So I am really struggling to get through the next Trek-On with Star Trek V, and I think everyone understands why. So I changed course and started bingeing a show that I never saw the first time around, Stargate SG1.
Taking its cue from the movie, SG1 continues the adventures of Daniel Jackson and Jack O’Neil, as well as some new characters. The Stargate is now used as the avenue to seek out new life and new civilizations, much like the Enterprise. There are some key differences as well as similarities that make it stand out.
Like Star Trek (when it was good), it has various sci-fi tools and weapons, and the rules of these things are well thought out and adhered to. They seem to have a strict set of rules on how things work, and they do an even more impressive job sticking to them than even Trek does.
SG1 is the name of the team our heroes are on, but there are many such teams exploring all over the place. SG2, SG7, SG12, etc. Every time they go someplace new, they always send through a little rover with a camera on it to make sure it isn’t dangerous. It’s a nice touch.
The gate itself is one direction, depending on where you initiate transport. So if someone opens the gate remotely, you can’t go through to where they are coming from; you have to wait until they shut it down and then initiate on your side. It sounds like a minor detail, but the attention to detail I really appreciate.
Then you have the characters. Jack O’Neil (first portrayed by Kurt Russell in the movie) is now played by Richard Dean Anderson. He doesn’t really try to be like Russell, but plays the character fine. To be honest, even though he’s got top billing, he’s actually the weakest character. He’s the sarcasm supplier, and his quips get old. To be fair, he never gets MCU treatment where he’s undercutting the seriousness of a particular moment, but sometimes he plays the skeptic far too much.
Sure, some of this weirdness at the beginning, he wouldn’t necessarily believe. But his knee-jerk dismissal of things continually when clearly he’s seen some crazy stuff, and he also knows his teammates well enough to know they wouldn’t be bullshitting him, that stuff gets grating.
Still, he never goes too far, and you still care about him.
Daniel Jackson was played in the movie by James Spader. Here it is Michael Shanks. He’s the complete opposite of Anderson, and sometimes you forget that he isn’t Spader. He’s that close to the original. He is the myth-geek, as the show is steeped in myths and ancient legends. Shanks really gets the mannerisms and speech patterns perfectly.
Joining these two is Captain Samantha Carter, played by Amanda Tapping. She starts out with the feminist with a chip on her shoulder, but thankfully that is dropped after a couple of episodes. The execrable Emancipation pretty much took all the enthusiasm out of that. Once they find her voice, she becomes the LaForge of the group with a lot of likability.
Finally we have Teal’c, played by Christopher Judge. He was a Jaffer who turned on his masters and joined SG1. He has a lot of valuable info on the Goa’uld, the enemy from the movie. He could end up being a Worf clone, but thankfully his brand of stoicism has a lot more nuance. Not that Worf was a shallow character, it’s just a nice difference, and he doesn’t play it as a knock-off of another more well-known character.
Rounding out the cast is Don Davis as General Hammond, who runs the SG division and is the guy sending them out on missions. He could be a typical “by-the-book” foil for the team, but instead he balances orders with doing what’s right, and that makes him far more likable.
He has to deal with a lot of conflict between orders and doing what’s right, and sometimes he has some prime directive-style conundrums regarding the planets they discover.
The first season has a ton of “1st season-itis”. There are a lot of planet of the week type stories. But they do have several episodes that lay out the lore.
The second season really starts leaning into the myths to create a pretty compelling narrative. At the center of it is Apothesis, the big bad over the first 5 seasons, or so I’m told. Fighting this alien race means getting allies. They get another sister race called the Tok’ra, who are the same as the Goa’uld but peaceful.
The rebelling Jaffa, the army of the Goa’uld, have many defectors. The craziest are the Asgardians. Yes, Thor and the rest who inspired the Vikings. But they are actually the grey aliens of Roswell. There are two things I never thought would go together.
This has a very Deep Space Nine quality to it. This was before today’s TV shows, where it’s just one long 10-hour movie. This is individualized, self-contained episodes like shows of the era.
It hits the same sweet spot where you have self-contained stories, but little bits and pieces are sprinkled throughout to keep growing and moving the overarching story along. Even though there are twice as many episodes in a season as you frequently get today, bingeing it moves things along at a brisk pace.
Today’s 10-episode seasons feel like a slog to me, mostly because they have a strong start and end but need to put pointless filler in the middle.
These older shows had actual stories to tell and could make the larger story fit into it. It feels like a time when writers had talent. What a time it was.
So I’m not going to do a “Stargate-On” series, though I may talk more about subsequent seasons as I go along. Overall, if you’re looking for something a little off the beaten path of standard ageing IP, you might give this one a try.
