Birthright

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S7 (Birthright)

A clan full of warrior women led by Jolene Blalock who becomes Teal'c's new girlfriend - yes, that sounds like something Christopher Judge would write! Except that, to be fair to his writing, he also fitted in some gender role issues and an ethical dilemma, so I can give him some credit. What is missing for me is more about Teal'c himself. It's clear he's not proud of being symbiote-free, in fact I often forget he doesn't have one now, but I was expecting him to weight his argument by revealing that he is the perfect example of a freed Jaffa. Is it that he still has doubts about it, or does he feel some shame, or was he simply being careful not to sway them with his personal experience. Except that's exactly what he should have been doing to ensure that these stubborn women realised the truth. But the notion that strength comes from the symbiote is ingrained in the culture, and if anything, Teal'c demonstrates how deeply by not immediately coming clean about it. This, unsurprisingly, doesn't help his cause. The nub of the matter rests on whether it's okay for Ishta's mob to go out and kill Goa'uld for the purposes of stealing symbionts for girls that come of age. Or, like Teal'c's wife, should they just accept that it's wrong to kill in that way and allow themselves to die as she did. Or they could take the Tretonin and possibly be saved.

The best parts of this episode are in the pleasant character conversations that take place, whether it be Teal'c revealing his history and family to Ishta, speaking proudly of both his son and wife; or Daniel turning on the charm and getting the young girl to open her mouth and talk to him; and even the combative battle of the sexes when Ishta challenges Teal'c to a stick fight. That last was quite impressive, with fast, fluid moves and no obvious cutting between stunt players. I liked the way he initially uses one hand to comfortably fend off her attacks, being not simply a male warrior, but being a great warrior full stop. Of course he was going to beat her, and it had nothing (or very little), to do with physical strength. The female warriors prove themselves several times in the episode, but they don't all show wisdom until the girl convinces Neith, her older sister, to go for the Tretonin which should cure them of their need for symbiotes. And Ishta got to fling Teal'c over her shoulders, just for good measure!

Although the fight was good, I could have watched more of that, but we come late to the power struggle between Ishta and subordinate, Neith. I also couldn't help feeling that not a lot happened in the grand scheme of things. Not to say it was a small matter to convince enemies of this Moloc to curb their activities (the other reason, aside from ethics, being that he was going to notice them sooner or later and come down hard on Hak'tyl, meaning liberation, the planet they were using as base). Fine, it was a chance for Teal'c to relax in female company a little, finding someone on his level, who understood his people and ways, which is very rare for him, but it also felt like getting him a girlfriend was the main point of the episode. It wasn't quite on a par with some of the other Judge-inspired or written story lines we've seen. And at the same time I did find the struggle between preservation and enmity, military reasoning and killing for the sake of it, to be interesting. O'Neill rather got lost in the shuffle, but that's okay, he doesn't need to be the centre of every episode, and I felt that the cast were all worked in sufficiently. The grandiloquence of Jaffa speech can sometimes feel over the top, but you just have to go with that, it's usually the way, same as the baddies invariably are represented by clipped British accents. They're just cultural touchstones that are recognised.

Unlike John Billingsley in the previous episode not finding time away from 'Enterprise' to reprise his 'SG-1' role (I don't know that is the reason, it may be that he just wasn't asked back on that particular occasion, although that's hard to believe), Jolene Blalock throws off the ears (or does she? We don't really see beneath that big blonde wig of hers!), to add another Trek name to the 'Stargate' universe. Could this have been a sign of the future of her series, only lasting one more season? I don't doubt she'll be back on this series again, especially if Judge had his way. While I never felt she was a great actress, she was okay, and it is fun to see her doing something different, even if it's not that different from T'Pol - both look pained and raise their voices when emotion rises to the surface. In Ishta's case that was perfectly fine, in the Vulcan's, not so much! Still, the scenery was as green and lush as ever, with even the odd horse thrown in to give some scope, and I did think pretty well of it, even if the issues addressed weren't approached as deeply as they might have been. It makes me want to hear more about the views of Goa'uld on their symbiotes, and how Teal'c has adjusted to life without it.

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