Unnatural Selection

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S6 (Unnatural Selection)

This was a 'Star Trek' episode, unquestionably, and like a 'Star Trek' episode it was a good, solid story with a good, solid moral quandary to chew on and a bittersweet ending that leaves you thinking. It would have been a better episode, however, if there had been a character like Daniel Jackson to stand up to O'Neill in his course of actions, to enthuse about the possibilities this means for everyone in the galaxy, but while Jonas was there to provide some of that angle, he never proved confrontational about it in the way Jackson would have, because he's trying to fit into the team, whereas Daniel was all about doing what's right and examining the problem instead of making that soldier's quick decision as Jack does, and has to. It's the reason the four of them worked so well, and why, as much as I like Jonas, he's not quite there as a replacement for the Jackson role in the team - he has his own uniqueness to him, and I like him for it, but the dynamics of the team are that O'Neill isn't going to face too much opposition.

Of course Daniel Jackson, in the form of the actor, Michael Shanks' voice, does appear in the episode, once again giving Thor his lines - last episode I'd forgotten Shanks' involvement there, but this time, knowing who was behind it, I could actually make out some of the mannerisms or intonation of the actor, even through all the distortion and audio trickery, which was fun - it's like all five members of the team were back together on the bridge of the Prometheus! That's the first thing that makes this Trek, the fact that they're off on a mission, Jim, but not as we know it, with O'Neill in the Captain's chair, Teal'c and Carter either side on consoles, and Jonas away on another one, just as if they were aboard a starship (O'Neill even wanted to name the ship Enterprise, an overt admission to the inspiration of this episode, I feel!) - they act as if they know all the controls and how to operate this incredible new piece of Earth technology, which is perhaps the furthest fetched story point of the episode for me, even above the Replicators and such, because all that is well established in the internal consistency, but I don't remember them ever saying they'd had training to fly this super-vessel. The other thing that 'bugged' me (sorry), was that the Prometheus doesn't seem to be affected by the time device and sails out of there as normal, when surely it would have been caught in the 'bubble'?

Not that it matters, because they have a cool-sounding mission to go into Asgard space and reactivate this time dilation device that had been designed to entice all the Replicators into a 'bottle' and then create the bubble of much slower time so they'd have centuries to come up with a solution to the problem. It's a good idea, and I like the reference back to Reese, the android creator of the wee mechanical beasties (as Scotty might say), and reminder of their origins, as well as explaining the galaxy-, even intergalactic-wide connotations if the Asgard are defeated. Yes, there are nitpicks about them choosing the SG-1 team just as they happen to have a ship to hand, and that somehow it's so backward that the technology won't appeal to the Replicators, who will let them pass unmolested (a Borg influence there?), and that although Earth isn't in immediate danger they'll eventually overrun every planet simply for the raw materials, regardless of technology, and that SG-1, out of all the peoples of all the worlds the Asgard have contact with, are the only ones who can help, but that's a conceit of the series, and indeed most human-produced stuff, so it's not a problem.

When I saw the 'Excerpt by' credit after the opening montage I inwardly groaned, thinking it might turn out to be a dreaded clips episode, but since no other excerpt credits appeared I hoped for the best and I was right - it was well worth seeing that clip from Season 1's 'Cold Lazarus' of the time O'Neill's son shot himself by mistake with his Father's gun, which was itself supposed to be a flashback, and I only wish we'd had more of this emotional manipulation or blackmail or torture or whatever it was to become, because I love hearing about the characters' histories and seeing some of those defining moments. The same can't be said for 'First,' the leader of the pack of sentient, humanoid Replicators, who came across as the stereotypical, smooth, clipped and sinister bad guy, just as 'Fifth' was the typical insider who is persuaded to turn against his own kind for good. But whose good? Humanity, the galaxy at large and everyone, but not his own 'people,' though you can understand it as they consider him a deviant, a mistake with the human flaws that had been eradicated from the other models. I wondered what it might have been like if he'd got his wish and left with SG-1, and then I thought he might have been an infiltrator, and then I realised they didn't need a spy and his addition to the SGC would have been full of potential, though the power of the ending would have been sacrificed.

The idea of the Replicators achieving sentience and living in humans form, or in their eyes, Reese's form, was a great turnaround, and though I previously have been little more than lukewarm towards this enemy it made inspired me with possibilities and wanting to see them again now that they've progressed from mere robo-rats which seemed to have little intelligence beyond consuming everything, existing to be blasted, into a fully sentient threat with all the complexity therein (still not sure why SG-1's bullets had no effect on their bodies). I suppose I should have expected something like this, where we find a barren planet and a single structure to explore. After the money that must have been spent on 'Prometheus,' this story's part one, they would have needed to cut back, so we weren't going to see vast battles or fleets of Replicator ships, but somehow that's what I had in mind. Neither were we going to see Asgard civilisation, and actually I'm glad we had much more simple visual fare, although I'm not saying the completely consumed planet made up now of Replicators, was simple, even if it was barren.

The science fiction storytelling elements were more important than action, and that's why it felt more Trek than 'Gate. Other things that helped this feel, besides the X-303, their very own starship, were that they were beaming up the supplies from the SGC (a concerned Sergeant Siler reports to Hammond - sad that the characters from part one were dispensed with as going into this situation without having chance to return to Earth would have made even more difficulties, but I suppose it was inevitable), going to a strange new world by ship, landing their small vessel, going off on an 'Away Team' shall we say, and encountering humanoid aliens that aren't what they seem, without even mentioning that the title of the episode is the same as a Season 2 'TNG' story (although with over seven hundred episodes I suppose most of the good titles had been used on Trek anyway). All this could be any space-based sci-fi, but it all had a Trek feel to it. I always maintained the Replicators were supposed to be the 'Stargate' equivalent of the Borg, and it was further confirmed in this encounter: they have designations (First, Fifth, etc), in their humanoid form, they aren't interested in adding inferior technology to their own, and their leader thinks of any member who doesn't act exactly like the rest of them, as a threat and someone to be dealt with, just like the Borg Queen. Oh, and they even have combined thoughts… It's all Borg.

The interesting thing was using Fifth to ensure their escape, promising that he can come with them, lying and using his own humanity against him. It's a bit like the reverse of Khan in 'Space Seed' of the original 'Star Trek,' in that First talks of being superior and plans to conquer the galaxy. Superior intellect breeds superior ambition, and at first that tried and tested bad guy desire wasn't enough to raise the episode, but the moral side of using someone against their people and then double-crossing them, is what makes it so good. It helps that there are a lot of fun exchanges in the episode, whether it's O'Neill's reactions to Thor's end-of-the-galaxy stakes, or him finding Jonas and Teal'c eating through all the Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the ship's hold because 'Thor didn't take into account the temperature,' there are a lot of amusing scenes. But it's that last shot of the time dilation device activating and preventing the Replicators from doing anything to prevent it, with Fifth in the middle of a medieval image of hellish creatures surrounding him out of the darkness, the sadness in his eyes, or puzzlement that Carter had lied to him, that is the enduring coda that stays with me now, just as the last conversation aboard the Prometheus does, Jonas and Carter speaking their mind, admitting what's just been done, though O'Neill maintains it was the right thing to do. And maybe it was, but will a Replicator ever have the chance to make that same mistake again, of trusting a human, or has all hope of peace gone?

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