Review: Stargate SG-1 Season Four

January 24, 2011

Warning! Spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk!

Ok, so I’ve been a bad Stargate reviewer of late. Jessica and I are actually already watching season seven, and here I am just sitting down to write my review of season four! In fact, I’ve just been glancing through an episode guide to re-familiarize myself with this season.

First off, they got rid of the boring season three opening titles and brought back the rad season one opening titles. Huzzah! Now for some bad news, Teal’c starts the season off with a really bad blond soul patch. It just looks weird and out of character, but thankfully its gone by the tenth episode or so.

There’s also a rally weird romantic tension that develops between O’Neill and Carter, but thankfully they seemed to abandon that after this season. It just seemed unnecessary.

Sometimes the characters just do goofy things on SG-1. Case in point, in the second episode of the season SG-1 comes into contact with an alien race with advanced technology that needs something that the humans can give them. In return they offer to share their technology with the humans. (Their leader is played by Star Trek: DS9’s Rene Auberjonois.) These aliens are losing a war, and are desperate for help. Jack wants to help them out, but something doesn’t seem quite right to Daniel. After snooping around, it turns out the aliens are kind of like the Nazis and Earth decides not to aid them in their war with their enemies. Sounds good right? But right at the end when SG-1 leaves, the alien leader begs them to take him with them through the Stargate, promising to teach them his technology in return. SG-1 leaves him to die. Ok, so no one’s feeling sorry for the guy, but Earth is at war with Goa’uld, a race that far exceeds Earth’s level of technology. Why not take the alien Nazi leader back and put him to work making weapons and shields? After all, the Americans brought back German rocket scientists after WWII. I don’t get it.

We also find out this season that the Russians have their own Stargate. Or rather, they have the one that SG-1 beamed aboard the crashing Asgard ship that fell into the ocean. This begins an interesting alliance between the U.S. and Russia, and features an episode with Star Trek: TNG’s Marina Sirtis. Cool!

A couple of general minor series gripes: The lights on the Stargate are goofy. The one in the movie didn’t have them, and consequently it looked like a real device. The one on SG-1 looks like it was designed to sell toys. Along those same lines, the iris is goofy too. Yeah, it makes sense to have a cover on the Stargate so that the Goa’uld can’t, I don’t know, send a nuclear bomb to the SGC, but the way they’ve done the CGI for it makes it look like something that can’t possibly work. Where does it go when it retracts? This is never adequately explained.

Anyway, this was another solid season. As always, you can find them on Netflix instant streaming.