2010

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S4 (2010)

In the light of the longevity of the series this has a different impact than when I first saw it back in 2002. I bet then they had no idea it would last to 2007, only three years away from the time this episode is set, though the future was changed by their actions so it wouldn't have made much difference if they had made it to that year. Dr. Fraiser would not be there, Teal'c would have more hair, and that's about all I know about the latter seasons of the show, not having seen them! They got around having to make the cast old and unattractive by the anti-ageing pill, also cleverly the cause of the trouble, though if O'Neill didn't trust the aliens he shouldn't have taken the pill, but he doesn't look older, so he must have taken it. Perhaps that timeline would have been better for some, though not for the majority of the human race that would eventually see themselves die out with no children.

It's a little hard to accept that no one realised how low birth numbers had fallen to - with all this amazing technology in everyday life they didn't predict the increase of social networking to extreme degrees. With that many people connecting many more would have realised or suspected the truth before Sam did, even if they couldn't get at the actual figures on the alien database. They got the style of glasses right with the wider lenses and thicker frames, and the flatter computer screens were fairly true to today, though of course there's supposed to be a lot of alien technology so it wasn't meant to be an accurate prediction of the future as it was to be, the past as it is now.

Stories that involve looking at characters in a different way, whether that's alternate reality or different time, can often be the most enthralling examples. This isn't one of the best examples, but it has a quiet scale to it with large settings and lots of people. The fact of the aliens false benevolence was nothing special, and easy to guess, but you wonder how these people could cultivate trust and friendly relations without questioning their own practices. You also have to assume they'll live longer than most humans or that they are a very patient people looking out for their descendents prosperity since it would take almost two centuries for the Earth to become fully theirs. I wonder if they were merely shrewd conquerors or if they had good reason to take such actions, perhaps their own planet was dying or they were over-populated, but we never find out anything to put them in a better light. If we understood the enemy we wouldn't be so quick to defy them, and it could take away from the heroic image of the SG team.

The final sequence, a 'Mission: Impossible' moment as the team all work together to try and send the message back in time through the gate (using the backstory established in Season 2's great time travel story '1969'), is by far the best, each member dying in an effort to get the note closer to the gate as tiny laser bursts slice through them. The episode was quite laid-back compared to that, with a lot of talking and the occasional fun moment - Walter, the former gate technician we see so often, has a good scene when he stumbles upon the former SG-1 team in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex which has become a tourist attraction.

There's also the joke about Carter finally getting to see O'Neill's now-overgrown pond that he always wanted to take her to, and some interesting speculation on the future, such as the destruction of the Goa'uld by the Ashen, though If they are so all-powerful wouldn't it be inevitable for the Goa'uld and Earth to eventually make contact with this race at some point and in some place? It's also not like Hammond and the rest of them to accept a note through the gate at face value - okay, so they left it where they're about to test the blood on the note and find it belonged to the team, but usually they'd investigate such an event carefully, so this seemed like a quick way to wrap the story up. The most terrifying thing to take from the episode was Senator Kinsey as President in 2010. Perhaps that eventuality was made impossible by the actions of the SG-1 team changing the future, for which we owe them a great debt indeed.

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