Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Yipee! Stargate-Sg1 (spoilers for Reckoning/Threads/Moebius/S9

Wow.

I'll say that again.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

This was one awesome episode. It was more than awesome. Awesome just doesn't do it justice. It was...epic. I'm still in a state of shock! How the heck did they manage to pack all of that into one hour?!? It felt more like three. I really felt as though I'd just watched a movie by the credits and couldn't believe I'd only been there an hour.

Things that were great about this episode:

* Carter, Jacob and Selmac working as a team to solve the problem of the hidden weapon. I'd just been thinking last week that it's been a long time since we've heard from Selmac and I've missed that duality of personality that was used so effectively in episodes like Seth. Loved the constant zipping back and forth between the two from moment to moment as they talked to Sam. Those scenes reminded me a little of Full Circle in atmosphere. Especially liked Selmac's reaction when Sam questioned his results. LOL.

*Bra'tac. Didn't have much to do – like Teal'c, who just had to stand and look smug a lot – but did love his 'I think things are about to get...bad'.

*Ba'al. Ba'al was just wonderful. An absolute joy from start to finish. So glad he escaped at the end. He's just too delicious to kill.

* Sam and Ba'al's sparring. She really did make the most this week of being in charge and handled it very well. More of this please!

* Some nice tie-backs to earlier episodes. Like the weapon having the same block system as the time device in WOO. And Sam referring to Ba'al tampering with the gates in Avenger 2.0. Nice little touches there. Also Sam's "Geez, you blow up one little sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water..." was cute.

* Jacob/Selmac's disgust at being forced to team up with Ba'al to get the weapon working:

"Lucky guess."
"Not so all-knowing, huh?"
"What's he still doing here?"
"Now that was just creepy."

* Daniel. Oh, what can you say about Daniel? What a hero. He was just superb. Adored him in all of his scenes with RepliCarter (AT was terrific too). From his repeated "Hmmmmm...you know maybe I will co-operate with you. Oh wait – almost forgot you're an evil killing machine – nope. No chance!" LOL. To his battle with her – superbly acted by both of them!.

RepliCarter: You tricked me.
Daniel: You tricked me, first.

Daniel: Trying to leave? Sorry. A little more time in Danny's world.

Saving the day – WTG, Daniel! Freezing the replicators just at the right moment to save the rest of SG1 and a few others. And... OMG! OMG! She killed Daniel! That total, total cow! And it was done so well. No huge dramatic moment. Just wham, out of the blue, very casual and there was Daniel lying there dying. Awk! Somehow that made it seem all the more...real. And MS was superb in those scenes. No writhing about in agony. Just quietly laying down and dying. <sob>

* Replicators pouring out of the gate and into the SGC! Ho-ly cow – I think my heart stopped. I just wasn't expecting that. When the screens started going haywire and Walter said it looked like someone was hacking into the system, I just assumed it was Ba'al getting the gates ready. That was one awesome dramatic moment. I almost had heart failure on the spot. Loved that one replicator trying to push the blast door of the gate room open as it was closing and the SF shooting it.

* And talking of awesome - space battles! Wow – all those motherships advancing on Ba'al's fleet. And all those yellow dots just suddenly popping into place on the screen, out of the blue. Very effective!

* Those shots of gates all over the galaxy suddenly firing up and whooshing into life. Really liked that those were stock shots, revisits to planets we've already been. Another nice touch.

* Totally serious, grim, Replicator-*** -kicking, worried-for-his-people Jack! Oh, how I've missed you!

* All of the scenes in the SGC fighting the Replicators. Genuine tension! I don't think those things have ever been as spooky and terrifying! Reynolds was fun. Great to see Silar in the mix. And Walter was terrific, as always, even though a bit in the background.

* Jack rescuing Siler.

Jack: [indicating the explosive Reynolds has just placed on the door] You should use more than one of those.
Reynolds: Sir?
Jack: It's a blast door? [The finger gestures that accompanied this were hilarious]

Siler: Thank you, sir!
Jack: I expect to be put in your will, Siler
Siler: Already in there, sir.
Jack: Hey, that's...weird.

Also just loved the quiet way Jack said, "Fire in the hole." No reason. Just because. <G> Be still my heart.

* Jack and Reynolds' reactions when the replicators froze and they decided, what the hell, let's just shoot them some more, even if they aren't moving. ROTFL

* The slo mo focus on all four members of SG1, one by one, as individually they faced death, in the seconds before the weapon kicked into life. Huge lump in my throat and snuffling into my Kleenex at that point.

* And while we're at it – the mountain opening up and the weapon. Also the replicator ship landing on Dakara. Managing to be both graceful and totally graceless and clunky all at the same time as it did. Brilliant SFX in this episode – those involved in those should be well proud of themselves. They excelled themselves.

* Glad they told us that Thor was safe. I'd been beginning to think they were going to forget about him, out there fighting off replicators. But they got him in in the end. Whew.

Sam: He says he'll pay us a visit...just as soon as he gets his consciousness out of the computer and into a new body.
Jack: That just never gets old, does it.


Niggles:

Hardly any. It would be churlish to nitpick such a wonderful episode. But...

Joe Mallozzi, you need a serious slapping! <g> Reckoning I and II would have made good final ever episodes?!?!?! Are you serious? What were you on, man? Yeah, riiiight, they would. Only if you wanted plane loads of fans heading in your direction with baseball bats. Listen up carefully – I shall say this only once. Never...ever get the idea in your heads that you can leave us in limbo with one of SG1 bleeding his life out on the floor dying and not ever tell us what happened to him and then stick 'The End. Final. Zip. No more." on it! I guarantee you – we will not be happy with that as the last ever episode of Stargate. Trust me on this one.

If I really had to find a nitpick to be churlish about (say if my life depended on it or something <G>) it would be that the second half of this episode was had so much WOW factor in it and was so packed full of edge of the seat action, it kind of overshadowed part one of Reckoning and the first half of Reckoning II, which look staid and plodding by comparison. But that would really, really be reaching for something to whine about. And these have their charms too.

Summary – I bet I've only scratched the surface of pointing out the good moments in this one. It's going to take a few viewings to take it all in and sure I've missed mentioning some choice bits. I actually got to watch the first half and then got interrupted. Up till that point I had been ready to come in here and say it was a good episode, that I'd really enjoyed it, but that it hadn't been anything terribly special. Then I managed to get back to the disk and bam! I was ambushed and whacked over the head by the second half which was just non-stop, edge of the seat, a breathless rollercoaster ride all the way to the end credits.

I give this one 100 out of 10. Kudos, to all concerned. This was just one terrific, awesome episode. Probably the best I've ever seen.