Stargate SG-1: Season 02 (1998-99)

SG-1: Season 02 (1998-99)

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

Season 02 continues the alien world-hopping adventures, but it also points its lens more at home soil than Season 01 did. We get to see the SG-1 team outside the base's walls. Whereas inside it receives a few unwelcome visitors.

The entire venture seems to have had a sizeable cash-injection, enabling a number of new sets and some slightly better FX than before. Of the new sets, the most visited makes much use of the 'corridor with corners' trick, but as a longtime Star Trek fan I'm well-used to that kind of thing.

There's a lot of new technology on display, too, some of which becomes a regular feature.

Now that the team is fully established, I can talk a little about their personalities, beginning with Colonel Jack O'Neil (Richard Dean Anderson).

Jack is the leader of the four-man SG-1 unit (well, two men, one woman and one Goa'uld). Despite being an authority figure, he has little respect for rank. He'll use it when needed, but is of the opinion that an ass-hole is an ass-hole regardless of how many stripes are stitched onto a uniform, and the Colonel ins't shy about making his feeling known, even to superiors that fit that description. His attitude isn't straight-up arrogance, but rather an extension of his feelings about life in general, which in turn stems from the previously explored tragedy in his past.

- "Ice on my face after gate travel? I ain't got time for that." -

He's also extremely funny, both blatantly comical or, more often, sarcastically hilarious in an 'old curmudgeon' way. Even when his jokes are ill-considered or ill-timed, when his attempts to lighten the mood only make the situation more grave than it already was, his style of humour is purposeful to plotting, reinforcing his 'not as smart (or as tactful) as the other two' persona.

The teammate he butts heads with most often is Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), who I'll write more about in Season 03's post. In short, Jack is outspoken but a hell of an officer to have on your side; he won't leave a good man, woman, or Goa'uld behind.

The season introduces for the first time some recurring faces on the opposite side of the... erm... gate. We meet a number of people/races that'll play a much larger role in future seasons. The most notable is a race that have been previously mentioned but until now remained unseen, and the best thing about them is that they're not rendered in CGI, even though it would probably have been easier to go that route. Well done, FX team. Maximum respect is earned.

And now for some bad news, there are a handful of weak (i.e. duff) episodes, including the run-up to the finale and the actual finale itself (Ep 22), which is a clips-show. It's SG-1's second clips-show, but it doesn't use the dreaded format as effectively as Season 01's episode did.

Weirdly, the R2 box-set has two bonus episodes on the final disc. (I don't know about the R1.) They're relevant to the two new episodes that are also on there, but their inclusion seems like an attempt to say 'here's four episodes for your money', instead of the more honest 'here's two new episodes and two you probably already have - oh, and by the way, one of the new ones is full of old footage, sorry'. Furthermore, the audio on some episodes is 3.1, while on others it's 2.0.