Stargate SG-1 Minicaps / Season 1, Eps. 7-10

The Stargate SG-1 Season One Minicaps is sending SG-5 on a beer run. You want anything?

Stewart here…

Not much to recap here, except the following: the team hasn’t found Skarra, Sha’re, or run into Apophis. And outside of curing a anti-feminist society, curing themselves of a plague, and helping a society live longer than a month, they haven’t had much time for anything else. Anyhoo, let’s get to it…

“Cold Lazarus”

After investigating a planet with some odd crystals, SG-1 returns home, with O’Neill seems a bit different and wanting to find out about his dead son and estranged ex-wife. That seems odd for the team, until the real O’Neill comes through the gate hours later! The crystals created a clone of him for an altruistic purpose, but is also starting to deteriorate with likely deadly consequences. It’s a emotional one here as O’Neill finds a bit of closure on that tragic event of his dead son. Also, Teal’c gets to go outside the base for the first time!

Wow. He knows how I react to current pop music too.

–Once again, the Goa’uld mess up another race, albeit in this case, a race made up of crystals.

–Teal’c’s reaction to rock music. Just the light ear muzzle was a great laugh. Also, he asks afterwards, “It was okay to fire my staff at those crystals inside the base, right?”

–I take it we don’t go back to that planet for O’Neill’s goodbye to “not Charlie” for budgetary reasons or editing for time.

–Weird goof between movie and show: Charlie was named Tyler in the movie. So you could argue the show isn’t connected to the movie at all. I’m not saying I do, I’m just saying you could.

–“Your world is a strange place.”

“Thor’s Hammer”

Daniel presents a theory that other aliens beside the Goa’uld visited Earth, and one may have been known here as the Norse gods. When Teal’c mentions this Goa’uld forbidden planet where those gods could be, the team investigates. As soon as they arrive, Teal’c and O’Neill are transported into some cavernous prison where they face a vicious creature. Meanwhile, Daniel and Sam try to breach the caverns from outside, but all of them run into the same problem: the only way out will kill Teal’c!

“YOU…are Thor? I’ve seen the movies, and I call BULL***T, buddy!”

–So this won’t be the last time we run into one of those nigh unkillable Unas, but probably the last time one of them is voiced by James Earl Jones.

–The whole legend of Thor comes back later on in the run, but not in the way you might suspect based on that big Viking hologram we see earlier. Also, expect a revisit to Cimmeria in season two.

–Now I know destroying the arch way that removes Goa’uld larvae so Teal’c can actually escape is a lot for Daniel to accept, but jeez, O’Neill, did you have to let Daniel do the deed?

–Another theory made in this episode that comes to be answered later is the Stargate network itself and its creation being by beings other than the Goa’uld.

–“You’re a little short for Gods.”

“The Torment of Tantalus”

While investigating some old film reels on the Stargate program in the 40’s, Daniel discovers someone did go through the Gate and was never recovered, and that person was the fiancé of Catherine Langford, the scientist who brought Daniel into the program. The team takes Catherine to the planet where Ernest, her fiancé, was lost, and find him alive and a little out of it living alone in a decaying palace. Of course, their way back home has a few problems, like energy to charge up the gate. While the Catherine-Ernest storyline is fine, it’s the details and potential future plot lines that make this worth a watch.

“Tee hee hee hee…orbs…”

–Let’s start with the fortress itself being a conference hall for several alien races. We’ll meet them all as the series goes, but I will say one of them we just met in this round of minicaps.

–Another thing presented here is elements being a universal communication device between alien races. It’s a concept that has a bit more grounding in the reality of current space exploration than you might think.

–You think SG-1 expected when finding Ernest that they find him old and minus any clothes on?

–If young Ernest looks familiar, it might be because the actor appears as another scientist regularly in another Stargate show (but that’s another story…).

–O’Neil’s summary of that massive meeting room hologram presentation: “Some fancy light show that may be the key to our existence or somethin’ like that.”

“Bloodlines”

Teal’c wants to return to Chulak (the planet where SG-1 first met him) really badly, and why is because of a secret he’s kept: he has a family there, and his son, Rya’c, is at the age where he’ll need a Goa’uld symbiote or will die. Too bad Teal’c is considered a traitor and his family exiled, but SG-1 joins him in finding a way to save Rya’c without putting a symbiote in him. How this is handled is by a theft, a changing of symbiotes, and Teal’c having to say goodbye to his family…for now.

Bra’tac also does the same thing when needing to flag down a ride.

–Well, I hope you like Teal’c’s mentor, Bra’tac, like I do, because you’ll be seeing more of him in the not too distant future. Also another note to remember way further down the road: he’s 133 years old, which says Jaffa tend to live very long lives.

–Teal’c’s wife should be familiar to those of you watched Eureka, although those of you not as big Syfy channel watchers might remember her from the great blacksploitation parody Black Dynamite.

–Daniel decides to decimate the Goa’uld larva container after stealing one, which considering there are more kids like Rya’c on the planet, seems a bit wishy-washy. Sure, being a Goa’uld carrier is no fun, but is a slow death any better?

–Hammond deciding to let SG-1 go to Chulak even after Teal’c unauthorized attempt to go himself is a nice character beat, showing he’s not a stick in the mud superior officer.

–“Hey, hey, who are you calling a ‘hassick’? What’s a ‘hassick’?”

NEXT TIME: Daniel is trapped in an aquatic prison in “Fire and Water”, a peaceful people is tempted by Goa’uld technology in “The Nox”, an unearthed Goa’uld goddess on Earth turns Stargate Command’s men against its women in “Hathor”, and Teal’c is put on trial for his prior allegiances in “Cor-Ai”.

Tags: Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Dean Devlin, Michael Shanks, Mini-caps, Richard Dean Anderson, Stargate, Stargate SG-1, Stewart, Television