Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Descent
DVD, Stargate SG-1 (Descent)
Jonas Quinn's first mission as member of team SG-1, and it goes as well as you'd expect waltzing onto an abandoned Goa'uld mothership hovering over Earth would do. So this was Thor's consciousness running the place, something I partially guessed early on - the unexplained sound on the intercom sounded too similar to Asgard speech, distorted as it was, to fool me, and though I'd seen the episode before, it's been ten long years, so forgive me if I don't remember. I liked it a bit better back then, this time enjoying it, but also finding it derivative of many of their previous adventures (a number of which I hadn't seen at first viewing), whenever they've got stuck somewhere that has a ticking clock, or had trouble aboard an alien vessel. The story didn't follow the 'creeping around in darkness' route I so favour, only the one moment when Jacob activates a door for Carter which grinds open to reveal inky blackness, did I have that chill of expectation. After that it was more about bright corridors and water, which, by the way, was well achieved (especially the effect of Jonas and a cylindrical volume of water being ring transported, the water than crashing to the floor). They must have had a watertight set built as they actually fill up entire corridor sections aboard the ship and we see the actors submerged!
I was betting on Replicators as the culprits, don't know how or why, but abandoned ships automatically bring those mechanical fiends to mind, but I'm glad it wasn't anything to do with them as I was never very keen. Mind you, the Samurai warrior Goa'uld surprise didn't live up to their initial appearance. Their silent, deadly force utterly failed against Teal'c, who took all three out in seconds (good for Teal'c's image, bad for their credibility), but even the death of the scientist guy, Dr. Friesan (who would have been alive longer if he hadn't disobeyed O'Neill), wasn't as expected - after pulling out that long sword my immediate thought was decapitation! Okay, this was a family friendly series (for the most part), so they were only allowed to chop off robot's heads, but they didn't have to show a headless corpse or blood, they could have just had the reaction from O'Neill's shock and disgust. Instead, Friesan may well have been sliced through, but it's a very clean death and Jack is quick to check the pulse and it's all so easy. Just like when Jacob got shot: by a staff weapon, I might add! Yet his clothing shows no signs of damage, even though he was seriously injured. Can Selmak repair clothing, too?
As a proving ground for Jonas the story worked fine, allowing him to take his rightful place with the other members of SG-1 after agonising with Teal'c over why O'Neill doesn't let him do anything - he gets to use his gifts, save the team, and join them for a last-minute escape via Death Glider, culminating in the Colonel's response to Jacob's query if Jonas is okay, by answering that all members of SG-1 are accounted for. It was a great moment to end on. It still leaves me wondering how Thor's consciousness is going to be transferred back into his comatose body, Asgard not possessing Vulcan mind meld traditions, as far as I know - perhaps their technology can deal with it. After all, if the Goa'uld can take his mind out, the superior Asgard should be able to put it back in!
Major Davis is along for the adventure this time, though I'm not sure why as he doesn't bring anything particularly to the proceedings. Maybe they wanted a familiar face so you'd wonder if someone might die. They wouldn't get rid of a main character (he says, after they just killed off Daniel Jackson!), but a recurring figure, well, you'd almost expect one of them to pop it. It was useful to have the recap at the start of the episode, as even though it had happened only a couple of episodes ago, exactly what Thor went through was needed to understand what was going on aboard the mothership (and it had been a few months since I watched that episode). At the same time it was a massive clue as to what was going on, so the 'surprise' wasn't very surprising at all.
What was surprising was that somebody apparently wasn't happy with the opening credits sequence as it's been changed again: from focusing on the Stargate it now features each of the main characters, sometimes within the curve of the 'gate. Either the beautiful closeups of the 'gate weren't good enough or they'd always planned to feature the cast montage, but needed more footage to choose from for Corin Nemec. It's fine, but I liked the Stargate-centric previous version. Somehow, a mission featuring SG-1 and Jacob Carter should seem more exciting, maybe I wasn't in a receptive mood, or maybe there just wasn't enough going on between the ears for me to think about, but this time it came across as merely acceptable fare rather than truly 'gate goodness (didn't stop Director Peter DeLuise from having a cameo as a Lieutenant from the sub, though!).
**
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