Stargate SG-1: Season 01 (1997–98)

SG-1: Season 01 (1997–98)

Dirs. Various | 22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

The first (and best) TV Series to continue the story of the Stargate (1994) movie was SG-1.

It kicks off with a feature-length Pilot episode titled Children of the Gods. Set approximately one year after the movie's end, the Stargate program at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex has been shut down, with just a handful of guards watching over it. But when a previously unseen Goa'uld 'God' is encountered, the wheel spins again and the team must return to Abydos.

Some significant but excellent recasting means we lose Kurt Russell as Colonel Jack O'Neill but gain Richard Dean Anderson (aka MacGyver), who quickly makes the role his own.

Likewise, actor James Spader, who starred as Egyptologist Daniel Jackson in the movie, is replaced by Michael Shanks. For me, both replacements do a better job than the original duo; though with SG-1 being episodic the new stars have more time to develop the characters.

Two more members make up the SG-1 team, but I'll mention them in a later post because their inclusion is part of the Pilot's story and I'd consider it spoiler to elaborate further.

Overseeing the Stargate project is General George Hammond, played by Don S. Davis. It's not the first time that Davis has been a military man involved in secret government projects and strange phenomena, he was Major Garland Briggs in Twin Peaks, wherein he did something very similar. Far from being typecast, there was something about Davis that fit the model perfectly.

- A military dick at first, Hammond proves to be an invaluable asset as time goes on. -

The primary antagonists of the series, the previously mentioned Goa'uld, once again exploit the Egyptian aesthetic, but the series introduced other cultures into the mix. At varying degrees of scientific advancement the new societies allowed for a more rounded exploration of human culture than the singular focus of the film. Sometimes the customs and social behaviourism is merely backdrop, but ofttimes it plays an important and respectful role in the story itself.

All in all, despite new writers and only a TV budget to work with the series expands upon the original premise and is arguably even better than the parent feature film that spawned it.

NOTE: The actual DVD box set doesn't look like the image used at the beginning of this post. I was unable to find cover art of a satisfactory size for some seasons, so I had to make my own generic one. I know it's a bit crap, but it'll have to do, at least until a better image is found.

NOTE II: the re-released DVD version of the Pilot titled Children of the Gods - Final Cut (2009) has new FX and re-scored music, but has been edited. Some scenes have been replaced with new ones, while others have been removed completely (e.g. nudity and Series specific events).