Heroes Part 2

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S7 (Heroes Part 2)

I remembered it was Janet. You're misdirected into thinking it's Jack that was the victim, the person of importance who died on a mission to support another SG team. It was well done, without being intrusive and annoying (like Bregman in Part 1), it didn't shove the death in your face, but neither did it allow the details to be declassified - you felt, as Bregman did, barred from the conversation. Dr. Fraiser's death was as powerful as Dr. Jackson's, and the quality of the whole episode's writing, added to the poignancy and raw emotion, makes this the best episode of the season so far, even the best for a while. A true classic, it has everything you could want from the series: strong character moments, an outsider perspective that turns from negative to positive, and excellently shot, visceral battle sequences. We've seen these gun battles with encroaching Goa'uld forces many a time, and so often they're the methodical blast here, blast there, rattle of gunfire, and repeat. Here it was like a real slice of battle, fully immersive as we get tracked shots of soldiers pulling back, enemies all over the place, snatched conversations and the fateful last words of Janet over the radio. I think what got me about her demise was that it was so unexpected - as I said, I recalled that in the episode where O'Neill gets shot and appears to be the casualty, it turned out to be her, but I wasn't expecting that episode till at least the end of the season or beginning of next. It wasn't until he was actually staff-blasted that I realised this was it. No more Dr. Fraiser.

I can't say she was ever one of my favourite characters, but she was one of the most developed of the recurring faces. Her caring attitude and reassuring demeanour, as well as her courage under pressure and outrage at the damage done by anyone that hurt those she was, or made herself, responsible for, made me very sympathetic to her. I felt that in recent seasons she'd played an increasingly smaller role, and I don't know whether that was the actress busy with other projects, or just the writers unable to find a place for her in many stories. Her main storyline was that of adopting the alien girl, Cassandra, which again was instrumental in showing her caring personality, but this was pretty much written out, so I wonder if she simply wanted to leave, or whether they saw they weren't making the most of her, and decided to do it in a shocking and different way by giving her an exit via a surprise death almost in the middle of the season. Whatever the reason, I'm glad they did it in such a stirring way: the Doctor on an alien world, saving a man's life, cut down in a second's madness - Airman Wells blamed himself, perhaps Daniel felt the same way a little, in his own mind, and no doubt each person felt partially responsible, but if anyone's to blame it's the soldier that said he was going to cover them! If he'd done his job he'd have either taken the blast himself or given fair warning…

Of course these things can't be resolved, it was just a wrong place, wrong time scenario, but for Janet that was her rightful place, patching up the wounded, saving lives even at the risk of her own. It's a rare example of the Goa'uld actually being given teeth - usually you don't feel any great threat from them. Sure, a minor soldier might get offed with no consequences, but Goa'uld get mown down all the time in response, and usually their fizzing blasts cut up more scenery than flesh as their theatrical leaders bark orders or snarl pointless threats. The upshot is, the Goa'uld aren't scary as a bad guy (one reason why they recently introduced Anubis' Kull Warriors), so it's a tribute to the direction and writing that their sheer facelessness creates the menace in this battle. The fact that they used their brains for a change and ambushed the SG forces worked in their favour in creating a credible opposition force, and I find myself wishing that the series could be this powerful on a regular basis!

The battle scenes, short as they were, remained only one part of the puzzle. For whatever reason, everything went right with this one, and that's a rare thing. Even though I couldn't remember what this part of the two-parter was about, I guessed that Bregman was eventually going to see these 'heroes' in their true light, but really, it was not seeing that turned him around. It was the terrifically raw responses he got in the aftermath of the 'big event' that softened him a little. When he first started he was the diva, demanding this and that, standing on the authority given to him by the President, and pretty much deliberately rubbing everyone up the wrong way in order to get some fire going, to make his documentary interesting. This wasn't the best approach to take, but it was in character for what little we see of him. Part 2 sees him at his best, and shows why this frustrating little man was selected to create a film on the most top secret project in the American military, in the first place. He's sensitive to the mood, but he doesn't back down from doing his job. He takes a new tack, and that is to explain himself. He tells that affecting little story about the reporter who inadvertently captured a soldier's death on his camera and refused to show anyone for twenty-five years, but eventually realised that what he saw wasn't of horrific death, but of a man saving his life. It's this that finally builds bridges during a most harrowing personal time for the SG team, as well as his passion for journalism that comes out when he's refused access to any details of the fallout.

When an episode can turn a preening, manipulative, nosy ignoramus into a sensitive, sympathetic character, you know the writing has achieved something great. The performance Saul Rubinek gives also deserves the plaudits it's due, because even though he's still sort of making a nuisance of himself throughout, this time he's doing it from a stand of principle, not a jobs-worth showing up to get under people's skin. As he says, he doesn't care what people think of him, but he sees his job as the same as theirs: protecting the people. They do it with guns, he does it with journalism, but the freedom to know the information that is out there, he feels must be allowed, and even though he knows that ultimately his film is destined to be viewed by the few, it doesn't stop him from wanting to create the truest picture he can. And so we come to a parallel plot which introduces Robert Picardo as Woolsey, chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Committee from the NID, who opens an investigation into the deaths and injuries from the botched mission. Most people will know him as the Emergency Medical Hologram, known simply as The Doctor, on 'Voyager,' and he joins the ever-growing list of out of work Trek actors to appear on the series. I don't remember anything about the character, but he seems to be a man trying to do a job, rather than someone like Kinsey, always out for his own gain, or Part 1 Bregman - he seems more professional and wants the answers he's been ordered to get.

He comes up against a brick wall, the SG personnel having had plenty of recent practice at blocking questions! If only he'd come before Bregman, things might have been different… No idea what lies in store for Woolsey, but I know he becomes a recurring character. I don't know if my more neutral reaction to his prying interviews was a result of the character portrayal, or a latent regard for Picardo's role in 'Voyager,' but only time will tell! Speaking of interviews, the episode ends perfectly, with the documentary complete and a seal of approval from General Hammond, possibly the man that despised Bregman the most. That those two could find common ground is uplifting and makes you want Emmett Bregman to return again, though I doubt he would, as his arc was complete: he started as an anti-'gater, and ended on the SG side, creating what you know must have been a moving tribute to the heroes of the Stargate programme. Except the film couldn't have been completely complete, because we end, ironically, with O'Neill finally agreeing to sit down and be interviewed. Were they going to cut his comments in? It's surely not that simple, editing a delicate balance, as we saw in the scene where Bregman and his associate were working on the interview cuts. Even that early you could see his position changing not wanting to seem like he was backing Carter into a corner. His journalistic instinct for the truth remained, but he'd begun to see the real people behind this organisation, and having had a moment to bond with Dr. Fraiser, that was the final nail in the coffin, if you will, of his negative perceptions.

If I was going to complain about anything I would say the response to the wishy-washy semi-cliffhanger of Part 1 was also a bit weak and wishy-washy, and the episode might have worked better as a feature-length rather than being cut in two, with no sense of exclamation that you'd usually expect from a teaser. But, as with everything else, the episode soon works at optimal efficiency, taking us dramatically into battle, deliberately contrasting the slow, unexciting opening, as it was designed to do - so even the 'mistake' was really a deliberate tonal shift. The story was just so well put together, that I was on the same wavelength all the way. There was a point as Sam works on what to say at Janet's memorial service where it felt appropriate to see Teal'c, and that's just when he walks in, so the story seemed intuitively to know what the audience wanted. It was also wonderful to see the characters cut to their truthful cores, not being soldier, soldier and keeping themselves hidden, even Jack able to embrace Sam in their shared grief. I can't say enough about the directing, too, with some great work in this regard, whether it be the now-common cutting between subjects during Woolsey's interviews, in order to make an undramatic scene more attractive, to the shock reveal of Janet's death on the tape recording, to Jackson in the dark corner of the Infirmary, reflecting on his own death. It all worked, and while the series could survive the loss of a recurring character, her sendoff was as good as it gets.

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