The Quest Part 2

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S10 (The Quest Part 2)

Another mildly uninspiring episode. I can't help but feel their CGI reach exceeded their grasp, or is it the other way around? Either way, the pretend dragon wasn't quite there and they should have stuck to what they do better: sci-fi stories. But this season and the previous have concerned themselves with more fantasy elements as they've tried to work in the King Arthur myths into the series' mythology. This particular instalment, and it very much feels like an instalment rather than a complete episode (fair enough, complete two-parter!), in the ongoing chess and mouse game with The Ori and The Orici, Vala's black-leather-favouring daughter, continues that trend. It couldn't be more of a board game than being stuck in one place only to shift to an identical layout on a different planet, while Adria, with her soldiers of Gondor, or whatever they call themselves, tries to catch up. If it's all looking a bit too 'The Lord of The Rings' or 'The Hobbit,' then it becomes 'Star Wars' before the end when Daniel enables their escape by first building a Death Star (or a weapon that can defeat The Ori, in miniature form), and then, with abilities received from reviving Grandad Gandalf, sorry, Merlin, he uses his Jedi powers to repel the fearsome fire of doom, lacing out from Adria's fingers. I thought I was watching 'The Rise of Skywalker,' except this predates that dullard by over a decade.

If the impression is that I didn't get much out of this episode, then it's correct. We have Carter lamping Baal in a most uncharacteristic fashion, Teal'c demanding to take on the futile role of lobber-of-C4 into the dragon's mush, and Daniel getting confused as to whether he's Dr. Jackson or Merlin. Actually all that stuff doesn't sound half bad, but I found it a little tiresome and there didn't seem to be much to the story, a common problem with serialisation. I did like the planet-hopping to vastly different environments while they stayed in the same relative location. And though Merlin was bland, his head scanner/Ancient computer looked pretty when it was piecing together the gimmick device that will set the galaxy free from the tyranny of the evil Empire. It was also pleasant to hear the references back to the times O'Neill almost died from head/scanner interaction in a similar Ancient device, and even more, mention of Daniel's time as an ascended one with even Oma Desala scoring a namecheck. It's all competently put together, I still like the characters, but it just continues to tread air, and while I've enjoyed the occasional episodes that have gone off into sci-fi territory this season, just waiting for them to get the inevitable Device That Will Stop The Ori isn't much of a hook for the season. And this episode didn't have much of a hook to it either, even with Vala's hard-learned lesson that it's tougher to watch your friends risk their lives than it is to do so yourself.

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