Prisoners

I Liked this episode, but I can't say I liked what happened in it. SG-1 are put into a very awkward situation when they are sentenced to life imprisonment on an inescapable planet (It has a stargate for incoming wormholes, but no DHD for dialing out). Given that the prison is used for all criminals, regardless of the severity of their crime, it's turned into a kratocracy, where those strong enough to seize power have done so. As such, the brutish Vishnoor is the boss of everybody except the mysterious Linea, to whom everybody listens.

Jack and Carter pay Linea a visit after she grants them her protection from the other prisoners, and find that she has a (natural) nuclear fusion power source, which could be used to power the gate and dial manually (like they did with lightning in The Torment of Tantalus in season 1). In return for this power, she wants them to set her free. She tells Sam about how she was convicted for her part in trying to cure a plague that ravaged her planet - letting Sam fill in the blanks. Another strange thing is when Linea cures a man's blindness, and upon seeing her face, he scampers away in fear. Despite this, SG-1 still trusts her and brings her through the gate with them, which is a very irresponsible thing to do. Perhaps it's Jack's black-ops training, to use any means necessary to escape, but Carter's happy to go along with it and neither Daniel nor Teal'c have any objections either.

In the meantime, a diplomatic relations SG-team are liaising with the authority that imprisoned SG-1, and even general Hammond makes his first trip through the gate to argue for their release, offering himself in their place (in vain).

When back on Earth, Carter shows Linea how to use the computer system to model the cold fusion reagents for them. Linea, clearly a polymath and genius, learns to control the computer system to do whatever she wants, while SG-3 bring back the cured blind man, who tells them who he saw when he regained his sight - 'the Destroyer of Worlds'. It turns out Linea didn't try to cure the plague - she started it, which explains the way she was treated in the prison. It's too late, though - as she escapes through the stargate, the SGC's self-destruct count reaches zero...
but doesn't blow up. Instead the whole computer system shuts down and restarts, showing the message that "all debts have now been repaid," leaving SG-1 with the knowledge that they let a mass-murderer loose on the galaxy once more.

It's an episode full of action and intrigue, but adds to the list of bad things SG-1 has done to the galaxy. Just because you're fighting goa'uld oppression doesn't mean you're shining stars.

In the Line of Duty

This episode is a showcase for some great acting by Amanda Tapping. There are a few 'phases' of her character and she plays each one differently. The first 'phase' is after the teaser, when Carter has been infected by a goa'uld but before the characters know about it. She remains aloof and slightly out-of-character, exactly as if she were being played by another actress who didn't fully understand the Carter character. Even in the background of scenes where she doesn't talk, Sam is seen staring into space, not giving her full attention to what's happening.

The second stage is once the other characters have found out about her infestation by Jolinar of Malkshur. At this point the audience and characters know as much as each other. Jolinar is portrayed as a stereotypical goa'uld - arrogant, mean, and tricksy. Thus, when he claims to be a member of the Tok'ra (anti-System Lord resistance group) Jack and co. are loth to believe him. It's only after the ashrak tries to kill him (and Carter in the process), and after Jolinar dies saving Sam's life, that the characters realise they could have trusted him, after all.

It's after this that we see the third phase of Carter - emotionally unstable. Nobody else can begin to imagine what she's gone through. Having another personality in your head, mixing with your own, only to have it taken away from you through torture, it must be distressing to say the least. The start of the healing process is shown in the final scene, when Cassandra (from season 1's Singularity) comes to visit Sam in the infirmary and comfort her.

One thing I don't think is quite right with the episode is that Jack doesn't seem concerend enough when he learns there's a Goa'uld in Sam. The same thing happened to his friend, major Kawalsky, who died as a result of them trying to take it out (The Enemy Within); for all he knows, the same could soon happen to Carter, to whom he's as close as, if not closer than, Kawalsky. Sure, he's seen Kendra (Thor's Hammer) and learned that safe extraction is possible, and he's keeping that hope alive for Skaara and Sha're too, but the Kawalsky situation must have been going through his head at the time. He does show more of that soap-opera-level emotion later when Carter's on the operating table with Janet trying to save her life, though.

Speaking of Sha're, we're both reminded of her (which is really the driving force behind SG-1's exploration of the galaxy) and given a tidbit about story development, as Jolinar tells Daniel he knows where Sha're is. Of course, it's entirely possible he was lying, but seeing as he's dead by the end of the episode it seems we'll never know. Something tells me it won't be long before she shows up again...

The Serpent's Lair

Season 2 got off to a great start with this episode, a conclusion to the cliffhanger at the end of season 1 (Within the Serpent's Grasp). SG-1 are captured aboard Klorel's ship as it and Apophis' ship are approaching Earth. Klorel's placed in a sarcophagus by one of his jaffa, who is then ordered to kill SG-1. He goes to follow these orders, and reveals himself as master Bra'tac!

Bra'tac and his two fellow unbelievers help SG-1 lead an assault on the two ships, capturing Klorel and using him as a hostage to gain entrance to Apophis' control deck where they disable the controls, then run off to disable the shields so Klorel's ship will do a lot of damage when the two collide.

Meanwhile on Earth, major lieutenant-colonel Samuels is back, seemingly for no reason other than to gloat about the new 'goa'uld-buster' missiles he's developed. Said missiles both detonate harmlessly on the goa'uld ships' shields, leaving Samuels embarrassed and sheepish. It's nice to see general Hammond chewing him out, as he's always been a slimy, unlikeable character.

Despite the impending attack, and gen. Hammond wearing his combat fatigues, there's really no sense of tension in the Earth scenes, as there was in There But For the Grace of God. Granted, the attack was fully under way in that episode, and in this one the ships were just sitting there, but it didn't feel like there was any real threat to Earth. There was some tension on the ships, particularly as Daniel was left behind, but that didn't last long. In fact, the team didn't seem too bothered about what they thought was his death, only showing emotion when they were reunited in the SGC. Neither did Daniel seem to care about the fate of the team when he came back through the gate. But, when reuinted, he and Jack do share a big hug, and all's well again - particularly now the Earth is saved from Apophis and Klorel.

Speaking of those two, it's not made clear where they went - they're shown using the ring transporters, but the only place within range was Klorel's ship with the stargate - but you can probably guess that it's Chulak. Which makes you wonder, why does Bra'tac want to go back? He said he already had a hard enough time regaining the goa'uld's trust after the events of Bloodlines, and this time he openly told Klorel about his hatred for the race.

I heard somewhere - maybe a DVD commentary from a later episode, I'm not sure - that originally Skaara/Klorel wasn't in the shot of Apophis escaping through the rings, but after seeing the huge positive fan response for his appearance in Within the Serpent's Grasp they decided to edit him in so he could return in future episodes. Thank goodness they did!

Within the Serpent's Grasp

August is over, and that means season 1 is done too. This finale episode is the first of a two-part story, which is concluded in the premiere episode of season 2 (The Serpent's Lair). Because Showtime ordered two seasons of SG-1 right off the bat (does stuff like that ever happen any more?), it gave the writers the opportunity to make a real cliffhanger knowing it'd be resolved, bringing back lots of viewers the next year.

The story does serve as a kind of full-circle for the season by bringing back Alexis Cruz as Klorel-in-Skaara. If you recall, Skaara is an Abydonian who was kidnapped by Apophis in the pilot episode, Children of the Gods, along with his sister, Daniel's wife Sha're. Both were taken as goa'uld hosts, and this is the first time we see either of them return. It's a nice reveal, Apophis introducing his 'son', who then arises from the sarcophagus, and turns to the camera to show his face. He's later killed by O'Neill to save Daniel's life, but of course there's a sarcophagus on board so this is no biggie. They don't even make that big a deal of it, cutting quickly from the grieving Jack to showing Earth out of the window (Interesting sidenote: Today the NASA probe Juno, headed for Jupiter, sent back a photograph of the Earth-Moon system from about 9.5 million kilometres - isn't she pretty?).

The ship arriving at Earth heralds the destruction that Daniel saw in the alternate timeline, but with the Stargate Programme being shut down, and only SG-1 to try and stop it, will the same fate befall our Earth? You'll have to continue watching to find out!

Politics

Despite being a clip show, this episode has a story of its own when senator Kinsey, chairman of the appropriations committee, comes to see if he thinks the Stargate programme is worth keeping. It's actually 15 minutes before we see a clip, and only a handful of scenes (including one from the 1994 film) are shown - well, there hadn't been many episodes to show clips of by this point. The episode also helps set up the situation for the finale, continuing (loosely) from the previous episode, There But For the Grace of God.

Ronny Cox makes his first appearance as senator Kinsey, and does a great job of making such an unlikeable, hateful character. From what I've read and heard on audio commentaries, Ronny is actually a really nice man, and good guitarist. It must be difficult to put on a totally different persona like that - I know acting's all about that, but I think actors probably usually have experience or something they can draw on to get the role right.

There's not a lot to say about this episode, it being a clip show and largely being confined to one room on set. I'm looking forward to the season finale and moving onto season 2, though.

There But For the Grace of God

This episode sets up the season finale, and is the first of three linked episodes. Daniel touches a mirror-like device and travels to an alternate reality, one where he is not a member of the SGC and Teal'c, still first prime to Apophis, is sporting a ridiculous ponytail and leading the goa'uld attack on Earth. These alternate-people ultimately let Daniel travel back to the planet with the mirror so he can warn his Earth about the imminent attack, dooming themselves in the process.

This is something that struck me as odd. If an alternate team had come through to our Earth as it was under attack, I doubt we would have given up our hopes of winning so quickly and sent them off to save their friends we'd never met. Granted, alternate-Earth was completely boned by that point, and basically everybody was dead, but they still go for saving Daniel pretty quickly.

It never really made sense to me that the mirror-owning aliens would have known the address for Apophis' base of operations against Earth, either - it's stated at the beginning of the episode that the battle on that planet seems like it was some time ago, and how do they know it was Apophis who destroyed them too? This was an action-packed episode, probably to make up for the following episode, Politics, which is all talk, and so the writers probably weren't too concerned with these plot holes.

Tin Man

I watched this episode twice - once for enjoyment, and once to listen to the GateWorld fan commentary, which I'll get to at the end of the post.

This is a really interesting episode, and I wish I could remember exactly how I felt when watching it the first time around. When visiting an alien planet, the team are knocked out and then awake to find that a strange local, Harlan, the only one left of his race, has made them 'better', but won't say how. On returning to Earth they discover that he's made robot copies of them and transferred their consciousnesses. After being kept in confinement by the suspicious SGC staff, they suddenly start to run out of power and are sent back through the gate to Harlan's planet, where they immediately begin to recover. Harlan, for vague reasons, won't transfer their minds back into their organic bodies, and it's not until the end of the episode that they discover (along with the audience) that their minds weren't transferred - they were copied. This presents a problem - the robots are just as 'real' as the originals, and as far as they're concerned are the same people who came through the gate. They have to accept the facts that they're going to live for thousands of years (based on Harlan's age of over 11,000 years) and the whole time is going to be spent maintaining the failing facility they were created in. That's exactly the same as the 'real' team coming to terms with this. Could you do that? I couldn't.

The action of the episode mainly comes from robot-Teal'c - Harlan clearly didn't understand how Jaffa worked when me made the robot, and copied both Teal'c's and his larval goa'uld's consciousnesses into it. Eventually the goa'uld manages to take over from Teal'c's mind and attacks O'Neill. Harlan has to destroy the robot, and creates a new one with the understanding that he must only copy teal'c's personality this time. There's still an issue that isn't brought up properly - Teal'c will have to get used to living without his symbiote. The physical superiority of the robots to humans negates the need for a replacement immune system, and he's probably stronger than he was when he was a jaffa too. But he can never kel'no'reem again, something he's been doing almost all his life. In this aspect, it's kind of a precursor to the jaffa uptake of tretonin in later seasons of the show.

Now, a few words about the fan commentary. It took me a while to get it synched up properly, often pausing the wrong thing to try and let the other catch up, but I got there eventually. It was an interesting idea, but it didn't hold my attention too well. I felt the 2 commenters just didn't have enough to say about what was happening, and it wasn't as interesting as cast or crew commentaries. I'll listen to the season 2 commentary too when it comes around and if I don't enjoy it, I'll skip them from then on.