SG1 Smoke and Mirrors

[FaxModem1]

Review

I think this is part of the core problem with SG1 since the very beginning. All of their villains are rather bland, due to the status quo 90s adventure show format they had. The difference between the committee and say, random Goa'uld of the week, is that they're wearing normal business suits instead of elegant historical costumes, and they're using their normal voices. SG1 wasn't that good at having compelling villains, and in a story where you need them, such as a conspiratorial mystery, bland villains makes the whole thing sink.

[armoredlancer]

Um Chuck, buddy. Are you Ok?
are you sure you are ok?
Then WTF was that conspiracy rant about?
Also none of the guys in the leadership was 30 either

[Chaos Sepher]

Do tell us Chuck, what is the right way to pick a lock?

[Koshundheit]

Is it at its heart an action adventure, and frankly by season 6 they'd mostly run out of ideas. Making Jonas a super-genius did them no favors. They might have benefited from struggling more without Daniel, having to work for things again in a way they hadn't done in a long time. I've watched the whole series a few times, and enjoyed it, but all too often it is very paint by numbers. That becomes more clear on rewatching. It was my friend's favorite show, though he'd only seen episodes here and there before. When we watched them in order, after season 8 episode 15, he was done with that and Atlantis. "They're all the same," he declared, "Let's watch something with more of a story." It is a pity because they had a great concept. They didn't need to have a morality play all the time like Trek, but they either needed more to think about and/or needed real character arcs to not get stale in my opinion.

Chuck's tweet calls this review rambling, and having watched it before reading that, I didn't feel that way about it. I've been watching his SG-1 reviews in show order recently, and this review is like many of them: Mostly a quick fire recap with humor, but limited analysis. Really there isn't a lot to analyze, unless it is backstory, because most of the themes of the show are established in the first few episodes of season 1. There isn't much tech to pick apart, because they don't try to explain the tech the way Trek does. There aren't main characters written as awfully as Archer or Janeway, so there isn't as much there to pick apart. There isn't the "wow did they drop the ball on this possibly novel thing they were trying to do" like with TNG, because action was the focus. "Emancipation" has more analysis than most because of the apparently unintended cringe-worthy sexism. That review reminded me of some TNG season 1 ones.

In retrospect, the comedy episodes like "Urgo" and "Window of Opportunity" were ones I really enjoyed because they were a break from fighting the bad guys again, captured again, how do we escape again. Similarly, Thor episodes after season 2 often provided a nice break from the formula. I still remember the show fondly, from a time when there was so little science fiction on TV, but I'm not sure if I'll ever rewatch it again.

As far as the conspiracy rant, that was the best part of the review. Conspiracy cabals are almost always so predictable, and they do throw in archetypes from central casting. As for the rest of it, it isn't Trek, so the non mirror-universe take on what the Hell has gone wrong with the world made me laugh.

[Darth Wedgius]

I liked some of the villains. Later-seasons' Ba'al was probably the most entertaining villain they had, IMO, though there were some anti-villains like Maybourne and Tomin that I think they did nicely. Anubis was good as a faceless threat, but I think giving him a face (such as it was) didn't work as well.

Contrast Batman: The Animated Series, where I thought the villains were the best part of the show by far. SG-1 I mostly liked for its character interaction and often clever solutions, usually without reversing anything's polarity.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

That conspiracy theory rant was one of the more random rants I remember hearing in an sfdebris video. Especially with an episode like this, where who the conspirators are is not really an object of focus in the episode (of course. I understand that this is one of Chuck's complaints).

I don't know if Stargate really has many "good" villains, but there are some fun ones. My favorite has always been Apophis. I know plenty of Stargate fans disagree and prefer the snarky Ba'al or the faceless Anubis, but Apophis is really the only major villain who has a legitimate personal connection to most of the original team. I also love that he's one of the only ones who's willing to go out and do the dirty work himself, taking on SG-1 in the field every now and then (and would have gotten the better of them more than once were it not for intervention).

The later villains lack a real reason to care about SG-1 specifically. Then we get to the Ori, who lack any personality whatsoever.

[Madner Kami]

Is it at its heart an action adventure, and frankly by season 6 they'd mostly run out of ideas. Making Jonas a super-genius did them no favors. They might have benefited from struggling more without Daniel, having to work for things again in a way they hadn't done in a long time. I've watched the whole series a few times, and enjoyed it, but all too often it is very paint by numbers. That becomes more clear on rewatching. It was my friend's favorite show, though he'd only seen episodes here and there before. When we watched them in order, after season 8 episode 15, he was done with that and Atlantis. "They're all the same," he declared, "Let's watch something with more of a story." It is a pity because they had a great concept. They didn't need to have a morality play all the time like Trek, but they either needed more to think about and/or needed real character arcs to not get stale in my opinion.

And that is exactly why I never cared for SG: Atlantis, despite the fun the show had with Ronon Dax and absolutely love SG: Universe, despite it's flaws. (Well, and the musical score is so great as well.) It's a break from the all-too-well-known, while retaining the interesting background and adding to it.

And since you brought it back into my head, I must now go to the SG: Universe bits in my soundtrack-playlist. Thanks. May Destiny guide them safely.

[Fianna]

I loved the conspiracy casting rant. You watch enough genre TV, and that's just the sort of thing you start picking up on, and when you're dealing with a conspiracy as incredibly by-the-numbers as this one . . .

[Deledrius]

I too was amused by the rant. The meta-tropes are fun to poke at, and it was a good way to illustrate the point of how useless and nondescript the episode's antagonists were.

[Linkara]

I quite enjoy most of the villains on SG1 and really this episode just confused me for a different reason: despite the fact that the Committee seems to be taken down in this episode... the conspiracy continues and they continually refer to the Committee in later episodes, so how the hell are they still functioning if all their leaders have been arrested?

I also liked the IDEA of them - that they're a bunch of rich white guys who think they know better than the Stargate program on how to deal with the threat of the Goa'uld and all that.