Shadow Play (607)

[Selmak]

Got my hopes up... turns out he was crazy.

[SeaBee]

This was a neutral episode for me. Some nice acting, but the story was a little too weak for me.

[mishy_mo]

i have to admit i really don't like this one for some reason it's just ... lacking, so much so that when ever i watch my DVD i just skip this ep i haven't seen it in about a year and i'm still pretty sure it's rubbish!

[Major Fischer]

I'm having overwelming feelings of... why should I care? Not a good sign.

And random rant. Ties. Ties are a modern fashion trend that makes little sense on earth and I don't see why aliens would have an overwelming urge to tie little nooses around their necks and run around either.

[LMichelle]

It's hard for me to see Dean Stockwell as anybody but "Al." I was disappointed that Dr. Kieran was suffering from mental illness.

As many of you all said, I wished this had been a more Jonas-centered episode.

[Yu`]

I know the emphasis wasnt on Jonas, but Dean Stockwell more than made up for it IMO, being a huge QL fan.

[GateTraveler]

I'd be willing to bet the writers had just gotten back from seeing "A Beautiful Mind" when they wrote this. Not tied quite as closely as Window of Opportunity was to Groundhog Day but mighty close.

This ep was meh in my book.

[valaCB]

I've just realised something..........the bloke who plays Dr Kieran (sp?) also played one of the main characters in Quantum Leap! I love that show! Amazing.

Lםve that show too.
anyway, i thought that the episode was average BUT, i love the ending. so emotional

[QuiGonJohn]

I liked this. But as others said, they could have done more with Jonas or even the Kelowans.

[Stricken]

Creepy episode if we never went back Jonas wouldnt have ever had the feelinf about wanting to go back and then he could have stayed on!

[Perriman33]

I can't think of anything specifically bad about this one but it's still not one of my favourites. The story was quite clever and kept me guessing for ages but it's not an episode that you can watch again and again.
The whole episode seemed to be about the professor which is not what Sg1 is normally about, none of the main characters were featured enough for my liking.

[Metarock Sam]

It took me a few episodes to understand this episode but then I did get the jist of it. IT made you feel sorry for the Professor as he seemed to be such a nice guy.

[walter_MacChevron]

Meh, it was alright IMO...nice to see that TPTB tried to show some of Jonas' backround

[Callista]

This was sort of a so-so episode for me. I liked that we got some back-ground for Jonas, and the fact that the whole "Resistance" was just in the Professor's mind was kind of cool.

I love Dean Stockwell as "Al", but I've got to say he didn't really thrill me here. Whenever he did that thing with his eyes...slightly widening them...he made me think of the episode of Quantum Leap where he was the devil. I guess I just have a hard time seeing him as anyone but Al.

My kids and I are watching all the episodes in order and this is the first one where my youngest daughter looked at me and said: "Mommy, why is this so boring?" I said: "I don't know, but it is pretty boring." I don't think I'd ever watch it again.

[Area 51-and-a-Half]

This is the worst episode ever. The resistance is portrayed in purely sympathetic terms, the last best hope against a government desperate enough to use WMD's to survive. Am I the only one who felt like the writers were repudiating America's legitimacy due to our involvement in World War 2?

The Kelownan naquadrium project very closely parallels our own Manhattan Project, right down to the specifics of the famous nuclear accident, just substitute plutonium for naquadrium, so I can only assume the writers meant for the Kelownans to be American-equivalents.

Would we really want the Roosevelt Administration overthrown by a violent coup simply because he authorized the Manhattan Project? Apparently the Canadian who wrote this episode thinks so. He needs to go back to Canada and advocate the violent overthrow of his own stinking government. Roosevelt had his flaws, but he did what he had to to defend us from the Nazis and Imperial Japanese.

If it weren't for America fighting a total war much like the Kelownans were about to (actually the Kelownans were more like the British in 1940-41, standing alone after the Ribbentrop Pact, but it is clearly America in the writer's crosshairs here) we'd all either be speaking German or dead, depending on our religion or race.

Imagine this: a team of technologically advanced humans visits America around November 1941. The Russians and Germans have joined forces and wiped out the British. We're on the verge of completing the Manhattan Project, and not a minute too soon because the Germans and Russians are preparing to throw the full weight of their military might upon us.

Okay, so we're about to use our nukes to defend the world's last surviving democracy when the alien SG-1 team decides the "resistance" (which would almost certainly be Soviet-backed Communists, as we had effectively wiped out all Nazi insurgencies) can put a stop to our WMD program if they help give the insurgents a little nudge. WT everloving F? That's supposed to be heroic?
Oh, and there's Einstein (Jonas-equivalent) begging FDR to "return to the negotiating table" with Hitler and Stalin, maybe give up a little land. Oh, you mean like Chamberlain gave up Czechoslovakia at Munich? Your genius slips the bounds of physics -- you're a political genius, too!

I was pulling for the Kelownans. If they're like us they're fighting Nazis and Communists with everything they have, just like we would've had to had the Ribbentrop Pact held, and the "morally-superior" SG-1 were wrong and hypocritical to pass judgment on the Kelownans for wanting to remain free from Nazi oppression.
If Kelownia is like 1940's America then SG-1 is overthrowing a legitimately elected democracy and leaving it at the mercy of Nazi and Communist enemies, in which case SG-1 are terrible villians, useful fools for whichever government was backing "the resistance" (which thankfully didn't actually exist.)

What a horrifying message: if the two writers of this episode had their way we'd all be speaking German and the Jewish religion would no longer exist. Oh, but we wouldn't have built nuclear weapons. What a relief.