Topic: Stargate: SG-1 - Season 4.

[8ullfrog]

[OCT 2019]  Wow, I feel like a bad steward here, like I'm trying to sell people on SG1, and then I rush it. I should learn to cool out. ]

Sometimes I feel like maybe I'm overstepping? like I should cool the frak out on posts.

But I'm on Disk 3 of Season 4 of SG-1 now.

I really, really want 6 to hit Disk 1. We go to the frakkin' fuhrer bunker! I mean that's NUTS for scifi. Not only is the "Nordic" Nazi ideal established in "The other side" but they don't just lampshade it, they make SG-1 sit through an uncomfortable dinner in a decaying dining hall, where bombers shake the ash upon these shitbirds. And they're the ideal! SG-1 is supposed to find advanced alien tech, and bring it back to Earth! And these odious naffs have that advanced technology. The episode doesn't flat out hit you in the face with a sign, but Project Paperclip existed! We pardoned unit 731 in Japan and it netted us ZERO usable intel. These gits acted like monsters under the cover of medical science, and we gave them pardon in hopes that their research was worth something.

Spoiler alert people, it wasn't worth poo. And O'neill gets to deal with THAT level of pressure.

Paperclip may have put us on the moon, but holy CRAP were those gits evil. inglourious basterds may have been pap, but maybe those shitheads should have had swastikas carved in their foreheads. No one asked the surviving Jews if they wanted their ink.

IBM, btw. Holy poo IBM.

Anyway, I'm watching the episode "Scorched earth" and I'm mad at Lt. Gaeta again. Yeah, he's not Gaeta here, but I'm still mad.

alright, the hep C morons (they have yellow eyes) refuse to evacuate from a planet being terraformed by FIRE. The stargate has about 3 hours before it melts.

Frak you, Gaeta.

I do like how the P-90's clip to the SG web gear, that is some tacti-cool. Specifically, movie shorthand before this put MP5's as the "tech cool" gun.

I understand the P-90's on SG-1 were real, until the wars in Afganistan and Iraq cleared out the armory.

Specifically, the Air Force provided a lot of stuff on SG-1. While I love the show, I am uncomfortable that it was used as very real propaganda.

 oh man, the Hep C morons can't live on earth, and the aliens who terraform with FIRE don't give a hoot. That's a rock hard place situation. otherwise known as a typical SG-1 mission.

Oh dang, Hammond is boss as hell. "Make the Robot understand"

DANG, Daniel Jackson solves the day, again. I might even like the apple store Asperger's robot, he did accept alternative solutions.

Oh dang, Danny boy let the Asperger's robot live, instead of committing suicide. Talk about a happy ending to genocide!

Seriously, I know 6 is in the shallow end right now, but this is some serious meat. She might even enjoy the crappy Russian episode!

One of my favorite thing about the extras on these discs is that they tend to be hosted by General Hammond and Doc. Frasier. A major, BTW.

She's a stone fox. Dang.


Still on disc 3 tonight, watched the mining episode. It was enjoyable, and the baddies had Nintendo zappers repainted as their sidearms. Apparently they also shortened the barrel and removed the cable, which would destroy the zapper.

I'm sure millions of zappers were produced. I've got the grey one, not the orange one.

Now I'm watching an episode where a man threatens to expose the stargate program because he's being harassed through his microwave by the lizard people.

Shallow casting pool of Canada strikes again, it's a CYLON!

LOL, I got to see a spec-ops team hop out of a Ford Windstar.

One thing watching this on a wide screen TV is that the sets are super dirty, like they're using shut down restaurants and hotels. Gordon Ramsey would be pissed! I know scrubs used a shut down hospital and people tried to go there.

[Nightly update] Volume 4 is DARK. I don't mean Battle of Winterfell, call the lighting department dark, but things get heavy. Sometimes it felt like the writers hated either the team or the show.

I'll just drop a short little thought on each one, rather than prattle on extensively like I want to.

The Serpent's Venom:
Teal'c gets MESSED UP in this episode. Daniel and Sam have to deal with a game of SIMON from hell.

Chain Reaction:
This episode mainly has to do with blackmail and dirty dealing, but there is a decent level of action despite no one actually firing a shot (I think)
The hit squads that fail in this episode probably got liquidated though, Maybourne's backers don't seem the forgiving type.
Jack accidentally boosts his enemy in this episode, causing Senator Kinsey to make a run for the White House. That can't have repercussions, not at all. Good escape strategy though. I liked the dog. Aussies are great.

2010: an episode set in the far of future of... 2010! Yeah, I know. This episode was broadcast Jan 3rd, 2001, and features airport terrorism. As to the writers being mean spirited, people get killed by laser blasts. We've seen a lot of that on this show, but they got petty with it! These blasts look like bee stings, and they punch holes in your face. A nasty way to go. Essentially, we make peace with aliens who have solutions to all our woes. Cancer, illness, aging, all things of the past. Also a thing of the past? Having children. These chumps won the war without firing a shot.

Absolute Power: What would Daniel Jackson become if he had the accumulated knowledge of 100 SPACE EMPEROR Adolph Hitlers? We find out here. Much like 2010, we get a time skip, and now Danny is super evil. I liked the episode, but I'm not a fan of the glowy squid people, they're so damn smug. Plus, since the vision was delivered, we can't know that Danny would actually act that way. Dreams are weird like that.

The Light: SG-5 I think? Travels to a Goauld palace with addictive qualities. Leaving makes you suicidal. This episode is shockingly dark. There is a suicide before the opening credits.

On to Vol.5, I REALLY hope it's less depressing, Vol.4 was a DOWNER. The disc 4 itself is red, so the menu is of an ominous, red stargate. Also, they've cut back on the special features in favor of audio commentary. I've never been a huge fan of audio commentary, and the extras were fun!

Alright, Disc 5! or Vol. 5, as the case claims. This one felt light, I was worried the disc wasn't in there. The paper insert with chapter titles was missing, I'm absolutely gutted. This menu is tastefully colored gold, as if to allay our fears of the scary red stargate. Plus, Extra's are back! I mean the commentary is still there if you like that, but we get "Stargate SG-1: Timeline to the future - legacy of the gate"

I don't know what that is, but I'm gonna watch it now. The extras on these discs are GREAT shorthand if you wanted to get friends into watching the show BUT skip the episodes you don't like. I feel like they answer all the questions six has asked, and they add a bit of in-universe acting to it. You've been sent from the pentagon to review these files, General Hammond and Doc Frasier aren't too happy, but assist. One time Doc Frasier offers to let you dissect something!

[6pairsofshoes]

Crossroads, episode 4.  Hot chicks.  And a reappearance of the red eyed venus fly trap mouthed snakey guy.  These women make Carter look like a guy by comparison.  The scanty clothing and wonderbras really do a great deal to emphasize proportions approaching Mariah Carey's.  Dayum.  I suspect it might have something to do with a predominantly male demographic for the show?

Yeah.  Anise and then the priestess of whatever (Shaun'auc) from Te'alc's home planet who is so silly as to believe that the snakey guy can be taught the errors of his ways as a young pup.  That didn't work out too well.  At least the women are in positions of relative power, even though they are hosts to snakey guys. 

It sort of reminds me of the docents at the Reagan library.  Tons of makeup and hairspray and a passionate support of a power structure that relishes the idea of their remaining in inferior positions.  And they chose a Tokra host who has a face you'd just like to smack.  There's a german noun for that kind of visage, Backpfeifengesicht.   

Poor Martoof.  All kinds of Gou'ald treachery and it has to take him as a victim.  Such a nice guy.

[8ullfrog]

He was on highlander, and Shaunac was in a horrible mortal kombat movie. I can't remember her being in anything good.

Anise was a network thing, they saw 7 over on Voyager and wanted some prominent ratings bumps. The actual staff of the show wasn't too happy about it, and actually mention being embarrassed about it.

[6pairsofshoes]

Window of Opportunity, like Groundhog Day in space.  It was one of the more entertaining episodes.

[8ullfrog]

That's the one most people call favorite. I disagree. It's great, the references are hot, and it doesn't disappoint, but it's not MY favorite.

I'm glad you had fun with it.

[6pairsofshoes]

The first ones.  Gou'ald living in ponds like some kind of annoying thing you'd pick up in a tropical country.  Blue blood and the usual venus fly trap toothy mouths.  Unas running around giving the prop dept something to do.   They like Gou'ald roasted on a spit over an open campfire.  Jackson declines the snack.

Daniel Jackson gets to learn a little of their language, a couple guys get infested w/Gou'ald and at the end, pretty much everybody else gets to go home.

The episode prior to this in Siberia was just odd.  There are life forms in the water surrounding some Greco/Roman ruins on some letter/number combo planet, and they apparently objected to being taken somewhere else in a thermos, like soup for lunch on another planet (Earth, and Siberia didn't look all that inviting, particularly with the Soviet era utilitarian architecture).  Mayhem ensues, including cracking the window of a submersible containing Jackson, Carter & this week's guest star --attractive Russian physicist (a woman who is clearly not a native Russian speaker and whose accent falls a tiny bit short of Natassia NoGoodNik's "but vhat ve do vit Moose end Squirrel?").  Mean Pentagon guy in the freezer gets out and throws up waterborne lifeform steam.  That was attractive.  There's no explanation for why he's there or even in this episode.  Go figure.  I'd like a job like the officious General whose dialogue most weeks is restricted to "that's a go."  I wish I could get paid for doing so little.  So Pentagon guy clues the rest of the team into what's been happening and  the whole business gets fixed in time for the credits to roll.  And Tea'lc gets to ingest and puke them out, too.  Very wholesome family fun.

[8ullfrog]

The reason the Russia one felt weird was because it was. A lot of it was rewritten on the fly, the ending was originally supposed to be in the middle and an entirely different B plot was supposed to be there, but it fell through.

The Unas planet is the birthplace of the Goauld, I think? The reason why an SG team was there was to study the proto-goauld. They didn't know just down the trail there was a lake full of them.

Unlike most goauld, who are born with genetic memory, the lake ones are just evil.

They uh, did explain why Maybourne was there. He's a crook. When he got shitcanned from the Air Force, he went to work as a mercenary. He happens to know everything about the stargate program and disclosed all that information to the Russians. Because of this, he is put on trial for treason and is sentenced to death.

But he's really good at avoiding that. He regularly antagonizes Jack by just walking out of the bushes or similar type hijinks.

The life forms ARE the water, the Russians essentially kidnapped some of them, which pissed the water people off bad. Most of the deaths at the Siberian base were caused by the Russian military though. I believe they used an aerosol neurotoxin.

In a behind the scenes shot, Don. S. Davis said he loved whenever he got multiple syllable lines in a script, they then did a quick cut of him just dropping a bunch of commands "Open the iris, close the iris, Open the gate, close the gate" that sort of thing.

He actually is under intense pressure both political and literal in the job. He messes up even one of those short commands, everyone dies.

In season 7 we get to see a little more about Walter, the "chevron six, engaged" guy. "Getting a transmission, it's SG-whatever sir" leading to... "Open the iris"

[6pairsofshoes]

When does Maybourne get canned from the Pentagon?  Tried for treason?  Did I miss something?  Maybe I fell asleep during an episode?  I don't remember doing this but it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

I thought there was a dig on the Unas planet and they were attempting to do a variety of "carbon dating" with another mineral the name of which escapes me, on the skeletal remains of a queen.  It looked like a big lizard skeleton, so I'm even more confused since the Gou'ald are actually little snakey guys who would not have a big head and body like a small dinosaur, which is more like what the skeletal remains (nice job, prop dept) Daniel was excavating resembled.   There's plenty here that does not make lots of sense.  But you seem to have a more comprehensive insight into this.  Maybe I should watch the movie and then maybe I wouldn't have to ask as many questions.  It's entertaining enough though.  I can't really find much else to watch at the moment.

Maybourne is good at being annoying.  He's got a sort of annoying face to go with it.  Not pretty like the 4 guys in SG1, so of course he has to be less good.

[8ullfrog]

He stole the Antarctic stargate and ran an NID black ops team stealing poo on other planets out of DC. This caused problems with the primary gate.

He got away with that one because they couldn't prove he was in charge, but his team were chased offworld, so they cannot come home. He just pretended he knew nothing about it.

He actually worked his way back into the good graces of the SGC during the foothold episode (We later learn this mission was kept "off the books")

In 2000, O'Neill ran a sting operation because he'd been working offworld teams from the prior black ops episode. He was removed from command and an arrest was an attempted, but he's really good at escaping.  https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Shades_of_Grey  Season 3, Episode 18. I like how O'Neill explained to the black ops guys that the Asgard just kill all criminals, so if they want the possibility of jail, they have to come back through the gate.

Just another way it is established that the Asgard aren't just cute and cuddly.

In that episode with the bug robots, he managed to assist the Russians in recovering the stargate from the Pacific ocean. They had the original DHD, and began their own clandestine stargate program. He really likes doing that. This was straight up treason as he brought both planet coordinates and a complete set of SGC files to Russia. He was arrested and I believe sentenced to death. Maybe the death sentence comes later? He's a slippery eel, and always manages to cut a deal at the last moment, often at Col. O'Neill's expense. He also steals hot dogs and beers from O'Neill. One of O'Neill's fondest wishes is to one day shoot Harry Maybourne.

[6pairsofshoes]

Thanks for the reminder.  Yeah.  I remember when O'Neill went undercover to do the sting operation and that Maybourne was running it.  But I don't remember if it was the Pentagon behind it or just some right wingnuts.  I guess it was the latter based on your comments.  Kind of like Halliburton getting its mitts on a stargate and tweaking it to its own nefarious ends.  This show does tend to reflect the power structures underlying much of the US political landscape.

I think the death sentence must have come later?  Can't recall if it was doled out when O'Neill was being a richard as undercover guy.  After O'Neill resigned, he sat home and drank beer and played chess with himself.  He was mean to Carter, too, which seemed sort of off.

They do like to mix it up with the sequence of these episodes.  I was thinking of how hard it would be to come up with such varied plots week after week as a writer.  They do a reasonable job of that here.

[8ullfrog]

In Stargate the NID is legit, they just use methods the SGC would not. His problem was remaining an Air Force Officer while running missions for them, that's double dipping. You're not wrong to compare them to Halliburton.  Supposedly THEIR program began after roswell, but that could be wiki cowpoo.
I imagine the ACTUAL government didn't want the show shitting on the NSA, so the NID was created. They do operate out of the Pentagon though, which is probably where they recruited Maybourne.

Are you talking about O'neill being a richard to Carter in 2010? The first time, when he's working undercover, he needs them to buy that he's out of the game, so he needs to get rid of them fast, and being a richard makes sense.

In 2010, he was against the alliance with the Aschen… and he was right.

[6pairsofshoes]

I know nothing of 2010.

Halliburton, as far as I know, started as a business that manufactured drills and other industrial machinery for the oil business and then got into heavy engineering projects abroad.  Wikipedia comments about their use of cement, & that makes sense.  I once knew lots more about such corporate involvement in these kinds of development projects but now my brain isn't what it once was.

I'll probably watch more of it tonight.  How many seasons of it are there? 

[8ullfrog]

2010 is an episode you're either about to hit or will hit soon. Jack is kind of an bottom in it.

There are 10 seasons of SG-1, and the show branches around the end of seven I think? This results in the... I don't want to spoil it, but there is a spinoff series. A good one.

[6pairsofshoes]

I just watched Scorched Earth.  Half the episodes with quaint humans living on other worlds have people living in tents who look like escapees from a Renaissance Faire.  What's up with that?  Don't the wardrobe guys have any other ideas besides 60's silver lamé and the quasi medieval garments that wouldn't look out of place in a low budget GoT episode?

[8ullfrog]

Depends on how they live. Daniel explained in the movie that most of the people are nomadic, if they set up stationary farms, the Goauld will burn them and work them to death in the mines. Although there is limited gate trade, use of the gates by non Goauld and Jaffa forces is punishable by death.

For instance, back in season one when Teal'c went on trial for his crimes, you notice the entire group of people abandon their town and hide.

That's not an entirely effective strategy, if the Goauld can't find slaves they send the death gliders in out of petulance.

So yes, agrarian peasant is the dominant style. Could be worse, you should see some of the poo the langarans wear, and the Aschen are lame as golly.

In Scorched earth there is a more ready response, it really is a refugee camp. SG-1 evacuated an entire group of people to the planet. Unfortunately, another alien race had the same idea. Worse, these people can't live on earth, they have different health requirements. I don't think they go into it too much, but they can't even bunk over at the SGC for two weeks while a new planet is found.

The wardrobe lady is actually pretty subversive, she sneaks stupid snakes into all the goauld clothes, but you have to look closely to see them. Most prominently being Amonet's stupid hat.

As to GOT, I think I mentioned that the Night's watches fur coats were bath mats from Ikea?