What a disappointing episode. Representatives from the Chinese, French, and British governments are told about the Stargate program in a secret Pentagon briefing. For some bizarre reason the Japanese (who, btw, still have the second largest economy in the world) were not on the list of governments invited. And why were the French invited? Supposedly to get their help in fighting the Goa'uld. What sort of help? The US would be able to afford to fund a secret large spacecraft building program on its own.
The $7 billion dollars per year that the Russian general says the US spends on the Stargate program is chump change to the real US government.
The United States government would not engage in a negotiation with foreign powers and show enormous divisions on its side. Senator Kinsey criticised every aspect of the Stargate program to the diplomats. A US Senator would not be in on such a negotiation. The Senator would not be allowed to put forth his own negotiating position. A US General and a US Senator would not be the senior level people on the US side. Someone from the White House or the Secretary of State would do it.
The Senator got to sit there and deliver a slanted critique of the Stargate program to a bunch of foreign diplomats who lacked the background to judge what was said. A US President and the US military wouldn't let something that stupid happen.
Another absurdity: The fictional Chinese ambassador claimed that the Chinese government doesn't keep secrets from its people. What a joke. I seriously doubt that it would ever occur to a real Chinese diplomat to say such a thing in a secret negotiation.
At the end General Hammond played the trump card with Thor of the Asgard popping in at the end to save the day for USAF control of the Stargate. Well, this end-of-episode deus ex machina was apparently the reason that the rest of the episode was done. A very implausible negotiation was done in order that Thor could save the day.
It was a cheap episode to make because the action scenes were all from previous episodes. It even provided some context to viewers who haven't seen all the episodes. But this should have been done with a more plausible pretext to motivate it. For instance, General Hammond could have gotten a new boss who wanted to review the status of the Stargate program. The boss could have previously had all sorts of bad things whispered in his ear by the Stargate program's enemies. That would have provided the pretext for a review.
First of all, Stargate SG-1 is being renewed by the SciFi channel for another season. Apparently its renewal for season 7 was in doubt until quite recently.
Also, in a surprising development Michael Shanks is returning as Daniel Jackson. Of course in season 5 Daniel Jackson supposedly died. So did somehow survive in captivity? Did he get underground and avoid the nuclear blast? Or will a supernatural element come into the equation to bring him back? Jackson already showed up in a supernatural form in the episode where Colonel Jack O'Neill was being held captive by the Goa'uld. I hope the way Jackson returns is not too cheesy.
Richard Dean Anderson and Amanda Tapping have already signed on the dotted line to return as well. Even thought Dr. Jackson is returning the Jonas Quinn character played by Corin Nemec is expected to return as well. Ditto for Teal'c as played by Christopher Judge. Richard Dean Anderson is still going to be the star but he's not going to show up in as many scenes.
I don't know what the creative disagreements were that led Michael Shanks to leave SG-1. But I hope the writers inject some elementes of the original movie Dr. Jackson into the returned Michael Shanks Dr. Jackson. The original Dr. Jackson from the movie version was a more mischievous and curious academic whose curiosity and willingness to interact with and get to know an alien culture were crucial elements of how the movie plot developed. The TV show Dr. Jackson was a less interesting figure and what he thought and did were less crucial to the plots of most episodes. Samantha Carter's hard science knowledge played a role in how episodes developed far more than Jackson's soft science and history knowledge did.
You can read the SciFi.com announcement and a couple of posts from gateworld.net here and here.
Update: There is also a Slashdot thread running on this topic here.
O'Neil likes The Simpsons. But does he like South Park? Just wondering. Hope so.
What is the name of the actress who was the frozen ancient woman Ianna found in Antarctica? She's beautiful.
I think it would have been a lot of fun to have the 3 (or more?) million year old frozen woman survive. Of course, that would cause a huge plot problem: She might know too much about the ancient past and too many mysteries about the ancient past would be solved just by her saying what she knows. Well, I still think the writers should have found a way to keep her alive longer. After all, she supposedly couldn't remember anything from the past. Or she could have fallen into a coma and then she could have gotten up when no one was looking and walked thru the Stargate. The Stargate could have magically dialed itself when she approached. It could have been tuned to recognize her kind. Then she'd have still been out there somewhere for the crew to once again run into in some future episode. Or she could have run off into the snow and disappeared and they wouldn't have been able to find her for a seaons or so.
However, this brings up another problem I have with the plausibility of a lot of science fiction shows involving ancient species: That they would be such a mystery for those who came later. Look at our ability to make high density storage media. Look at the projections for future storage media that are literally orders of magnitude more dense. Well, storing informaton is cheap and getting cheaper. Some methods of storage are very durable. Some ancient spacefaring civilization would have the ability to make recordings that would last for millions of years.
Jonas Quinn: What reason should she have for hiding anything?
Me: The whole point of hiding something is because you don't want someone else to know.
One problem with this episode: Okay, so Ianna gives them a disease. They get really sick and are going to die. Ianna lays on the hands. They get better. Well, why don't they each immediately get infected again and sick again? A member of the cast speculated that maybe Ianna invoked an immune response in them that allows them to fight off the disease. So maybe reinfection isn't a possibility.
Also, Carter was on an upper bunk when Ianna came into the room to heal her. Why would someone who is sick be placed on an upper bunk? There were empty bunks in the room. The director probably wanted to be able to pan down from one sick woman to the other. But seems like an implausibility.
I don't get this. The SG-1 team shoot the Goa'uld with conventional bullets (at least I assume that is what they are shooting) and it takes several shots to knock one down because the bullets can't penetrate the Goa'uld armor. But after multiple bullet hits all over the armor when the Goa'uld finally fall their armor still looks flawless. Why do they eventually fall down if the armour looks like the bullets never penetrated?
Also, its not even like two bullets are made to hit the same place to finally penetrate. Why should bullets which hit at a different location each time finally penetrate? Is realism too much to ask for?
I'm guessing this lameness is the result of a limited special effects budget. But couldn't the Stargate producers have come up with a cheap way to show that the armor had been penetrated? They make the sparks show where the bullets hit. How about one of these ways to show why they fall?
- Put something seamlessly in the armor shell and have it change color where the final bullet hits.
- When the final bullet hits explode out a hole with blood.
- Do head and extremity shots so the armor isn't involved.
- When the bullets hit show the armor lighting up electrically as if its reactive armor that has a force field. Then show the field light up progressively less well after each shot so that the final one can pierce it. Then have a hole show up after the final shot.