Unending

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S10 (Unending)

Before I watched the episode I did wonder how they would conclude the series, a series that had entered the record books for longest-running single sci-fi production (held until 'Smallville' equalled its ten seasons a matter of four or five years later), and as I thought about it, it came to me: they had to go out with the team heading off on one more mission through the Stargate, because there was no way you could wrap up ten years of an ongoing adventure, no, a lifestyle for these characters, in the space of one single episode. Even if that episode had been a feature-length story as some series' have concluded, and they weren't going to get that. So I was very pleased that my 'ideal' came to fruition, and I was also pleased that Teal'c did not die as I was worried he might, since, as I've written before, all the other characters (bar the new ones), showed up on 'Stargate Universe,' even Jack O'Neill, so I thought they might have killed him off. There's still time - two more feature-length episodes, otherwise known as spinoff films, but that's for another day: today I focus only on the series finale.

Other than the main cast going through the 'gate at the end I had no preconceived ideas of what this episode could be about! Would they go all out and bring in the big faces from 'SG-1' past - the O'Neills, the Bra'tacs, the Dr. Lees, the Silers, the Hammonds, and anyone else I've forgotten, to remind us of the series' long and storied history of great characters? Or would it be some big 'Star Wars' finale, all battle scenes and last-minute attempts to save the galaxy from… well, from what? The Goa'uld, the Trust, The Ori… none of them were really a threat any more, were they? I thought The Ori had been wiped out and the others were small fry in comparison. It's not like they had Apophis to deal with, an ongoing personal bad guy that had been a thorn in their side from the beginning. Turns out I was wrong on all counts: they didn't waste a characterful series on some big battle (though they managed to get in some of that, too), and special effects at the expense of the heart of the series. And The Ori were still a threat. I don't know, maybe the story direction was chosen from the needs of the budget - they may not have been able to afford a ton of visual effects. If that's so then it's another example of creativity thriving on constraint, because this is the best episode of the season, even (just about), topping the series celebration that was '200.'

They chose to do a character piece. Strand the five main cast members together on a ship and then show them there across decades. It was a classic sci-fi tale, and I certainly hadn't expected something so classic. It had some elements I'd seen before, what doesn't? The super-duper new technology the Asgard donate as their final act of legacy before they commit mass suicide, was a little like the 'Voyager' finale in which the ship gets super-duper new tech from the future in which to survive an implacable enemy. There were also shades of the first episode proper of the 'modern' 'Battlestar Galactica' ('33'), in which the ship has to keep jumping away because every thirty-three minutes the implacable enemy appears and starts firing. It's also reminiscent of stories 'SG-1' has done, with characters trapped and growing old, and because of that plot point it really added to the poignancy that was already in the air. It was already in the air for me because this is a series I've enjoyed watching since either the very late 90s or the early 2000s, a series I saw occasionally before getting into with the middle seasons shown on a Sunday afternoon, then eventually starting to buy the season boxed-sets from 2008 onwards, and then watching in earnest for my reviews in 2009 to the present. So it's something that's been with me for many years, on and off, and while it's not my favourite universe with 'Star' in the title, it's a solid, enduring companion that I've gained a lot of enjoyment from.

It was an excellent idea to trap these characters together, away from the bustling busyness of Stargate Command or on a planet somewhere. Stuck on a ship so that you can focus entirely on the characters. Sure, it didn't make a lot of sense to get rid of the entire crew, dropping them off on a planet so they can 'gate home to safety when I'm sure they'd all much rather have remained there. Not the least because Carter could have done with more assistance instead of the whole problem being put in her lap. Not that you'd have any doubt that she could get them out of it if anyone could (bar Rodney McKay - if only he'd been there to help, except for the fact someone would have killed him before too long!), but in the end it's not just she who comes up with the solution. It would have been easier on the group's mental wellbeing if they'd had more people aboard, but then again maybe the food would have run out before they found a way to produce an infinite source. Not that this is one of those times when you want to look too closely at story logic because it's about the team's interactions as they first hopefully go about their business, killing time while Sam works away at solving the problem of a killer beam from an Ori ship about to cut through them so the only thing they could do was freeze time.

As more time passes it leads to decades of living in this forced environment - there was added sympathy with their situation, stuck in one place, living out their lives without the ability to live as they were meant to, because that's how this year has been for most people. And there's the heartbreaking observance that life is too short. I took it not just as that, but as a comment on the series itself - that even if they had decades of episodes it would never be enough, there would never be enough time to do everything they wanted to do with the series and characters. And as viewers we don't want it to end, but that's the natural course of everything. So it had ever more poignancy to it, and the age makeup worked pretty well, the sadness of loss when General Landry is the first to die from old age was palpable, and there's a loss of hope. Yet still Daniel reads as much of the Asgard archive as he can and Sam learns the cello. It was a great way to explore the characters one 'last' time, and of course it made sense that Teal'c would barely age since he's an alien with a much longer lifespan. That's why I felt this was heading towards his sacrifice to save the others and a relief when it didn't. I'm not sure about the mass suicide of the Asgard no matter how important it was for them not to let their enemies get hold of their technology, even if they were dying as a race, but it was a good setup for the story and lovely to have Thor back again, once again voiced by Michael Shanks (which they have fun with when Vala asks how you tell them apart and he says it's the voice!).

I don't know what all this amazingly advanced new tech will mean for the 'Stargate' universe, whether it impacted upon 'Stargate Atlantis' (I'll soon find out as Season 3 is my next stop), whether The Ori will be dealt with in the spinoff films, 'The Ark of Truth' or 'Continuum' (I'll watch those after 'Atlantis' so I've got some more 'SG-1' to anticipate), and whether we'll be seeing any of these people in the spinoff series' (I already know Carter and Jackson both show up in 'Universe,' along with O'Neill). But it makes sense that the series ended with a particularly strong and affecting sci-fi story and that there's just another planet for them to go off to at the end, as if it continues unending in our imagination, because unlike some series' ('DS9' and 'Voyager,' for example), which had very specific end points, this one is more like 'TNG' where it could go on however they saw fit. And who knows, with the rise of streaming service exclusives, maybe we'll see another 'Stargate' spinoff again some day featuring some of these characters. It's a good way to end without killing anyone off because as a viewer you can go on believing in the lives these people have and that they're still out there carrying out missions and saving the galaxy, and that's about as good an ending you could get.

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