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.

Solitudes

This is the big Sam-Jack bonding episode. Trapped alone in freezing conditions, and with Jack gravely injured, the two get very close, and it's probably the real beginning of their series-spanning not-quite-relationship. They learn about each other - well, we learn about Jack's past anyway, in particular the time he was on a black operation in the middle East some years back - and huddle together for warmth, which gives a great opportunity for a one-liner from Jack.

Despite the team being split apart for the entire episode, it still gives Daniel and Teal'c a chance to show their devotion to their comrades, losing sleep and exhausting themselves in the search operation, bringing the team emotionally closer.

Another pretty big thing about this episode is that it introduces the Earth's second stargate, which will be used in future storylines. It's a very interesting idea, as it opens up a lot of ideas for new stories, but it's never really made clear in the episode what caused the gate to send two of the team here, or why it was suddenly available in the stargate network when it apparently wasn't for the past couple of thousand years.

Despite the small plot holes, this is a great episode for all the character dynamics. It also has Dan Shea's first appearance as master sergeant Siler. Dan's been in previous episodes but only as Richard Dean Anderson's stunt double, and behind the scenes as the stunt coordinator for the show. Siler's a great character, and it's great to see Dan Shea for more than a second at a time, or from the back only.

Only a few episodes of season 1 to go, and for the next episode - Tin Man - I have the added pleasure of a brand new fan-commentary from the guys at GateWorld.

Enigma

MAYBOURNE!

Ahem, sorry. Not sure where that came from.

When SG-1 rescue a group of technologically advanced aliens from a massive volcanic eruption on their world, it creates problems both for the offworlders - the Tollans - and the SGC. Because of their obviously powerful technology, the NID (National Intelligence Department) send colonel Harry Maybourne to take the Tollans from the SGC to a similarly secret facility elsewhere in the Rockies to learn what they can from them. General Hammond and SG-1 do their best to stop this from happening and while Sam and the Tollan Narim are busy fluttering their eyelashes at each other, Daniel helps their leader Omoc send a signal across (or perhaps through?) space to the Nox, who come to their aid.

In this, his first episode, col. Maybourne is basically just a replacement for colonel Kennedy (who appeared in The Enemy Within) and is just shown as a bit of a tool. Throughout the years he'll be brought back a number of the times and - as you may have guessed by my outburst above - becomes one of my favourite recurring characters.

The Tollans also come back a couple of times in the future, along with Narim's new pet cat, Schroedinger. There's obviously a mutual attraction between Narim and Sam in this episode, but due to them having to part ways at the end of the episode, not much happens. Narim does give Sam a 'recording' of his emotions and feelings about her, and then they kiss a couple of times before being interrupted by Daniel (which is hilarious). It's the first relationship-stuff we've seen for Sam since her ex-fiancé was killed in The First Commandment, but we'll see more soon enough - in the next episode, in fact (Solitudes).

P.S. As an update to the note in Singularity, I noticed in this episode that gen. Hammond started wearing his trademark short-sleeved dress shirt. Now he's really general Hammond!

Cor-ai

Now this is the kind of stuff I like to see. Teal'c, while he is a 'good guy' now, is still technically a hardened war criminal, having committed many atrocities in the name of his former master Apophis. In this episode he is held accountable for one of these war crimes by the son of a victim, and put into 'cor-ai', which is their form of trial - the sentence being death.

Initially, Jack, Sam and Daniel try to argue Teal'c's case by finding out why he did it (to try and save as many of the other villagers as possible), but then - and this is something that still doesn't sit right with me - Jack decides to go back to Earth to bring reinforcements back to forcibly break Teal'c out. Teal'c objects to this, as do Sam and Daniel at first, but then those two change their minds and want to break Teal'c out too. Fortunately, general Hammond has his head still firmly screwed on and refuses to go through with this. It really bugs me that Jack would go to this length to free Teal'c - even after Teal'c has told him that he won't go in this manner. I certainly wouldn't like to see Teal'c die, but I definitely don't want to see the villagers' lives, and those of the SGC reinforcements, put at risk in order to free him from what is after all a legitimate justice system.

In a couple of O'Neill's scenes we see references to things he may have been ordered to do by the US government. This has never really been touched on before, but it paves the way for future episodes that will confirm he was involved in what are known as 'black ops' - highly clandestine military operations which may go against the military's code of conduct or even against laws. He mentions to general Hammond that he has been ordered to do some "damn distasteful things" in his years of service, and his eagerness to break Teal'c out suggests that maybe Jack's not ready to face the consequences of what he's done, or is still in conflict with his conscience. It's something that gets a little more development in the future, but not much that I can recall.

You just know he loved shouting OBJECTION! during the cor-ai though!