Arthur's Mantle

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S9 (Arthur's Mantle)

What I want to know is what happened to Tony Todd? The end of the story comes so swiftly that we're left hanging - the guy couldn't stay in his devastated village, his people had all been massacred, so where was he going to go? What was he going to do? It's a bit of a big plot thread to leave so completely bereft of explanation, and unless the next episode shows him at the SGC it's going to annoy me! That's the thing with serialisation: you're never sure if something was left hanging to increase anticipation for the next episode, or was an oversight in the narrative. It was good to see the Sodan and their leader again, even if the B-story (or was it the A-story, I'm not sure on that count), conveniently allowed Colonel Mitchell to assist Teal'c so usefully. It's an invisible people story, one that's been done before, even on 'SG-1,' and was probably best exampled in 'TNG' with 'The Next Phase.' It's the same thing here: a couple of members of the team or crew find themselves out of phase with our dimension and have to deal with a threat that is on that same plane of existence to help their team-/crew-mates. It's not as groundbreaking or even impressive effects-wise as that old 'TNG' corker, but like most recycled Trek stories 'SG-1' likes to use, they do a fine job of translating it to their own style and characters. It's more about Carter and Mitchell's irritation with Dr. Lee, rising even more when he accidentally puts Daniel in the cloak, too, by his boffin meddling (with a fun 'Honey, I Shrunk The Kids' reference!).

The premise is that Carter's found an Ancient device that belonged to Merlin - he was an Ancient that worked on a weapon to defeat The Ori because the other Ancients couldn't be bothered with worrying about them, so he hid it in another dimension. It's taken a long time for the King Arthur mythology that opened the season in its first couple of episodes to return, they really haven't explored it, so if nothing else it begins to bring the season full circle, even if, like Mitchell being invisible just when Teal'c could use some help against an enemy that can turn invisible, it's all very convenient that they find it at this stage. For The Ori are playing dirty, or dirtier, anyway - they turned Volnek into a ravening, crazy man who killed all his people mercilessly and had become no better than a beast. It all goes a bit 'Predator' with Teal'c stalking through the forest like a black Schwarzenegger, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this was their chief influence for the planet-side story. It doesn't entirely work - although the Sodan are supposed to be the warriors of warriors, and their culling by only one of their altered brethren should send a chill up the spine, there isn't a lot of atmosphere there, you don't get a foreboding atmosphere that this violently insane monster is going to appear (or not appear, since he's invisible), at any moment to slaughter Stargate personnel, and there isn't really an attempt to put Teal'c in jeopardy so he really needs Mitchell - it's more like the Colonel shows up and Teal'c sees the logic of letting him lure Volnek into the tripwire of some claymores because he can't be injured.

Whenever out of phase stories occur, doesn't matter the series, there's always a major logic flaw that it's difficult to overlook and makes absolutely no sense: in other words, if they can't interact with anything, they can't touch, eat, drink, etc, then why can they stand on solid ground? Why don't they sink right through the Earth or whatever planet they're on, or even worse, float around? What forces have sway over them, because if they're in some other dimension why would gravity keep them to the floor, and why would the ground even be the same? Obviously you have to ignore that side of things and they don't even address it, even in the few moments of approaching technobabble when either Carter or Lee begin to explain something and it's quickly cut through by someone else because it's not really relevant, they just have to deal with the consequences rather than explore or understand the scientific theories behind the wonders, unlike with Trek where they would positively enjoy spouting their jargon and going all the way down the rabbit hole. Either way works, and at least they do show that some of the characters understand it, but like Mitchell, the audience doesn't necessarily need to, so it's fine.

It's sad to think we won't get any more Sodan stories as they were a fine addition to the series, unless they opt to allow Tony Todd to hang around at the SGC, or even better, join SG-1, which would be even better, but that's never going to happen. I fully expect not to hear anything more about him. With only a couple of episodes left in which to deal with The Ori threat, assuming they don't keep them for the final season, which they may well do, I wonder how they're going to stymie the evil plot of this 'unstoppable' enemy, though my money would be on the newly discovered weapon of Merlin… I just hope the team gets to work together, because although it's good to see Carter trying to assist Dr. Jackson from the other dimension with how the device works, and the same can be said for Mitchell's attempt to help Teal'c on the Sodan's world, it's generally better when they're all working on the same problem together. I will say that once again they managed to give the episode the feel of older seasons where they'd encounter some sci-fi staple device and have a knockabout trying to get out of the fix they were in. Like Trek, they'd got to the point where they could cite several episodes (like the crystal skull or Anubis' cloak), where similar events occurred before. Close to being a satisfying story, but the wrap-up's too quick and the device wasn't fully explored because they're saving it for more episodes, I suspect. One fun little thing was seeing Doug Wert as the leader of the SG team that accompanies Teal'c on the Sodan mission - he played Wesley Crusher's Dad, Jack, on 'TNG'!

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