Stargate: The Non-Golden Age

[Vanysh]

Stargate SG:1 seasons 1-5 are widely held to be the "Golden Age" of the show. Understandably the lost of Daniel Jackson was a big turning point for the show, along with the changing of networks from Showtime to Syfy. Recently I began watching the show, again, to catch up with the official Rewatch. Earlier this morning I finished the season 6 opener Redemption: Part 1, and I decided I would conclude each episode by sharing my opinions/impression with a review. Below is my personalized scoring system:


1 - A very poor episode, this offers nothing or next to nothing.
2 - A weak episode but there are some redeemable qualities.
3 - The positives outweigh the negatives, enjoyable.
4 - A solid episode, the positive far outweighs the negative. Very enjoyable.
5 - The pinnacle. This episode pushes the envelope in every way. The characters are strong, the story is strong, the pacing happens naturally because everything is in it's right place.

My first review includes 6.01 and 6.02, and is nearing completion. I will be posting it shortly.

[escyos]

I have never heard of anyone refer to a "Golden Age" of Stargate. And I think that season 6-10 were better.

[rushy]

I think all seasons had great points and bad points. My least fav season is probably the fourth.

Looking forward to reviews, btw.

[Jedi_Master_Bra'tac]

I have never heard of anyone refer to a "Golden Age" of Stargate. And I think that season 6-10 were better.

I refer to the earlier seasons as Stargate's "golden age".

[sueKay]

I'd say seasons 6 - 8 are probably when the franchise was at the top of it's game in terms of profile and viewership, and I'd say that seasons 2 - 7 were the golden age in terms of episode quality

[Vanysh]

My first review. Hope you all like it and will keep up with my future reviews.


Redemption: Part 1 & Part 2 (6.01, 6.02)


Daniel Jackson has ascended to a higher plane of existence and I would have to say the same is true for season 6 of Stargate SG:1. Redemption Part 1 and Part 2 have proven to me that the writers are not dropping the ball. I’m sure there were a lot of challenges and issues with the shift in networks. I think we owe a lot of the success of Redemption to the actors. This story in particular has a lot of great character moments, with Samantha Carter, Teal’c, and newcomer Jonas Quinn sharing the best of these moments.

Let’s start with Jonas – who is somewhere in my top three Stargate characters (I say Stargate because I’m including the spin-offs.) -- Jonas has a charm that no other character in this series possesses. He is charismatic and interested in learning new cultures and making new experiences, and willing to right the wrongs of his past. This gives him the resolve of Teal’c with the moral and ethical heart of Daniel Jackson. Corin Nemec grasped this character better than the writers or show-creators ever did. But we cannot just replace Daniel and expect the other members of SG:1, or the viewers, to welcome him with open arms too soon. He has to prove to Jack, Sam, and Teal’c that he is worthy of their trust and capable of being a beneficial member of SG:1.

This episode has three main plots progressing at once: Anubis’ attack on Earth through a new device that turns the gate into a mega-nuclear bomb by keeping the wormhole active, Teal’c’s relationship with his son after the death of his wife, and the pending matter that SG:1 needs a fourth member. Ultimately it’s the matter of the fourth member that takes real precedence. At first Colonel Jack O’Neill questions General Hammond on why there needs to be four members on every SG team. To Jack there cannot and should not be a replacement for Daniel Jackson. Samantha Carter is uneasy about Jonas requesting a place on the team. Her reaction is from a bitter place, as a part of her probably blames Jonas for the loss of Daniel. Teal’c seems to be the first one who opens up to the idea. This makes sense giving that Teal’c can understand where Jonas is coming from. Abandoning your own people to do what is right takes a lot of willpower and resolute of character.

I want to sidetrack to note the production value of these two episodes. Everything looks crisper. The colors are livelier; I’m assuming new cameras were used in filming. There are also a lot of sets being used in this two-parter. It really opens up the world and gives us a better sense that all this is real. This is something I felt the series lacked previously. Episodes like season five’s “The Sentinel” portrays what I feel has always been one of the biggest drawbacks of Stargate – you see the city in which the inhabitants live from afar and then when they are in the city you only get one room with one inhabitant. The show gave me claustrophobia. With Redemption we get a lot of different locales but they aren’t treated haphazardly and they all serve a purpose. I am not new to this show, and have seen the later episodes, but sadly I do not recall if this is a mainstay for the series. I sure hope so.

Early on we learn that Jonas is capable of soaking up a lot of knowledge in a very short matter of time. He boasts that in the three months he has been living at SGC he has already learned a majority of Daniel’s research. He even begins study into the more scientific fields that Colonel Samantha Carter has dedicated her life to and seems to quickly get a decent grip on it. He is fascinated with Earth’s culture, one example where he inquires about the meaning and significance of crossing one’s fingers. Later on when he is in the dialing room (What’s the correct name for this room?) he mimics this crossing of fingers by resting both his pointy fingers across one another to form an X. This was his version of crossing fingers for luck and it was quite endearing. I think his naivety and good-intentions really add an element to this show.

Amanda Tapping might be the star of these episodes, however. In the way she portrays so much emotion. You can tell she is still mourning the loss of her dear friend. I read in the production notes for season five’s “Meredian” that Amanda was devastated when she discovered a touching scene between her and Teal’c was cut, the scene in question portrayed a silent moment between the two where they embraced and she put her head on his shoulder. I think if anything Amanda had more to do with adding this layer to her character than the writers. I would actually wager it was all her. In the finale of season five she asks Teal’c how they can expect her to just move on. Without these little exchanges I wouldn’t want to invest in the characters as much I do.

Samantha Carter also has great chemistry with Rodney McKay. The dynamic between the two is spellbinding to me. They steal every scene they are both in. Rodney is arrogant and will say what comes to his mind even if it offends every person in the room. It doesn’t make him very well-loved amongst the other characters. But since he is a similar character to Samantha Carter this personality trait actually accentuates the differences between them. The subtleties of differences between the two develop these characters more-so than whole episodes devoted to their back-stories.

Teal’c is away from the other characters for nearly all of these two episodes. His excursion to Chulak to bury his wife and reconcile with his son are touching. Tealc’s son actually acts for once and thus Teal’c comes across like a father for the first time during the show’s run.

These episodes are not without flaws however, for those of you wondering if I was going to kiss ass the whole time. ;-) Anubis comes across like the cliché bad guy, with puke-inducing dialogue to boot. Jack makes a joke of it actually, I wonder if that was ad-libbed. Anubis’ character reminds me of a mix between The Emperor from Star Wars and Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter. Also, I felt like Jonas Quinn could have been allotted more interaction with the characters. Especially in part 2 as he was absent for nearly the whole episode. And I find it odd that no one considered removing the Stargate earlier. But none of these flaws detract from show for me.

The story is engaging and moves along at a perfect pace. The addition of Jonas is a promising one. The changes are helping this show from stagnating and the writers seem to be handling them well. Breathing new life into the series. Let us hope this continues.

I’m giving both episodes one score.

5/5

[Vanysh]

Descent (6.03)


Jonas Quinn is on a Goa’uld cargo ship. This isn’t too exciting for the other passengers on-board; they’ve all been on spaceships numerous times. For Jonas this is evidently his first time. In the opening scene we see him looking out and up with pure wonder, bending over to get a better view of what’s out there. Jonas has been handed a true gift, he is grateful for the opportunity to see and experience something he probably felt would be impossible for most of his adult life. This sense of wonder is refreshing. His character feels more alive because of it. We are only in the first episode after Jonas was added to the SG:1 team by decision of Jack O’Neill and I am already excited about the potential his character adds.

We learn that a Goa’uld mothership has entered Earth’s orbit. Tok’ra Jacob Carter, Major Davis, a scientist whom I don’t remember the name of, and SG:1 are sent to investigate. I find the inclusion of Major Davis to be an odd one, as he is a character that has mostly been in the background. We don’t know much about his character and he isn’t very close with the members of SG:1. And the scientist with a name I didn’t care to remember, or look up for this review, is the expendable one. They should have put him in a red shirt.

Soon after boarding the mothership, much to Jonas’ disapproval Jack orders him to stay on the cargo vessel with Teal’c, the team encounters a strange sound they are unfamiliar with. Replicators? Just before this we learn that bio-scans detected no life on the ship. Also, the self-destruct sequence has begun counting down but for some unknown reason has been “paused” in mid-countdown.

What happens next is almost laughable. When the random scientist guy predictably disregards Jack’s orders not to check out the engine room he is attacked and killed by a clan of ninja Jaffa. I felt like they were the footclan from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Later on these Jaffa try to escape the mothership by attempting to commandeer the Cargo ship but Teal’c manages to dispatch all of them with a zatgun. It was actually quite enjoyable to see this scene unfold. However, I don’t think they ever explain why these Jaffa were on the mothership. They do explain how they went by unnoticed from the bio-scan, by entering a state of Kelnorim they were able to slow their heart rate. (They truly are ninja Jaffa.) I felt these Jaffa were just a way to add more excitement and speed up the pacing of the episode during the first half. It was handled sloppily and added nothing of substance.

The score for this episode didn’t quite match up with the mood I think they intended for some scenes. When it was trying to be mysteriously-suspenseful the music didn’t have that mysterious quality about it. I realize I’m just nitpicking. It really only bothered me in one place during the episode.

The mothership soon gets caught by Earth’s gravity and plummets into the Pacific, but not before Jacob diverts all power to the shield and inertial dampening system; preventing the ship from breaking apart on impact.

Next we get some really good exchanges between Teal’c and Jonas. Jonas mentions that the "aliens" in the group should stick together and Teal'c's response is priceless. In the most stern and emotionless manner he says "Are you suggesting an alien conspiracy?" Jonas, at first, takes it for dry humor and when Teal'c doesn't change his serious-as-death expression to confirm the assumed humor Jonas stops laughing and goes still and quiet. It was a funny moment. Humor aside though, Jonas expresses that he probably could have stopped the mothership from crashing into the Pacific Ocean if he had just been able to join the team while they explored the ship. It’s obvious that he feels like he must earn his place. He has a lot of guilt that he is trying to make up for by proving he is useful. This is the underlying heart of the episode, too. However self-contained this story is the real purpose for it is to be another vessel to show us Jonas can pull his own weight.

We soon find out that the weird noise they were hearing was in fact Thor. Thor’s conscious is stuck in the ship’s computer system. This would explain the coma the friendly Asgard hasn’t recovered from yet. Thor sent the ship to Earth for the SGC team to find. I suppose he did this because Earth was closer? I don’t know how much power he had in terms of functionality with the Goa’uld mothership but couldn’t he have used the ship’s communication functions to send out messages? The only message they received was a repeated one from when he communicated with Jack and Teal’c during their imprisonment on the ship in the season five finale. Yes, this is the same mothership; I probably should have mentioned this earlier.

Teal’c and Jonas join the rescue mission and enter the ship, but Samantha Carter isn’t going to leave until she has secured Thor’s consciousness from the computer crystals. This retrieval of crystals actually “unpauses” the detonation timer giving them only seventeen minutes to escape. Suspense builds up and the team, except for Jonas, manages to get trapped on a lower-deck. Their only way out seems to be using the Goa’uld Gliders. Only the problem is that the force field holding back the water doesn’t have any power. And thus we learn that Jonas, who should have escaped with Jacob on the submarine by now, knows about this ship intimately and knows exactly where he can relay the power for the force fields. Once again displaying that he has the special ability to learn and retain a lot of information very fast. It’s all very ham-fisted but it was still cool to see Jonas be the hero. He still feels like he doesn’t belong with the team and this has motivated him to take more action.

We end the episode with Jack and Jonas in the same glider, and Jonas has a smile on his face because it’s his first time in one. Coming full circle, in a manner of speaking. This episode isn’t the most original, and some of it felt contrived but I didn’t think that distracted from what it was trying to do, which was give us an idea of how Jonas is handling his new position. Will the other members learn to accept and trust him as they did Daniel? I guess we shall find out.

Score:

3.5/5

[hedwig]

Descent (6.03)

The mothership soon gets caught by Earth’s gravity and plummets into the Atlantic, but not before Jacob diverts all power to the shield and inertial dampening system; preventing the ship from breaking apart on impact.

3.5/5[/COLOR]

Not to be nitpicky, but the ship landed about 1000 miles WSW of Alaska - that would be the Pacific Ocean.

[Vanysh]

You're allowed to be nitpicky. Thanks for catching that.

[Vanysh]

Frozen (6.04)


Derivative. That’s the word that first comes to mind. Also, I can’t help but feel this episode was written to give Dr. Fraiser some screen time. This is her first appearance in season six. We start off at a research facility in Antarctica that was commissioned after the discovery of Earth’s second Stargate four years prior. So far the research facility has uncovered two 2,000 year-old Jaffa from the location. Of course, it wouldn’t be an opening scene unless something dramatic was about to happen. We see the female scientist communicating with Samantha Carter via video chat. They are discussing the likelihood that there must be something more important to find and that all they need to do is keep looking. And whilst the video chat commences two men barge in and confirm that, indeed, something amazing and possibly unprecedented had been dug up. Don’t you adore dramatic timing?

So the team puts on multiple layers of clothing and flies out to Antarctica. Dr. Fraiser tags along for the fun too. When we get to the facility we learn that a body has been found in the ice. But unlike the Jaffa this body is perfectly preserved and possibly millions of years old. Predating the first known human fossils, indicating that humans might not have originated on Earth! All this is too exciting, I know, and you’ll have to excuse my sarcasm for the duration of this review. I knew the second this slab of ice was shown to me that whatever rested inside was still alive. However, I would have never guessed it was Leeloo. So I suppose the point goes to you, Robert C. Cooper

I have so many qualms with “Frozen”. First-off, this episode is guilty of my claustrophobia issue. It doesn’t take us anywhere. We go from room to room. As in there are really only two rooms in this episode. Secondly, this story has that distinct feeling that everything was made up on the fly. Thirdly, it tries too hard to be important. All the while the team gets the shaft. There are no memorable interactions between them.

Robert C. Cooper tries to disguise the fact that nothing is happening here by throwing in unnecessary conflict. After the pristine Leeloo is thawed out from her icy dome fortress, with the help of SG:1 and the other scientists, a sickness starts to spread. Jonas attempts to be the mediator between Leeloo and the rest. He fails miserably.

Questions are raised. Is this million year-old woman one of the original Ancients? But answers are non-existent. Leeloo eventually channels some ancient magic and heals one of the sick researchers. I was somewhat surprised that he wasn’t killed off. TV shows like to add tension by killing off someone unimportant. Eventually everyone suffers from the sickness and they relocate everyone to SGC. Everyone is cured by Leeloo save for Jack. Unfortunately, Leeloo bites the dust before she can help him.

Thankfully the Tok’ra are in desperate need of a host for a very important symbiote. One that has gained knowledge that is infinitely valuable. The show ends as we see Jack going through the gate to be implanted.

This episode seems to be setting up an arc. Jack O’Neill sharing a body with a Tok’ra Goa’uld is an interesting turn. It was too little too late though. I tried to enjoy this episode but I feel a lot of the events that occur weren’t thought out. The twists that they tried to shock you with were derivative. And thus that is how I feel about this episode overall. Jack, Sam, Teal’c, and Jonas really don’t have any significant purpose or progression. The exception being Jack, but that occurs at the very end of the episode.

Score:

1/5

[rushy]

You sure review fast! Anyways, I really enjoyed the character of Jonas Quinn, he was all new to Earth and all and he had this really fun personality(lol at weather channels). Too bad he only has 1 season and 1 episode.

[Snowman37]

I like to think of SG-1 as...

Classic: Seasons 1-7
Climactic: Season 8
Ori Saga: Seasons 9&10

[rushy]

I like to think of SG-1 as...

Classic: Seasons 1-7
Climactic: Season 8
Ori Saga: Seasons 9&10

I prefer this:
Classic: Seasons 1-3
Experienced: Seasons 4-6
Climactic: Seasons 7-8
Reloaded: Seasons 9-Ark of Truth.
Used-To: Continuum.

[jelgate]

I go with the thread starter's breakdown of SG1.

Classic: S1-S5
SciFi: S6-S8
Fargate: S9-end

[DigiFluid]

Season 1 was good, season 2 was better.

I've heard 3-5 generally thought of as the show's best years.

I think Season 6 get unfairly overlooked a lot; it has a ton of quality episodes and does lots to move the show's main story arcs forward (perhaps more than any other season).

I found Seasons 7 and 8 largely pretty blasé, with a few bright spots here and there.

I thought Season 9 was a return to awesomeness and really brought the show back to life. Season 10 wasn't quite as good as Season 9, but I still enjoyed the crap out of it.

Still annoyed that it never got Season 11 and beyond.

[rushy]

Season 1 was good, season 2 was better.

I've heard 3-5 generally thought of as the show's best years.

I think Season 6 get unfairly overlooked a lot; it has a ton of quality episodes and does lots to move the show's main story arcs forward (perhaps more than any other season).

I found Seasons 7 and 8 largely pretty blasé, with a few bright spots here and there.

I thought Season 9 was a return to awesomeness and really brought the show back to life. Season 10 wasn't quite as good as Season 9, but I still enjoyed the crap out of it.

Still annoyed that it never got Season 11 and beyond.

I think all seasons had good and bad parts. Didn't have a favourite or least favourite. As for Season 6, I agree, Daniel's missing isn't that bad and Jonas Quinn was awesome. Seriously, how can you overlook episodes like "the Other Guys" and "Paradise Lost"??

[Scooty12]

I consider everything upto the end of Season 6 pretty damn good stuff. Once we get to the Lost City Tablet being found in Full Circle the series just lurges from "one ultra powerful advancement by either Anubis or the Replicators that can't be defeated until we find a Macguffin to the next".

Oh look Kull Warriors - they can't be defeated until we find Telchek's device. Oh look, we've found it! Anubis uber powerful? Let's find a Lost City Outpost to destroy him. The Ori? Let's just find a chest with magical powers to defeat them.

Season 7 on the whole is utterly atriocious water treading. It is clear from Full Circle that they have nowhere left to go until the Lost City is found, yet they've got 20 episodes to fill. Space Race. Enemy Mine. Avenger 2.0. Awful rubbish. Thankfully Season 8 was back to form.

[cyrusDCmonster]

personally i divide stargate sg1 into two sections.
seasons 1-8: pretty much everything that starts up with the goa'uld and the replicators finishes up by season 8
seasons 9-10/arc of truth: the ori story.

aka "the RDA era" and the "post RDA era"

i liked all 10 seasons a lot with the exception of a handful of episodes spread out over the entire series.

[YceQueen]

I'm pretty much okay with all the seasons. Sure, some were a lot better than others. To me, seasons 2 to 5 were the best, with season 7 definitely trying to return to that. Season 1 was okay, you can tell the show was really trying to find direction before moving on to a much better season 2. I'm not a fan of season 6, and that has nothing to do with Jonas, because I adore him. I just feel like this season had a lot of filler episodes that didn't do anything for the bigger stories that had been created in earlier seasons. Season 8 was so-so to me. Wasn't bad, wasn't exceptionally good either.
I didn't mind seasons 9 and 10, actually. It took getting used to, but I love a lot of those episodes.