Reflections on SG1

[AntonyF]

I just went through a marathon of SG1. I've been putting in huge hours of work recently, and SG1 works quite nicely in the background. That doesn't mean I wasn't watching it as I was... but it is a show that can sustain being a little distracted.

Anyway... I just wanted to spew some random thoughts!

Arc vs episodic


Inherently I'm someone who likes arc stories. But sometimes it's nice if you're in an episodic mood to have something different.

My recollection was that I always enjoyed the later seasons with more intrigue on Earth vs Canadian Woods Episode of the Week.

But it's amazing how right now.. while there was so many good episodes of the more political/Earth nature I felt there was a missed opportunity.

You have a gate, that can go ANYWHERE. And you piss around on Earth again and again.

I don't know whether that's my mood, or my age... but quite frankly, I longed for the earlier seasons more as I went on.

Season seven
Worst season by a mile. I know that Richard Dean Anderson scaled back his role before leaving. But season seven it's like the corpse of RDA is there - unable to move on, but he's just not there. The stories really suffer.

Season eight however is considerably better. RDA is still clearly not putting many hours in, but he is at Stargate Command. It's hard to think of Jack giving up SG missions, but this way allows him to feel integral to most episodes but still keep his hours down. Way better than season even.

Ben Browder/Claudia Black
Huge Farscape fan... but Ben Browder just fits very well. Daniel almost becomes the sarcastic Jack role, and Browder just fits. It's like he was always there. Despite me being a HUGE Jack fan, the show works well without him as the show's parts work well together.

And Vala... again... I was a Farscape fan. But I come to realise on a rewatch any love for Vala was nothing to do with Farscape. I prefer Vala to Aeryn. Vala is just so endearing, I love her.

Cameron/Vala and the SG1 team work so well that season 10 felt fresh and original and could have gone on for years.

Daniel Jackson/Jonas Quinn
Never was a huge fan, still not a huge fan of Shanks.

I really liked Jonas Quinn at the time and still do. Admittedly... huge sexual attraction to him, which does make me inclined to like him a lot. But he added something fresh and he only went because Shanks got bored and wanted back in with his special 'and' credit.

I was less angry this time than I was last time, but boy do I miss Corin Nemec in those t-shirts...

I never missed Daniel being a primadonna. He is a competent actor/character, but not exceptional. And seeing the episodes that follow shortly after that are focused on him and his 'and' credit on the opening credits... it all feels pandering to him.

Yeah, I'm still kinda angry. I guess because an actor and character were cast aside due to external factors.

The movies.
Memory said they were good... not so much. Ark of Truth is just a rehash of everything before. Continuum considerably better and movie feeling, but hardly sets the world on fire and still rehashes a lot. Has none of the warmth and character stuff of seasons 9/10.

BSG
Grace Park, Tahmoh Penikett, Aaron Douglas, Matthew Bennett - lots of BSG actors!

Walter Bishop
I adore John Noble! Didn't realise he was in it. Forgettable role, but still love to see him.

Okay, I admit that's a random thought dump!

 

[MacLeod]

I think none of the problems with Ark of Truth is the use of replicators. Surely they could have come up with a story which didn't need to use them.

 

[DonIago]

I was happy to have Daniel back, even if it did take away a bit from his death, but I do wish we'd seen Jonas more after that, other than in the one later episode he appeared in. They didn't quite Pulaski him, but they came pretty close.

 

[sojourner]

My big gripe with the later seasons is the whole Vala's baby storyline. Every time a magical child appears in a show it just kills things. (looking at you, V and Falling Skies)

 

[kirk55555]

I enjoyed the whole show, but I probably liked the last few seasons more than the first few. The only really weak season was the one where Jonas replaced Daniel. Not only was my favorite main cast member mostly gone (except for a few cameo appearances as an ascended being), his replacement was bland and overall it just wasn't as good. For the later seasons, Bowder and Black were awesome in Stargate. I like them in Farscape, but I saw them in Stargate first, and Mitchel and Vala are still the characters I think of immediately whenever Bowder or Black are brought up.

 

[MacLeod]

Well I do think he show suffered when Shanks left for a season. But perhaps part of that was they had a virtual carbon copy of Daniel as his replacement. Perhaps that's overly harsh but at times it felt like it.

 

[Mr Light]

I just re-watched SG1 myself this summer and totally forgot to start a thread about it.

S1-2 pretty much horrible.
S3 starting to get good.
S4-5 the high point of the show. so many great episodes. still a lot of stinkers of course.
S6 probably the most consistantly good season with the fewest stinkers. Anubis is my favorite Big Bad of the series. Jonas was alright.
S7 great to have Daniel back, but yeah the episodes are generally horrible, the main story goes nowhere until the end, and Jack is just barely there.
S8 was an improvement because they were intentionally wrapping up the series.
S9-10 The Ori story was fundamentally not as good, but Browder and Black were a lot of fun. I espescially love Vala's sense of humor and her relationship with Daniel. She truly was a breath of fresh air in an aging and stale series.
Ark of Truth: good wrap-up but devoting half the screen time to Replicators taking over ship take ten was just a massive waste.

 

[Saga]

i have a lot of affection for Season 9 and Season 10. i know a lot of fans don't. i thought the Ori were interesting and frankly i was getting very tired of Goa'uld.

 

[Mr Light]

the Goa'uld were definitely old hat by the end of their run, but I didn't find the Ori to be terribly interesting either. At least Anubius was a cool villain because of his Ascended powers. Also he was a level headed and competent villain unlike Apophis.

 

[sidious618]

I liked the idea of the Ori, but the execution was always poor. I think Malozzi and Mullie usually wrote pretty mediocre scripts and their increasing control over the later seasons brought the quality down. It was never a great show, but there were some neat ideas in it.

 

[The Wormhole]

Inherently I'm someone who likes arc stories. But sometimes it's nice if you're in an episodic mood to have something different.

I liked the way SG-1 handled the matter. It's mostly episodic, but there are story threads which run through the series. EG, each season has an episode or two involving Colonel Maybourne and the NID which may just be a random episode for that season, but story elements from that will set up an episode in the next season. You can follow a random episode if you just sit down and watch it, but there's also a reward there for those who watch all the episodes in order.

You have a gate, that can go ANYWHERE. And you piss around on Earth again and again.

My problem wasn't so much the increase in Earth-centric episodes, that was primarily a result of RDA's availability and indeed once he left the show there was an increase in off-world adventures, even if it wasn't as much as the earlier episodes. My problem was more as the series went on, we saw the gate being used less and less, even in the off-world adventures storylines. Earth now has starships, and even when those aren't being used, we typically see the characters flying around in other ships they acquired, like a Goa'uld cargo ship. Hell, their final episode only features the gate in the special closing scene. It wasn't just an SG-1 problem, SGA gradually decreased how often we saw the gate being used, and there are whole episodes of SGU where the gate isn't even seen.

The movies.
Memory said they were good... not so much. Ark of Truth is just a rehash of everything before. Continuum considerably better and movie feeling, but hardly sets the world on fire and still rehashes a lot. Has none of the warmth and character stuff of seasons 9/10.

Ark of Truth is the better movie, even if the Replicators are both unnecessary and unwelcome. Continuum I've gradually warmed up to over the years, but it was largely a mistake to waste a movie on an alternate timeline reset button story which is a rehash of previous episodes. In fact, Continuum sounds a lot like early ideas for the Lost City storyline back when it was intended to be a theatrical storyline and believed to be the finale to SG-1.

BSG
Grace Park, Tahmoh Penikett, Aaron Douglas, Matthew Bennett - lots of BSG actors!

Well, Vancouver does have a limited actors pool. Although I guess it is of note that both shows have Dean Stockwell and Rick Worthy, given they're both from outside Vancouver.

I was always more impressed with all the Trek actors they got on SG-1. Armin Shimmerman, Rene Auberjonois, Marina Sirtis, John de Lancie, Robert Picardo, John Billingsley, and that's just off the top mf my head. The list expands if you include the other the other Stargate series, with some main actors from them appearing in Star Trek, like Paul McGillion having a role in Trek XI or the guy who played Colonel Young on SGU appearing on Voyager.

the Goa'uld were definitely old hat by the end of their run, but I didn't find the Ori to be terribly interesting either. At least Anubius was a cool villain because of his Ascended powers. Also he was a level headed and competent villain unlike Apophis.

Meh, Anubis was rather cliché. Ba'al was the best Goa'uld, IMO. He at least actually admitted he wasn't really a god and even tried co-operating with SG-1 when it suited his purposes.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I enjoyed SG-1 immensely for what it was: fun, fluffy sci-fi, often interesting, almost always funny, and at its best brilliant and inspired. I didn't like the original theatrical movie at all, and I don't believe the show was ever really worse than that.

Example of brilliant and inspired: George Dzundza's portrayal as Anubis.

It got tedious with the Ori, but there were even some good Ori episodes.

Personally, I thought the intrigue on Earth was usually quite interesting.

One thing I like about the show is how it mixes present day tech and magic sci-fi tech. The gear that SG-1 uses often makes more sense than Star Trek equipment.

For basic fun that you can just unwind to, yeah, a definite thumbs up from me.

I guess those are my random thoughts!

 

[MacLeod]

One of the only things they really didn't get around re: Earth was the Stargate program becomming public knowledge.

 

[fireproof78]

SG-1 is probably one of my favorite science fiction series, hands down. It starts out interesting and keeps building up different plot lines as others are resolved.

What I liked the most about it was the fact that there was a lot of consequences that they allowed to play out. The Jaffa becoming more and more rebellious against the Goa'uld. The Tok'ra trying to carry on their effort to undermine the System Lords but being hampered by SG-1's own efforts.

The technology that begins to be developed, and the potential misuses of it as well as all the security protocols feel very realistic. Also, occasionally, things go wrong and the general population gets exposed.

I think that Season 8 could have really benefited from being Season 1 of a new series with Ben Browder as the lead. The villain was new in the Ori as all as the introduction of the Lucian Alliance that could really be explored. You can bring back Teal'c, Carter and Jackson no problem, but it also would feel like its own thing.

I think the films are a low point for me, simply because they didn't do enough new stuff. The Ark of Truth would have been better without the Replicators and Continuum would have been more interesting if Ba'al had far more time on screen.

Overall, great sci-fi.

 

[Mr Light]

I definitely loved the way Earth progressed in technology and influence as the show went along. They started out as worthless nobodies who had to run away from the Gou'ald with no technology... then they started taking out System Lords by sheer luck... then they get fighters... then they get a battleship... then they have a bunch...

Though I do prefer the days when they were little fish and the Tok'Ra were so much more important.

 

[The Wormhole]

One of the only things they really didn't get around re: Earth was the Stargate program becomming public knowledge.

That was the plot of a third SG-1 DVD movie which never got made due to MGM's financial problems. As it is, I'm actually surprised that only two alternate reality/timeline episodes in the entire Stargate franchise have dealt with the gate being public: season 4's 2010 and season 10's The Road Not Taken.

I think that Season 8 could have really benefited from being Season 1 of a new series with Ben Browder as the lead. The villain was new in the Ori as all as the introduction of the Lucian Alliance that could really be explored. You can bring back Teal'c, Carter and Jackson no problem, but it also would feel like its own thing.

The original plan was to end SG-1 after season 8 and then launch a new spin-off titled Stargate Command which would have been what ended up becoming season 9. SyFy wanted to continue the show as SG-1 for bragging rights of having North America's longest running sci-fi TV show.

 

[Tim Walker]

My favorite episode was the Other Guys. It was so fun to have well meaning amateurs save the day.

That episode featured John Billingsley-and references to Trek and Trek fandom!

 

[The Wormhole]

My favorite episode was the Other Guys. It was so fun to have well meaning amateurs save the day.

That episode featured John Billingsley-and references to Trek and Trek fandom!

That episode features some of my favourite quotes in the series.

Felger: At leasy my heroes actually exist. If we were home right now you'd be at a Star Trek convention dressed as a Klingon.
Coombs: Vulcan! And how can anyone call themselves a scientist without worshipping at the Altar of Roddenberry?
Felger: "Oh how do we solve this one Captain?" "I don't know, something to do with the tachyon emitters, perhaps?"

Coombs: Oh, we might as well be wearing red shirts.
Felger: You know, I don't get that.

 

[Tim Walker]

As I recall, the Felger character appeared in another episode. Don't recall the title, though.

 

[MacLeod]

^He appeared in the episodes "The Other Guys" and "Avenger 2.0"