Camelot

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S9 (Camelot)

It's got to end looking dismal for the goodies, but I wasn't even sure what I was seeing this time - were the Earth ships all destroyed by The Ori super ships? We see Carter looking on shocked and powerless from her position at the edge of the Supergate, and Vala doing the same from onboard one of The Ori vessels, but there's no indication of whether the Odyssey or the Korolev, or even the Asgard ship, survived, which might suggest that time itself may have to be undone to set things right again. It wouldn't be the first time. It certainly had its moments, this long awaited confrontation in space between the forces of The Ori and the allies arrayed against them. I liked how even the Lucian Alliance were brought in on the action, because nothing messes up your plans for galactic domination like a bigger fish jumping into the pond and swallowing up everything. It was a bit Han Solo the way their ships come zipping in from 'above' (if there were orientation in space), and Teal'c was the typically forceful personality to bring them. Even so, it was only a small fleet, with, I think three ships from Earth, one captained by Colonel Chekov for the Russians, and Colonel Emerson in charge of the other. One Asgard ship with Kvasir in control, and a small handful of Tok'Ra and free Jaffa ships, but pitiful when you consider it was for the fate of the galaxy. They shouldn't have spent so much time waiting to dial the Supergate out as that was the obvious solution to prevent The Ori forces pouring in, but they waited for Daniel and Mitchell to find the necessary weapon of Merlin rather than dialling.

I preferred the planet story where SG-1 begin visiting a 'Medieval' village led by Meurik, John Noble himself - who better to be the leader of a Medieval village than the Steward of Gondor himself? Actually not many could be worse and I'm only glad he didn't start trying to burn himself on a pyre in crazed madness. It was quite 'The Lord of The Rings' in tone (and people die in slow motion in the later battle), and I knew that mud had to be so muddy for a reason: Mitchell gets properly muddied in his fight with the black knight security program guarding Merlin's library. I couldn't help feel that if it was as easy to enter Merlin's sealed library as putting a key in the lock, they'd have done so long ago, but Noble's character says they know what the black knight is like, suggesting in his lifetime some have been foolish enough to trespass (though it couldn't have been for quite some time considering the size of the cobwebs down there!). It was cleverly designed to send the knight out to kill in the village rather than the actual trespasser, turning all the people against anyone that dared enter this forbidden area. I also really liked the way both intelligence and skill was required to nullify the threat and solve the puzzle: Daniel has to get it right or Mitchell's in trouble and the whole sequence was very well put together, even down to the irony that Valencia, the girl who helps them, gets all the credit since she pulled the sword in the stone out of the stone, while Mitchell lies tired and covered in fresh mud on the ground! I didn't even much mind the boneheaded solution of shooting the control crystals to stop the knight, something more McNeill than Jackson in kind!

It also felt good to hear Emerson say the Russians would pick up Mitchell and Jackson on their way to the Supergate as it gives a great sense of the new situation where the Russians now have their own ship and are itching to get in on the action. It'll be very interesting to see what happens with that as I could imagine the Russians and Americans butting heads over other planets at some point! That is, assuming they survived, though I think there's a very good chance for the Russian Colonel considering he had two main cast members aboard with him - always a wise move on a series like this… While it's good that Vala has made it safely back to our galaxy ready to join the cast properly next season (or so I believe), it's not good for anyone else as the onslaught has been unstoppable. In a way, it's quite a downbeat season finale as they go - at least they had the luxury of knowing they were coming back for one last season, I assume they did anyway, or it probably wouldn't have ended on a cliffhanger and would have been more like Season 8's finale which wrapped things up effectively, allowing them to start something fresh this season.

I'd say it was a fairly successful season, introducing many new aspects, but also reverting back to more tried and tested 'SG-1' stories that we expect, and while I could have wished sometimes that some of the characters had been allowed more personal development (Teal'c and Carter in particular), their personal lives aren't going to be as much of a focus when the fate of our galaxy hangs in the balance. I can't remember if I ever mentioned the new title sequence, but I didn't like the CGI Stargate, and felt the real thing was so much better, but I did love the rippling transparency effects across the rest of the sequence. The series probably never looked better than this season, as you'd expect, and there have been plenty of familiar faces cropping up over the course of it, so no complaints with the new direction and I do wonder what they'll do both in their final season and in connecting with 'Atlantis' which I look forward to getting back to.

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