The Gamekeeper

This episode mainly serves as giving a little (really, not much at all) backstory for Jack and Daniel, independently of each other, when the team are forced into virtual reality devices. The devices draw on the user's memories and imaginations to create completely believable virtual worlds in their heads.

For Jack and Teal'c, this means reliving a mission to infiltrate and East German compound and capture a soviet Russian agent. The mission is one apparently strong in Jack's memory, as it went horribly wrong and the commanding officer was killed. Daniel and Sam, meanwhile, are shown a pivotal moment in young Daniel's life - the moment his parents were killed. After a couple of iterations of each memory, everybody realises it's not real - in part due to the weird, shrouded crowd spectating - and the 'gamekeeper', a flamboyant, rather annoying character pops up to tell them what an amazing chance he's given them - a chance to change what happened. Everybody's annoyed at this misstatement, and the gamekeeper himself isn't helping matters, so he lets the team out of the machines and they return to Earth.

But of course, he didn't really. This leads to a GREAT scene where Jack is trying to "pull [general Hammond's] mask off", searching behind his ears and slapping his bald head. The rest of the episode revolves around the team and the natives of the planet leaving the machines to see the real planet, a lush garden kept by the gamekeeper.

Apart from the 'mask' moment I mentioned above, another nice thing is seeing Jay Acovone again, reprising his role as major Kawalsky. He obviously can't keep appearing too much or he may as well never have died, but I do enjoy seeing him whenever he has a guest appearance.

Something interesting the episode brings up is that while the keeper can't access Tealc's memory because of the naquahdah in his blood, neither can he access Carter's, due to her having been host to Jolinar. This is the first hint that the experience has had a lasting effect on her, something which will be explored more in the near future - a good thing, since it was disappointing not to have seen any of her past in the machines, or any of Teal'c's (although he never really gets good character development until much later in the show). At least his hair was better in this episode than in There But For the Grace Of God in season 1.

The Enemy Within

The main themes presented in the second episode of SG-1 are Teal'c's acceptance by the SGC and his appointment to SG-1, and the knowledge gained about the goa'uld themselves. These are presented as two side-by-side stories which resolve together at the climax of the episode. In one story Teal'c is being held prisoner by the USAF for questioning and study, with O'Neill being the only one who trusts him completely. During interrogation he reveals the knowledge that the goa'uld control hundreds if not thousands of worlds in the galaxy by posing as gods to humans and jaffa. It is also revealed that Earth is the legendary Tau'ri, the homeworld of the human form from where the original people were taken by the goa'uld and used as hosts, modified into the jaffa, and kept as slaves.

The second story follows Major Kawalsky as the characters realise he has been infected with a goa'uld symbiote. The symbiote at various points takes control of Kawalsky, killing one man and hurting several other people. The doctors on base attempt to cut it out of him but ultimately fail, and the episode culminates in a battle between Kawalsky, who is trying to return to Chulak through the stargate and destroy the SGC in his wake, and Teal'c, who affirms to General Hammond that he has truly forsaken his former masters by killing the goa'uld (and , sadly, Major Kawalsky in the process).

It's a shame to see Maj. Kawalsky killed off so early in the show as he was a strong character, and a carryover from the film. He does return for one or two cameos in future episodes but as far as the main storyline is concerned, he's dead for good. His death, though, brings around something good - Teal'c as a member of SG-1. The final shot of the episode confirms this as we see the team march, in matching fatigues, up the ramp and through the stargate on the first of their many missions.

A smaller story which is easy to miss is that of General Hammond becoming less of a hardass than in Children of the Gods - he still retains the quality in his first scene of the episode, but throughout the course of the show he sees how badly other members of the US Government are willing to treat Teal'c who is still (almost) a human being and decides to be more trusting of O'Neill's judgement of the man, as well as letting his actions speak for themselves. It's important that the General is seen to be 'one of the good guys', as he is after all Jack's boss and will be giving many of the orders throughout the show.

Tomorrow's episode, Emancipation, is a rather weak one, but is the first planet-of-the-week style episode, a format that I really enjoyed through the early seasons of SG-1.

P. S. Did you notice the scenes in this episode where Teal'c's forehead emblem was upside-down? In these early days, it was applied in three parts rather than one, and the makeup crew were still getting to grips with spending an hour applying it to him every morning.

Children of the Gods (Parts 1 & 2)

Note: There is also a re-cut straight-to-DVD 'feature' version of this double episode but, to be consistent, I watched the original version, as included in my DVD box set.

In 1997, Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner created Stargate: SG-1, a TV spinoff of the 1994 film. Richard Dean Anderson (of MacGyver fame) was cast in the lead role as Colonel Jack O'Neill of the U.S. Air Force (played by Kurt Russell in the movie), and Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge and Amanda tapping were cast in supporting roles as the team SG-1. This would be the start of a 14-year television franchise, ending with 354 episodes and even some TV movies.

In this hour-and-a-half we are introduced to the central ideas of the show - that the stargate can travel to places other than Abydos, that Ra's race (the Goa'uld) are still a scourge on the galaxy, and that Earth is starting its own stargate programme, run in secret by the U.S. Air Force. After a small-scale goa'uld attack through the stargate, Col. O'Neill is called in by Major General Hammond (veteran actor and renaissance man Don S. Davis) to discuss his mission through the stargate and the new threat. This culminates in two more missions through the gate: to bring Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks, previously James Spader) back from Abydos; then, after another attack on Abydos, to the planet Chulak to rescue Skaara and Sha're (both Abydonian characters from the film).

Looking back, it's obvious that the show was still finding its feet and trying to make a name for itself at this stage. It is the only episode to feature nudity (full-frontal nudity, at that) and is very much military science fiction, lacking the humour and joviality it would gain later. Some elements of the show's mythology are also in contrast to later episodes, such as the Greco-Roman style of Chulak, the goa'uld ship that seems to be a cross between a tel'tak and death glider, and the sheer power of the jaffa - this episode sees bullets bouncing off their armour and staff weapons blasting holes through solid stone walls!

The characters are introduced/reintroduced quite well for the most part - O'Neill is first seen stargazing from his roof, perhaps searching for Abydos, and throughout the episode shows a lot of loyalty to those he likes and trusts. Michael Shanks essentially does his best impersonation of James Spader for the role, and is given his motivation by the kidnap and enslavement of his wife. Samantha Carter is given perhaps one of the worst lines ever to appear on television, but develops from the defensive, cold person she's initially presented as into a trustworthy member of the team, also showcasing her scientific curiosity and wonder. Teal'c is shown as a reluctant servant to the enemy who sees his opportunity to turn against them and grabs it, earning O'Neill's trust instantly. Also showcased is General Hammond, who starts off as a by-the-book tough general but is shown to soften up and truly care about those under his command. We even get to see Walter "Chevron seven locked" Harriman, here known only as one of several gate technicians.

The episode does a good job of setting up the workings for the show by inventing the idea that there is a huge stargate network, by setting up an entire species of villains with one prominent bad guy, and by providing the beginnings of both long- and short-term story arcs (the kidnapping and implantation of Sha're and Skaara and the implantation of Kawalsky, respectively). Because of this it gained ten seasons, two spin-off series (three if you count the short-lived awful cartoon Stargate Infinity), some straight-to-DVD movies and an enormous international fanbase, which itself led to this re-watch and this blog. Stay tuned for tomorrow's entry, on The Enemy Within!

Stargate

1994 was the year that started the Stargate franchise with Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich's film Stargate. It's in this film that, despite a few minor plot holes and differences to the series (which have surely been discussed to death elsewhere), we see the genesis of a fully-formed, fleshed-out universe for the story to take place in. Many aspects of this universe will later be reused as central tenets of the TV show, such as Goa'uld posession of humans, their impersonation of (or perhaps inspiration for) the gods of antiquity, and most importantly the use of a Stargate to create a wormhole to travel vast distances through space. We are also introduced to characters, settings, and technology that will become familiar (or at least recurring) in later years.

Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader) is presented as a crackpot Egyptologist with unorthodox theories about the builders of the Great Pyramids. Much of his behaviour in the movie would continue into the series (where he's portrayed by Michael Shanks), most obviously at the outset before Shanks began to take more control of the character.
Conversely, the Colonel O'Neil of the film (Kurt Russell) is a stoic, humourless opposite to the wry, joking O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) we would come to love in the series. Despite this, we do see the beginnings of his emotional healing - after losing his son to a gun accident before the events of the film, he begins to see Skaara as a kind of son, most notably when Skaara picks up O'Neil's gun, sending O'Neil into a protective rage - he doesn't want to see anybody else hurt themselves because of him (at least in his eyes, his son's death was his own fault). This theme is continued into the series, notably in the pilot episode, Children of the Gods, where, upon arriving on Abydos, O'Neill walks right past Daniel to embrace Skaara.

The film also offers the first glimpses of Anubis and Horus guards, staff weapons, death gliders, ring transporters, glowing goa'uld eyes, the Cheyenne Mountain complex housing the Stargate Program (called the Creek Mountain complex in the film), the MALP, and even the star map that's in the background of many SGC scenes in the TV show. At the time they all just seemed like cool elements padding out the stargate world, but they were integrated almost seamlessly into the series, elements such as the staff weapon being used every week by ex-enemy combatant Teal'c.

Nobody save the film's writers can say how the original 2 sequels planned would have been, but in my opinion Stargate is a great film that laid the foundations for an even greater TV series. Check back tomorrow when I'll have watched the Stargate: SG-1 series pilot, Children of the Gods!