Bane

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S2 (Bane)

A delightful ending, I must say! The rest is a fairly standard transformation story, like all sci-fi series' before it. The addition of the villainous Mayborn gives the team an enemy with a face as opposed to the insects, who, as dangerous as they are, don't pose all that much of a threat, being on another world. They were well designed and I couldn't tell when they were CGI or real so a good job there. Oddly enough the main draw of the episode is the humour quotient. O'Neill gets in quite a few good, smirk-worthy lines, and Teal'c's inability to cope with the vernacular is always funny.

I was anticipating an episode against some formidable creature from the name, and then with the teaser I thought it would be a survival type episode with the team barricading themselves in on the planet and all that kind of thing, like the original 'Star Trek' did in 'Operation: Annihilate!' It was a bit disappointing for it to be set on Earth and for Teal'c to be the bearer of bad juice. The addition of a street kid could have been the death knell, but it was okay. I can't imagine her becoming a familiar face like Cassandra, however. It becomes a slow-burning search for Teal'c and no one else gets much more to do than burble scientific words and stare at the symbiont in a tank.

**