underplayed – but Black makes up for this with her sparky, snarky characterization of Vala." He welcomed the producers' decision to not cast a carbon copy of Samantha Carter, and thought that Claudia Black's Vala in her six-episode arc remained "the best thing in the series". By season 10's "Memento Mori", TV Zone's Anthony Brown felt that "Ben Browder and Claudia Black have reached a point where they can play out an amusing take on Misery without you feeling that have somehow starbursted onto SG-1's Earth". Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune called Browder's and Black's interaction in season 10 "great fun; the rapport they developed on the stellar Farscape was still much in evidence, even though they played radically different characters on SG-1."

Maureen Ryan described the chemistry between Black and Michael Shanks as "sparky" and "one of the most diverting parts of the latter seasons of the show". According to Ultimate DVD, the scenes between Vala and Daniel as the object of her affection resulted in "some of the freshest and funniest scenes in the show for some time". In reviewing "Unending", Anthony Brown called Vala "a character who's always had a little too much of comic relief torn apart by the nice guy of the team." SyFy Portal attributed Stargate SG-1 not going stale after ten years to Black, as she "quite literally steals the show from the existing cast of heroes". For her portrayal of Vala, Claudia Black was nominated for a Saturn Award in the category "Best Supporting Actress on Television" in 2006, and won a Constellation Award in the category "Best Female Performance in a 2006 Science Fiction Television" for the episode "Memento Mori" in 2007.