Company of Thieves

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S10 (Company of Thieves)

Bit of a 'Star Wars' mashup, a messy, cluttered story that doesn't quite ring true for the characters in certain places, or Vala kicks things, or shoves in a crystal and it miraculously works, or the plot relies on a magical ring that can instantly make someone who's jabbed with it see the wearer as whomever they wish to be seen as. Oh, and it's back to the old hammy Goa'uld leaders in all but name when we're back with the Lucien Alliance. By the sounds of all that it was a terrible episode, and it wasn't that, but it was a bit broken. Commander Emerson of the Odyssey is shot dead by the henchman of a guy who's part of the Alliance, but wants to take over… You get the idea why it's so messy. Emerson's death was a surprise, but not that shocking, and that's where things start to go wonky: Carter's so affected by this and her treatment at the hand of Anatole or whatever his name was (Anatayo, I think), that she's pushed back into the cargo area with tears in her eyes, moved enough she can't even talk to Major Marks, the only other regular we know on Odyssey (so watch out, mate!). It just isn't in Carter's stoic manner to succumb to emotionality, at least we needed something more nasty to happen than a familiar face to be killed. The same goes for Teal'c who ends up captured by Natan, leader of the Luciens, and who has to endure torture until Mitchell, posing as Natan's good friend, can free him. When he eventually does, Teal'c's so affected by the time he's spent in that situation he goes wild, punching up the bad guys and almost taking out Mitchell in his uncontrolled frenzy of violence.

I don't expect this lack of control from either Carter or Teal'c, and nothing that happened was worthy of them being driven to that point, so it didn't work. Daniel's about the only character who stays himself (if you count Mitchell showing up in different guises using his magic ring on Natan or his alien underling). It seemed like it might be yet another Vala-intensive episode, but it's really for Mitchell to do most of the grunt work. Vala's the one with the contact who buys them a faulty ship that's rather undependable, decloaking when Teal'c's lying in watch of Natan's ship. It was inventive of her to save Carter by transporting out Anatayo rather than Sam since she wasn't sure of the system's certainty of working correctly, and beams him into space, where he oddly fires his weapon and should have spun off into the ether from the recoil, but instead falls towards the ship so we can see him better. That's how the whole episode was, not making sense and just patched together with gaffer tape and string. Of course the SG-1 team get it right and save each other, but surely it could have been done a little more realistically for the world they inhabit. Vala's contact was very 'Star Wars' and all this zipping about in ships and disguises, making up plans on the fly to rescue the princess (i.e.: Carter), didn't really work.

I've never liked the Lucien Alliance, one of the reasons being I can't remember why they exist or what their purpose is, other than to be bad guys. I think they were members of worlds left over from when the Goa'uld withdrew and were conquered, but they're a boring bunch that are about as deep as their former masters: I will have power and wealth and rule the galaxy. Yeah, whatever. At least The Ori have a motive, and a creepy one at that. Mind you, when they're around I'm often wishing we could have more traditional stories, so maybe the series can't win and it was time for it to wind up anyway? It's funny, I usually look forward to 'SG-1' much more than spinoff 'Atlantis,' but as this season has gone on it keeps reminding me of the poorer aspects of the parent series and I almost want to get back to the Pegasus Galaxy where it's more uncertain what could happen from week to week. I'm just not sure SG-1's characters are being used well enough. I suppose you can't really change the nature of the series and because of a number of good character moments and sci-fi stories it's easy to forget that it is merely derivative, so expectations need to be lowered.

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