The Fifth Race (215)

[garhkal]

It wouldn't be surprising to me if they did have one or two little "Easter eggs"..

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

...and to see if the production team snuck any jokes in there.

Yes, they did: "If this doesn't work, well... see you."

Seaboe

[Starship Trooper]

what they show and what they say are 2 different things - it's annoying. They did make a point of mentioning that the exit velocity matches the entry velocity. I prefer my shows with a bit of internal consistency

fems is spot on. Extra power to the gate does increase the speed of the object in the wormhole. This was covered earlier in Solitudes in S1. When the gate was struck by incoming fire it caused a power surge which caused Daniel and Teal'c to be hurled out the gate at the SGC at break-neck speed and then the wormhole jumped like a lightning bolt to the Antarctic gate where it hurled Jack out at such speed he broke his leg, ribs, etc. Carter seemed to be OK - maybe Jack broke her fall. The show is consistent about the effects of extra power on the wormhole.

[garhkal]

Makes me wonder if anyone has ever thought to USE that as a weapon!

[Vagabond Serpent]

Ahh... The Fifth Race episode... I've been looking forward to it on this rewatch, and I'm totally rewarded for the waiting. It's an outstanding episode, both written and directed in an awesome way. It expands the basic mythology of the show and establishes the foothold for all the rest eight seasons of SG-1, and spin-offs of SGA and SGU within its short 43 minutes. The Great Alliance confirmed by the Asgard is the first kick, and then... You saw what happened in the next years.

That place where they got to in the beginning, with the database, seemed to be like a welcoming chamber. Like, you know, knowing how the Ancients' tech works, it'd be easy to find the switch and open up the walls. I'm really wondering what's outside - an city-ship perhaps or at least a colony settlement, who knows?

The episode kept me hooked up every time I watched it, including today, making me rewind and slow down or freeze the frame to grasp something better. The funny moments of Jack starting to speak Ancient, the awe written on the faces of everyone when he punched in new gates, basically proving on spot that the Goa'Uld just scavenged the tech and did not built the gate system, him building the power modulator, drawing up the DHD schematics, probably allowing to repair any on them if need be or even build our own if there's enough of the crystals laying around, introducing the 8th chevron possibility in the address, leading up to another galaxy, eventually leading to SGA and SGU where all 9 chevrons are used... All of this was brilliant, and no doubt had a huge impact on the show, and on the characters within.

The Asgard scenes were epic. And their claim that we're becoming the fifth race gradually were the cue-ball for our long and productive relationship. I can go on forever about this one, so I'll finish for now that while it might be not the most brilliant episode in the whole series, it surely is its quintessential one, from which all of the arcs could be traced.

A minor fact that boosted the pleasure this one time was hearing the episode in its original sound, so I could hear the music playing. And it was awesome. When dubbed, all of the original sound track is muffled, including music, so it's barely audible... Now it wasn't

Rating: 10/10

[I Am Not James Spader]

I've just started watching "The Fifth Race" - I'll forget to post about this if I wait until the episode is over.

SG-1 members have really poor reaction times when one of their team is in danger, for example, in the current episode, O'Neill is looking into an alien device when something reaches out and grabs his head. No-one runs to help him until the devices releases him and he falls to the ground.

I've noticed this happen before and I believe it is whenever the VFX is CG. Possibly in these early episode they didn't have the ability, or resources, to allow multiple actors to interact with digital effects.

However, on several occasions the other actors are shown to stare the character in danger, but without even so much as a look of surprise.

Like in this episode - O'Neill has seemingly been attacked by an alien machine (again ) and instead having SG-1 run to try free him, the director chose to film close ups of the other three looking on in bemusement.

I don't know exactly what my goal is in posting this - it isn't a complaint, but I'm curious as to what you all think, and whether this changes as the series goes on.

No spoilers though - cheers.

EDIT: Regarding the VFX in the scene, I rewatched the the opening, and the head grabber extending was digital I believe, but I'm certain the device on Anderson head was a practical prop - which has me even more curious as to why the other characters don't help O'Neill.

[blueray]

I noticed this when watching this episode. That's kind of funny. You'd think they'd care, he isn't a redshirt lol. In the next season (crystal skull) when that thing starts zapping Daniel, Teal'c reacts, why not this time?

[I Am Not James Spader]

I noticed this when watching this episode. That's kind of funny. You'd think they'd care, he isn't a redshirt lol. In the next season (crystal skull) when that thing starts zapping Daniel, Teal'c reacts, why not this time?

It happened a couple of times in the first season too.

Maybe by the third season the actors and directors had more experience with VFX and action scenes?

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

Blame the editing. They wanted reaction shots of the other actors, and left the audience going "you dunces, help him! What the ***l is wrong with you?"

Seaboe

[Anja]

Ancient is similar to Latin - I wonder why Jackson had to look words up!
Maybe they didn't help O'Neill because they feared they all could be harmed - then nobody could have done anything afterwards (and - maybe it was in the script ). Kidding!!!!

[Falcon Horus]

Ancient is similar to Latin - I wonder why Jackson had to look words up!

Ancient is a derivative of Latin, and thus words are in fact different.
Kinda like how Dutch and German are related - I suppose.

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

Or maybe German and English. Much farther apart, many more differences in grammar.

Seaboe

[Anja]

I didn't mean grammar - just the one word I think loco.
There are similarities between German and Dutch, but Ancient and Latin are closer, maybe like old English and German.

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

That scene was all screwed up in terms of which words Daniel knew and which he didn't. They picked a fairly hard one (the verb) for him to know off the top of his head, and an easy one for him to need to look up.

Even a native English speaker who's never studied Latin should be able to figure out what loco means, give words like "location" and "local".

Seaboe

[maneth]

Cool episode. Some great acting by RDA once again.