So, it's been a rough couple of weeks, and I was needing some comfort food TV. Netflix popped SG-1 into my queue, and I went "sure, why the hell not." I'd seen the whole series before, but it's episodic, pretty easy to rewatch, and I figured why not? In my memory, I thought of it as a decent but problematic and kinda formulaic show. And to an extent, it is. The early stuff with Carter in particular is profoundly clumsy and kinda embarassing, it's very hoo-rah about the Air Force, and there's some weird and kind of embarrassing stereotypes in the early seasons when a lot of the episodes were them going to various formerly-Go'auld occupied worlds. And the less said about the Replicators' CGI the better. But overall, I'm just kinda impressed with how well it holds up overall, most notably in how it handles the civilian vs. military stuff and the driving force of the plot as the show goes on.
While it's certainly enthusiastic about the military (how could it not be, given the pitch), it also doesn't ever really shy away from repeatedly putting a spotlight on how Daniel and the other cultural experts (and Hammond) are keeping the SGC moral, contrasting it strongly with the shady intelligence agency stereotype over at the NID. Kinsey rolls in and certainly comes off as the "ugh stupid bureaucrats getting in the way of what has to be done!", but over time it resolves into a much clearer picture - Kinsey wraps himself in the cloak of accountability and responsible behavior, but his ties to the NID show him as just being a regular hypocrite. Other political and civilian figures are much more sympathetic, often contrasting with characters like O'Neill, who's too quick to write off the soft touch approach.
And while the show certainly is episodic, I'd forgotten how damn continuity dense it is. Characters and events from seemingly one-off episodes will get referenced or even focused on seasons later. The core conceit of the show - that they're going out there to find allies and resources and technology to defend earth - gives them a good reason to bring back past bits of weirdness that in a Star Trek TNG type show would normally just be forgotten. The virtual reality planet gave us Teal'c stuck in a video game literally 3+ seasons later, the time they got turned into robots had the robots come back. Teal'c also apparently learned how to drive when they got thrown back in time to 1969 (which formed the basis of a later time travel episode, too!).
And then there's the stuff I remembered it doing well, like characters (Christopher Judge does not get enough credit for Teal'c, dude is fantastic) and the march of the SGC's technology. I just watched the ep where they show off gate-fired missiles, where the Go'auld reacts to being painted with a targeting laser by... trying to flick it off of their shirt. That shit is FUNNY, and it highlights how far they've come from early eps where they were just barely figuring out how to take the fight back to the snakes. SG-1 definitely has its problems, and I'm not gonna try to defend them from those. But overall? I'm very pleased to go back to a show I remembered fondly and find that it's actually as good as I remember it was.
While it's certainly enthusiastic about the military (how could it not be, given the pitch), it also doesn't ever really shy away from repeatedly putting a spotlight on how Daniel and the other cultural experts (and Hammond) are keeping the SGC moral, contrasting it strongly with the shady intelligence agency stereotype over at the NID. Kinsey rolls in and certainly comes off as the "ugh stupid bureaucrats getting in the way of what has to be done!", but over time it resolves into a much clearer picture - Kinsey wraps himself in the cloak of accountability and responsible behavior, but his ties to the NID show him as just being a regular hypocrite. Other political and civilian figures are much more sympathetic, often contrasting with characters like O'Neill, who's too quick to write off the soft touch approach.
And while the show certainly is episodic, I'd forgotten how damn continuity dense it is. Characters and events from seemingly one-off episodes will get referenced or even focused on seasons later. The core conceit of the show - that they're going out there to find allies and resources and technology to defend earth - gives them a good reason to bring back past bits of weirdness that in a Star Trek TNG type show would normally just be forgotten. The virtual reality planet gave us Teal'c stuck in a video game literally 3+ seasons later, the time they got turned into robots had the robots come back. Teal'c also apparently learned how to drive when they got thrown back in time to 1969 (which formed the basis of a later time travel episode, too!).
And then there's the stuff I remembered it doing well, like characters (Christopher Judge does not get enough credit for Teal'c, dude is fantastic) and the march of the SGC's technology. I just watched the ep where they show off gate-fired missiles, where the Go'auld reacts to being painted with a targeting laser by... trying to flick it off of their shirt. That shit is FUNNY, and it highlights how far they've come from early eps where they were just barely figuring out how to take the fight back to the snakes. SG-1 definitely has its problems, and I'm not gonna try to defend them from those. But overall? I'm very pleased to go back to a show I remembered fondly and find that it's actually as good as I remember it was.
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