DVD, Stargate SG-1 S5 (Wormhole X-treme!)
Not quite the absolute barnstorming collection of hilarity that I recalled, but I think I'm merging this one with a sequel that continued the story. It certainly fulfils its remit of celebrating the series in a fun and self-referential way. Because this was, I believe, the 100th episode and they wanted to do something different. They'd already come up with Martin Lloyd, an alien stuck on Earth, and here they took the story and ran with it. There are so many subtle moments that laugh at both 'Stargate' in general and the genre overall. General Hammond's derogatory line about the TV series 'Wormhole X-treme!' being useful for plausible deniability should the 'gate programme ever leak out, but 'only if it lasts that long' is more true today than ever before, with a series easily cancelled in a few episodes if it doesn't pull in the right numbers. Equally, I loved O'Neill's line about the General making a cameo in this TV series - 'a small one, but integral', talking about his own superior in a roundabout way. The crack about the female character asking why, if she's out of phase and can pass through matter, she doesn't fall through the floor, someone else saying the aliens all speak human anyway, so why do they need alien fruit… there are so many of them.
The jokes don't come thick and fast, but it's enough that you can chuckle along to, and the caricatures of 'Wormhole X-treme' are brilliant, the only disappointment is that they don't feature more. The Teal'c-alike who has an eyebrow on a string because he can't move one on its own! I don't know how many behind the scenes staff made it into the episode, but there's the obvious appearance of the producers at the end, and I think the guy in glasses early in the episode may have been one of the writers. I wouldn't have recognised them previously, but I've since watched the DVD extras that are available on the slimline boxed sets so the faces stood out. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the crew got their faces onscreen too, as a reward for getting to this milestone, and it is a milestone and a great achievement to make it that far.
The B-story of Carter and Daniel trying to track Tanner wasn't as interesting as the on-set antics O'Neill has to go through, leading to more rivalry with the NID - couldn't they be arrested for assaulting the guy assigned to make sure they didn't leave? Whenever a TV appeared onscreen, like when Daniel and Carter search one of the alien's apartments and it was so prominent, or when O'Neill's in Martin's trailer, I was expecting them to flick to an episode of the new sci-fi phenomenon. That wouldn't have made sense as the trailer at the start stated that it would be coming in September, or whenever it was, but we don't know when the trailer was made so the series could have been broadcast.
I get the impression that a lot of the jokes were directed at and for the makers of the real programme themselves, knowing how difficult it was to do things and saying things like 'we'll do it in post [production]', or fading out, so I bet they had a whale of a time making and watching this episode. It even ends with a spectacular special effects moment that neatly ties up the story of Martin's alien brethren on Earth, though he stays behind in his new life. But then there's the other ending which is really weird as if it's behind the scenes of the fake show, but in real life - the guy playing the Daniel impersonator cites all the way back to the film (and was a good Daniel impersonator!), and the way they're talking it sometimes feels like it's a scripted reaction in their world, and sometimes a natural reaction in reality, so it was difficult to get my head around, but a fun segment all the same. Here's to another 100 episodes (and they did them, too!).
***
Monday, 26 March 2012
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