Entertainment
The 20th Century’s Greatest 10-Part Sci-Fi Series Is Perfect From Start to Finish
Science fiction thrives on premise. A simple story of two space nations fighting has been done to death, space geopolitics having been delved into deeply as an opportunity for aspiring world-builders. What made Star Trek so great was how its episodic format allowed for each episode to explore a mind-blowing new “problem of the week” built on the creativity and imagination of writers whose love for sci-fi showed in the uniqueness of every episode. The cosmos is a strange and uncharted place filled with danger, but also with incredible wonders. Star Trek was limited only by the imagination of its writers. Tragically, the franchise suffered falling ratings that were detrimental to the series in the 2000s. Movies became the face of Trek, but even there, they focused more on the action and spectacle than the original shows did. Fortunately, that torch was taken up not only by Doctor Who, which was experiencing a revival in the New Millennium, but by a sadly oft-forgotten property that paved a new road to science fiction — Stargate.
A Forgotten Franchise Picked Up Where Star Trek Slowed Down
In 1996, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released Stargate by iconic disaster movie director Roland Emmerich. The film opened to mixed reviews, with many critics lambasting how the film’s superb mystery and build-up to unlocking a mystical gate to another planet ultimately led to a desert. However, the idea itself retained incredible potential that was evidently not lost on the studio, and two-and-a-half years later, a new Canadian-American TV show had spawned, serving as the direct successor to the film: Stargate: SG-1.
An episodic military science fiction series, the show follows a team of predominantly four characters, one of several highly specialized United States Air Force “SG teams” who venture on missions through the “Stargate” in a secret complex under Cheyenne Mountain to explore new worlds and acquire alien allies and/or technology to use in Earth’s defense.
A Team Dynamic That Made Every Mission Worth Watching
The series’ main cast typically consists of four characters, who are often where a chunk of the fun can be found. While they do get replaced at times, some permanently towards the end of the series’ life, the original four mains are still the face of the show. Colonel Jack O’Neill, played by Richard Dean Anderson of MacGyver fame, leads the team with an oddly blasé attitude. Despite his leadership role, he is naturally funny and possessed of a sharp tongue. He was once described in the show’s later seasons as a man who “laughs in the face of the enemy even when it’s inappropriate.” However, beneath his confident exterior, there is a depth to his character that the series displays with beautiful subtlety throughout his tenure.
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Doctor Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), initially indistinguishable from James Spader‘s genius archeologist, is a natural diplomat and master of ancient cultures. His attitude and moral backbone lead him to butt heads with O’Neill on a regular basis, despite the friendship that develops between the two hard-headed individuals. Over the years, his growth as a character brings Daniel into his own as a distinct and stronger hero than his namesake in the movie. He represents the moral center of the team, and for a time, makes for the ideal audience surrogate as he struggles to adapt himself to a military lifestyle.
Samantha “Sam” Carter (Amanda Tapping) is the show’s resident tech wizard. Holding the rank of Major by the start of the show, her brilliant mind often finds the scientific solution to those problems too complicated for the other characters to handle. Despite her technological prowess, she is also an exceedingly competent fighter in her own right, well-trained among the Air Force’s best and brightest. Teal’c (Christopher Judge) is among the first of the alien characters the team encounters in the series. Originally the obedient lieutenant of the show’s first major villain, he defies his gods and joins the people of Earth to pursue freedom for his enslaved people, the Jaffa. His growth throughout the series is perhaps the most profound, gradually immersing himself in Earth culture with each passing season, to the point that his interactions with the blissfully ignorant outside world are among the most endearing moments in the series.
Villains That Balanced Mythology, Horror, and Classic Sci-Fi Threats
Of course, the show’s villains cannot go without mention. The main antagonists of the series are the Goa’uld, snake-like parasitic aliens who take human hosts with which to masquerade as gods (each one based on deities from ancient pantheons) and oppress the innocent beings of the galaxy. Though they are technically advanced and armed with an army of genetically engineered soldiers called Jaffa, they are culturally archaic, making them and their minions reasonably susceptible to the weapons of Earth’s heroes. The series’ other best villains include the Replicators, a swarm of self-replicating spider-like machines whose only goal is to increase their numbers in perpetuity, but their total lack of prejudice or soul as they spread like cancer arguably makes them as intimidating as Star Trek’s cybernetic villains, the Borg.
Somehow, for the majority of its history, the series perfectly balanced seriousness with comedy. The humor was a part of the characters, and the characters had enough dimensions to them that their wit never once undercut the drama of the story, yet there are those comedy-focused episodes that reveled in their hilarity. The Season 4 episode “Window of Opportunity” sees O’Neill and Teal’c trapped in an endless time loop reminiscent of Groundhog Day. Shenanigans ensue, yet the episode has a deeply poignant resolution despite being one of the show’s funniest episodes in the series.
The Season 5 episode “Wormhole X-Treme” sees the SGC learning of a mid-production TV show made in the suspicious likeness of the real Stargate program, yet the similarities are distinctly satirical and make for a very self-aware parody of the show. The Season 6 episode “The Other Guys” follows a trio of timid SGC scientists trying to rescue SG-1 from capture, and further shenanigans ensue.
The Standout Episodes That Prove the Format Still Works
But the series is not great simply because of excellent writing and superb characters. When Star Trek was panting with exhaustion by the 2000s, straining to carry the legacy of episodic science fiction, it was Stargate: SG-1 that kept on running. Each new episode was built around some fascinating idea, a new and creative problem to overcome with each episode. If the idea was new, it blew audiences away. If the idea was old, it was refined and perfected. These stories would simply not be possible outside the science fiction genre. The greatest sci-fi works have always functioned the same way, embracing mind-bending possibilities to explore anything from the most compelling adventures to the most thoughtful exploration of humanity. Star Trek did this well, andStargate: SG-1did so too.This format is preferable for this kind of series, not only because it allows for more self-contained explorations of the genre, but because the serial format is typically more akin to stretching a film out over a longer period to focus on a single giant story. WithSG-1, nothing is stopping viewers from picking up any of their favorite episodes to revisit one of the team’s best adventures, as opposed to watching an entire season from scratch to revisit a single giant story.
It is not hard to find episodes that thrive in this format. In the Season 2 episode “A Matter of Time,” the SGC dials a world in the process of being consumed by a black hole, and the gravitational feedback through the wormhole threatens to pull the entire Earth through the Stargate. In the Season 4 episode “Scorched Earth,” SG-1 is faced with the moral dilemma of deciding between the automated terra-former seeking to repopulate the embryos of an extinct civilization seeking a second chance, or the primitive tribe it threatens to annihilate in the process. In the Season 8 episode “Avatar”, Teal’c tests a new virtual reality simulator built using alien technology, only for the simulation to give him the most difficult challenge it can concoct, forcing him to repeat the seemingly impossible “game” over and over as the simulated invaders overcome his best attempts at victory, with no escape. The list goes on.
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This is not to say the series is perfect. The later seasons, especially 9 and 10, experienced a drop in quality, and the more realistic military theme fell by the wayside as the heroes started to get replaced with snarkier, funnier characters who felt more like superheroes than soldiers. Then there are the environments, where most alien planets tend to be the same forest in Vancouver, which is especially frustrating. That and most of the show’s transplanted human extra-terrestrials seem to speak English. There is also prominent Americentrism, one episode making it very clear that the Stargate program should belong entirely under American jurisdiction, and that other countries should contribute their efforts towards the defense of the Earth while expecting no shared decision-making in how the Stargate is operated.
But despite these flaws, the series is exhilarating. The middle seasons are easily the best, embracing the status quo of its premise yet still allowing its characters to grow as the series explores the creative boundaries of science fiction. Doctor Who was the show’s competitor into the 2000s, including against the equally great spinoff show Stargate: Atlantis, and while the iconic and campy British series performed better for the most part, its Canadian-American competition on the SyFy channel took itself more seriously despite its humorous ingredients, making it a worthy successor to the Star Trek legacy while still charting its own path in the space exploration concept.
Stargate SG-1
- Release Date
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1997 – 2007-00-00
- Showrunner
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Brad Wright
- Directors
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Martin Wood, Andy Mikita, William Waring, Bill Gereghty, David Warry-Smith, Brad Turner, Mario Philip Azzopardi, William Gereghty, Peter F. Woeste, Dennis Berry, Ken Girotti, Charles Correll, Jonathan Glassner, Robert C. Cooper, Allan Eastman, Bill Corcoran, Jeff Woolnough, Jim Kaufman, Allan Lee, amanda tapping
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amanda tapping
Samantha Carter
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