Enemy Mine

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S7 (Enemy Mine)

The first fully Daniel-focused episode since he returned from the dead, and it's a good one. My first thought on seeing the soldier watched, then attacked and dragged off through the undergrowth was 'Unas!' I was pleased to be right, as they've always proved to make for strong episodes when these creatures are part of the story, another of those recurring races that appear once a season or so. This time it's all about Daniel's ability to walk the tightrope of diplomacy with two opposing forces, two ballistic missiles aimed at each other in the form of the Unas and Colonel Edwards, not to mention the Pentagon's pressure to get more naqadah for making a new ship since the Prometheus was lost (I'd completely forgotten that happened until they mentioned it). It becomes much more dicey a prospect the more we find out, and as usual Dr. Jackson arrives and immediately starts to call foul on the military minds behind this latest mission. I was surprised that no tracks were made since we see the soldier get dragged off, his hands clawing at the ground, but Teal'c did note that the undergrowth had been disturbed. This sets off a chain of events that leads Daniel to enlist the aid of Chaka, the friendly Unas from another planet where the race were treated as slaves ('Beast of Burden'). No idea if it was the same actor, difficult to know with the prosthetics, but I wouldn't be surprised, knowing the vagaries of production - they'd prefer to get the same head back in a mask simply because it would have been designed for that person, and therefore cheaper than creating a new body suit, and they were already making enough for the episode!

With the growing magic of CGI, or perhaps more specifically, split-screening of multiple characters to make there appear more in a given scene, gave this episode its suitably grand finale - I was thinking, as the howls of the approaching tribes of Unas rose over the camp, how good this would have looked if it had been in a 'Stargate' film (not that any of the new films are likely to deal with anything remotely as complex as diplomacy with alien races, they'll much more likely be explosion-fests and running gun battles between human and Goa'uld, as that's what the general population seems to respond to, sadly), but actually I was impressed with what they did, and it felt a lot like the end of 'Zulu' in which hordes of warriors surround the little British encampment. Only this ended more happily. In fact, it ended wonderfully, with Colonel Edwards seeing the light and overcoming his hatred and ingrained training to submit to defusing the situation, prompted by Daniel. Their problems with each other is what makes this episode, for me.

The Unas are impressive, and even though you sometimes think this is a little too much into 'bad' sci-fi, with aliens grunting and making weird, over-the-top gestures, you're completely drawn into the hard work of communication and understanding between vastly different cultures. Daniel would make an excellent Starfleet officer, because he puts all his efforts into avoiding bloodshed when that's so often the military's first choice. I have to admit I was shocked that the Pentagon would summarily decide to relocate these proven intelligent, sentient lifeforms in order to benefit from the planet's resources. You could say they're as bad as the Goa'uld, not subjugating a population and forcing slavery upon them, granted, but wilfully removing them from their home, and all for the 'greater good.' That's one of the themes I got from this episode, something the series doesn't always achieve, or even try to do: analogy, a moral component, a difficult decision. What could be more difficult than facing the fate of your own existence as opposed to another's? The fact that these are noble savages, with their own culture and wish to fight the Goa'uld, only makes it more compelling. The analogy of Native Americans and what was done to them is strong, and who knows but if another threat had banded the white man and the indian together, perhaps there would have been more progress. I suppose in the history there are instances of this happening (I don't know enough about it to be able to draw examples), but it's not the overriding impression we have of that time.

The conflict boils down to anthropology versus military, and Daniel, whether from latent skills from his time as an Ascended being, or, more likely, the skills he's always had, merged with experience of dealing with O'Neill (something he and Jack actually mention), he's able to prevent all-out war. It was great to see the hard veneer of Edwards humbled as he saw what was best. It's not like he was a bad guy, we've seen plenty of them in the series who were human, but out for themselves or too stuck into obeying orders to be able to think, but hatred was easy for him, as was his instinct to take down a threat. It's all about not appearing weak, escalating a conflict so it turns into damage on both sides: nobody wins. But if things can be calmed, if both sides talk with respect and honour, good things come to all. A good life lesson, there! An episode like this is inspiring, and while the entirety may not have been as compelling as the talky bits (soldiers creeping through the woods has been done and done on this series!), the strong themes and superb ending make it one of the best so far this season.

It's quite rare to get an episode this far into the series that is almost completely based around one of the main cast instead of using several of them, but O'Neill breaks his arm in the Unas attack so he's out (also setting up more drama because, naturally, he's been 'broken in' by Daniel, as Jackson puts it, and has a more rounded view of things now, thanks to so much experience, so Edwards is the one Daniel must deal with), Carter's busy with diagnostics on the 'gate, and Teal'c's just there to provide backup. I was shocked that General Hammond seemed so apparently at ease with the Pentagon's decision, but it's easy to forget this isn't 'Star Trek,' it's not set several hundred years into the future, it's now, with a very real threat to Earth, and you can believe if the American government did have access to other planets and technology they probably would go all out for it. If the threat to Earth felt a little more immediate or imminent it would give them more sympathy, and I could also suggest the episode would have had greater power if the soldier who was killed by the Unas had been especially important to Edwards, like his son or something, then his choice to follow Daniel's lead, and go against instinct and training would have been even more powerful, but in any event it was pretty affecting as it stood. And I love the created dialogue of the Unas, the fact that Chaka was brought back, and an injured Siler being shown in the background of the Infirmary again, perhaps a running joke? Best of all, it was an Unas story I'd never seen before!

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