Nemesis (Season 3 Finale) & Small Victories (Season 4 Premiere)
Stargate meets Terminator/Aliens. This was a pretty interesting way to end the season and then start the new season. The Asgard said there was a race more powerful than the Goa'uld and they weren't joking with the Replicators. We start on Thor's ship where the replicators have pretty much consumed it and I really liked how this episode focused a lot of problem solving. Every action in this episode felt really meticulous and these "giant techno-bugs" just could not be killed. Then they go with the ultimate action, which was to bring the ship into an uncontrollable entry into earth's atmosphere, they beam up SGC's stargate, that is how they escape, which was a pretty ingenious plan. I was surprised with as surrounded as SG-1 was around the Stargate, none of the replicators actually went through the gate, thereby getting to earth and maybe infecting SG Command.
Then we have the premiere episode dealing with the replicator that did escape and infected a Russian sub. This was basically an action thriller episode and I especially loved the plot with Thor and Carter, and Thor having to rely on Carter's stupid plan to take the most technological ship (aptly named the O'neill) of the fleet and feed it to the bugs and set the autodestruct. I loved the dialouge between Carter and Thor, which I thought was pretty fun all the way through.
Overall, I will go back to how I started this review. This felt like Stargate meets Terminator (The replicators who can't be killed), and Aliens (The Queen on the Sub and the Replicators who took over the Asgard ships). It was a fun finale and premiere, and it was very different from what came before. Did I like it better than Serpants Grasp/Serpent's lair? I'm going to say no, as I felt the first season finale was a great wrap up to the first season, while this one introduced a new storyline for the series (To go along with Daniel's storyline with the kid). I did love it better than the Clip Show and Into the Fire though.
Overall, Season 3 keeps the series progressing favorably. I will say though the first part of the season was widely inconsistent but the second half was really good, give or take a few episodes (And I might have been a little hard on Urgo, but I still thought it was annoying). The universe keeps expanding and the characters are as always great. I mentioned this with Hammond earlier and I think it applies with all the characters other than Jack. I would like a little more about the characters outside of work. We started to see it with Jack and I think Daniel was the MVP this season, but I would love to see more stuff with Samantha Carter, General Hammond, and Teal'c, at least from an Earth point of view. Still, this was a damn good season and I'm still really enjoying the series.
Favorite episodes from Season 3:
Forever in a Day: I've been wanting an episode to wrap up Daniel's wife storyline and give him a new goal and this episode did that in spades. Also, the way it was done was a great mindbender and like I said, the best use of a reset button since DS9's The Visitor
Joliner's Memories/The Devil You Know: The simple fact that the first episode ended with Apophis being alive was a holy shit moment. The mind torture in the second episode was great.
Shades of Grey: You can kind of guess that everything was a set up, but it was a damn good set up
Maternal Instinct: The introduction of the energy being adds a lot more to the mythos of this series and I find that really interesting.
Nemesis: I'm looking forward to more Replicators because how this season ended added some much needed sci fi urgency to everything.