Stargate SG-1: Season 10 (2006-07)

Stargate SG-1: Season 10 (2006-07)

Dirs. Various | 20 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

Ten years is a heck of a long time to be watching a weekly TV show. Luckily, with shiny disc media (or stream or DL) it can take just a fraction of that to watch it at home from beginning to end.

I scheduled one post per month for ten months, but I finished the series in about half of that time. Binge-watching is a double-edged activity, but ultimately it allows one to better evaluate how a show changed over time; having to wait a decade between the first and last episodes would make that difficult. For my purposes, the binge-watch positives outweighed the negatives.

Stargate changed quite a bit over the years, in scope and in cast, but its greatest strength was always in its team dynamic, which is something that it remained largely true to throughout.

The individual members would clash often in their beliefs, particularly Jack (Richard Dean Anderson) and Daniel (Michael Shanks), but at the end of the day each of them was elevated and heartened by having the other at their side.

In the final two seasons, that same depth of comradeship among the Tau'ri helped offset the feeling that the Ori threat weren't a good fit, being a weak substitute for the Goa'uld.

Frustratingly, the Ori storyline isn't even fully concluded in the Season 10 finale, for some reason. You'll need to watch the first of the two TV Movies that came after the series had ended if you want to see how that played out, i.e. Stargate: The Ark of Truth (2008).

-"I'm willing to make the occasional exception. Dial it up, Walter."-

Even so, the main goal of the SG team in Season 10 is to defeat the Ori once and for all, which means they need to locate Merlin's superweapon. It's not the best series arc they've ever had, but the characters keep it engaging: Vala (Claudia Black), for one, whose inability to grasp human colloquialisms and pithy sayings is a tremendous source of comedy. When used well, Vala's unique charms, including her enthusiasm and hope for affection, really enrich the season.

But enough jibber-jabber. For the final time, the episodes that I feel are crucial to the arc:

Ep 01: Flesh and Blood continues the Season 09 finale, which is all I'm going to reveal.

Ep 03: The Pegasus Project includes members of the Stargate Atlantis series, which would've been just a few episodes into its third season by that time. Antagonists from both series play a part in the drama, but I don't feel it's wholly necessary to have watched Atlantis very much.

In Ep 04: Insiders an old enemy offers aid in stopping the new enemy, but it isn't given freely.

Ep 07: Counterstrike is a 'shit-hits-fan' scenario that lobs spanners in many directions. 

Ep 09: Company of Thieves feels like a Farscape episode, set partially aboard the Odyssey; i.e. the flagship Tau'ri vessel, successor to the Prometheus. It has nods back to Season 08.

Eps 10 + 11: The Quest Parts 1 + 2 perhaps isn't crucial, but it furthers the quest for Merlin's weapon. Aside from that, Part 02 has a great scene between Mitchell (Ben Browder) and Vala.

Ep 14: The Shroud is one of only two episodes in which Richard Dean Anderson appears. And with it being a story that revolves around the team's trust in Daniel, his inclusion is timely.

Ep 19: Dominion is a partial ending, but you'll still need to see The Ark of Truth film.

Ep 20: Unending is the final episode. You might expect an explosive, action-packed blow-out to end it all, like many other shows marking the same milestone have done, but it isn't like that. It's a more personal and reflective story for the featured members of the 'Fifth Race'. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't elaborate. It was an excellent episode, though, beautiful, emotional and all the better for where it was placed. And the Creedence Clearwater Revival was perfect.

PS: Ep 06: 200 is worth a mention even though it isn't properly arc-related, but it's the 200th episode of the series. It's both a horrible mess and an occasionally entertaining aside, a self-referential parody that also playfully spoofs Star Trek, Farscape, and even Thunderbirds.

Stargate SG-1 had more than its fair share of crap episodes over the ten years it aired — the many clips shows and appearances of Dr. Rodney McKay (David Hewlett) were my personal most-hated — but it pushed the TV sci-fi bar pretty high on a great many occasions, and it had characters that I genuinely cared about. I don't think any sci-fi show will ever supplant Star Trek: TNG from its place in my heart of hearts, but I'd have no hesitation in mentioning SG-1 in the same breath. It was set in modern times, not some distant millennia, but the gate travel device meant it could toy with any number of creative futures. So while its contemporary setting may date it in years to come, from a different perceptive it gave the show the best of both worlds.