Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Standard intro: Stargate SG-1 is about an Air Force team that, through the use of a large metal hoop found in the Egyptian desert that opens wormholes to other gates on different worlds, is exploring the universe. Jack O’Neill, who is a good leader, but not the smartest guy in the group, leads the team. Samantha Carter is a brilliant physicist and warrior woman. Daniel Jackson originally found the gate in the desert making him the foremost expert on it. He also happens to be a (miraculously) gifted linguist. The 4th member of the team is Teal’c. He’s an alien. This series is endorsed by the Air Force.


Overall this is a good disk. 4 out of 4 episodes are well done, 2 are mythology shows and 2 are stand-alone.

Episode 15: Matter of Time
Another team is caught on a planet that is in the middle of being sucked into a black hole. Unfortunately, when the gate was opened to discover this bit of info the gravitational pull of the black hole leaked through the gate and slowed down everything inside Stargate Command. Basically that is the whole story, but don’t get me wrong it’s an interesting show. There’s plenty of comedy involved in the time slowdown caused by the gravitational pull (for those of you who have forgotten high school physics class, theoretically black holes exert so much gravitational pull that they can stop time. Inside Stargate Command it’s been a couple of hours, outside it’s been a week or so.) Well done and interesting. The science, from my liberal arts mind, looks pretty solid too. Completely stand-alone too so if you’re looking for something to start with, this will work.

Episode 16: Fifth Race
The team finds evidence of one of the older races on one of their unmanned trips, so they go there and find the dialing device and a circle on the floor. Then O’Neill steps across the circle and this weird looking thing comes out of the wall. Teal’c looks into it and nothing happens. O’Neill looked into it and it grabs his head. They take him back to command and he starts speaking a language nobody understands. He’s also more testy than usual. Then he builds this nifty device that allows the gate to dial an extra symbol, kind of like dialing long distance on a telephone. This is another ‘one member of the team falls apart and everybody has to help him’ like episode 10. This one works better. Richard Dean Anderson does a great job of having all this knowledge dumped into his brain when he’s normally the dumb one in the group. This is also our first real introduction to the Asgard. And yes, the Asgard effects are still horrible. I was more convinced by the aliens on the Muppet Show. Still, good show and sort of important for understanding what’s going on later.

Episode 17: Serpent’s Song
Apophis is dying and he seeks sanctuary from Stargate Command in exchange for a new host. He’s on the run from a worse enemy who wants to torture him to death a couple of times and to avoid that fate he’s ready to rat out everyone he knows. He wasn’t planning on humans having so many scruples. This is a really good show, but it is wholly a mythology show and if you don’t know what came before you’re going to be a little confused. If however, you have been following things, you will be thrilled to see the turns this episode takes.

Episode 18: Holiday
SG-1 visits a planet and they encounter an old man who has a lot of every advanced, very neat technology. Teal’c says he is a huge Goa’uld enemy named Ma’chello. He tricks Daniel into switching bodies with him and then takes it for a spin. Largely, the is a charming and fun episode, not related to much of anything else in the series so far, but it does pop up again later. Sadly, Michael Shanks does not do a very good job of playing an old man. He plays both Dr Jackson and Ma’chello and as Ma’chello he just isn’t convincing. There is a priceless scene at the end where everyone ends up being everyone else and that’s just the greatest.

Special Features
Featurette on Daniel Jackson
Promotional Tailers

To purchase or not to purchase? Well, far be it for me to recommend anybody blow money willy-nilly, but this is a pretty good disk. If you were going to buy 2 disks from this season, this should be your second (with volume 2 being your first.) Absolutely worth seeing and has a lot of good humor to boot. (A shame about those Asgard puppets through.)


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older