Line In The Sand

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S10 (Line In The Sand)

I was a little conflicted with this one - it showed a lot of early promise with some great tension, good ideas and death and danger right in your face, but then it got bogged down in trying to get through to the cult member or to stop the frightened villagers from taking matters into their own hands, and it became less successful at the final tally. The story has SG-1 heading to, yes, another Medieval village (gotta use that expensive set, right?), this time to test out a modified version of Merlin's weapon that Carter has been working on. But it's too early to be putting it into operation, there are power issues and the end result is that at the critical juncture, just before Ori forces land, it fails. The idea of shifting an entire village into another dimension in order to confuse the Prior and send him on his way, was a good one, as was the power problem meaning only one part of one small building, which houses the device, Sam and Mitchell, is capable of vanishing. But the confusion comes a bit later as we get some nice moments such as an injured and possibly dying Carter confessing that at this moment science isn't much comfort and belief in a god would be a comfort to her, which sparks off Mitchell talking about his Grandma, and knowing He's there, as in The God, which was unexpected. Of course it becomes watered down by Mitchell adding that belief itself is the most important thing at a time like this, and whatever it takes to keep her going is what she should do, whether it's true or not.

I suppose they felt some need to have this more Christian view in an episode which is about zealots believing what's in their holy book, and bad leaders changing the meanings of stories to suit the situation, especially when The Ori religion has been heavily based on Christian tradition: stained glass all over the place, the Priors, the holy book. Obviously they feel more comfortable in parodying or using familiar religious iconography, even if the actual 'faith' of The Ori is much more Islamic Fundamentalist, convert or die, in its message. It's certainly been an interesting change in direction for the series, but they're still tackling the same stuff from the same angle, essentially, as they did from the beginning. This time Tomin's back, the 'husband' of Vala whom she escaped from, I think (it was a while ago!). More confusion stems from his apparent hardness in having villagers slaughtered for their refusal to convert, and yet he still follows this religion and tries to convert Vala on the orders of the Prior. Maybe it was the actor, who I didn't feel gave a feeling of having been tortured by his service, as much as he was a bit grumpy with Vala. There's something about this series trying to do proper serious drama that doesn't entirely work - even with Carter dying, somehow her impassioned talk didn't ring true.

I'm clutching at straws really, I don't quite know why the episode went off the boil, but it was a close run thing. I was hoping Vala, when ringed to the planet at the end by Tomin, would suddenly appear in the village with everyone happy and waiting, and that's exactly what happened. Teal'c got to be his usual action man self, taking on a regiment of enemy soldiers until he could escape back to the village, so there were good things. On the other hand, Vala can be slightly irritating, Daniel wasn't in it (still held captive by The Orici from last episode), and the ugliness of human nature comes to the fore in the village's second in command when he challenges his leader who is steadfast in refusing Origin. She manages to talk him down, but it was all a little unhappy and wrong. Maybe it's the balance in the episodes, this season too often it's not the right mix of characters or situations, and I had that same feeling of not quite there-ness. On the positive side this episode showed strong signs of what the series can do, it was so close, so hope is not lost. Keep up with the good ideas, keep up with the trauma (when Carter was shot it was really surprising - maybe that's one reason the series isn't the comfy old 'Stargate' it used to be, though?), as long as it's made right by the end of the episode, and uses the characters, not just Vala, we're on the right track. The sight of peasants spraying automatic bullet-fire against 'knights' was quite something, too!

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