Between Two Fires

The Tollan sold us out. They always had an arrogant demeanor, but they showed their true colors as soon as they got in trouble. In the end, the Tollan were just hi-tech turncoats in ugly jumpsuits.

This episode further enforced my belief that Sam sucks at dating. Apparently she has a thing for creepy stalkers. Narim reproduced her voice, enabling his home computer to talk dirty to him respond to his requests as if it were Sam. That’s not cute. That’s just weird.

Tanith showed up to announce he was now working in the service of a mystery Goa’uld. This made Teal’c very happy. He then ordered the Tollan to send a bomb to Earth.

Luckily, Sam’s stalker blew up all the super bombs before the Tollan had a chance to consider the task. SG-1 fled through the stargate after the Goa’uld started their attack. The Tollan were, presumably, killed while trying to flee in spaceships.

Rating: 9/10

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On an unrelated note: After years of resistance, I finally created a facebook page. If anyone wants to become my internet friend, you can send me a message here. 

Ascension

Have I mentioned that Sam sucks at dating? Well, she does.

Maybe it’s just me, but I thought Orlin was a nightmare. He stalked Sam, jeopardized her career, committed credit card fraud, and broke small appliances. Of course, she liked him. Really liked him. Women make no sense to me.

This episode resolved around the big, honkin’ space gun SG-1 found. The pentagon was super excited to fire it. However, that would have made a lot of ascended beings grumpy. Orlin sacrificed his life to destroy the gun and was allowed to ascend back to a higher plane of existence. I’m sure at least one woman up there will file for a restraining order.

I love when Teal’c dresses to go out in public. What do you think would grab your attention more: a man with a small tattoo on his forehead or a black dude who was dressed in flaming cowboy regalia? It’s great to know that the big guy like Star Wars. The best line of the episode had to be his, “I have read of a place where humans do battle in a ring of jello.”

Hey, we also saw Sam’s house and car for the first time. I was a little envious.

My Rating: 7/10

2010

This might be the prettiest episode produced by SG-1. There was a grand plot, an interesting new race, and some great team moments. So why did I find it unsatisfying? Well, it fell into the alternate reality trap. Everything in this episode, essentially, never happened, which ultimately devalued the drama. There was some fun speculation, but it had little influence on the series as a whole.

I love to compare the superficial differences in alternate reality episodes. First off, Dr. Fraiser’s hair looked fantastic! She always struck me as the motherly type, but she looked down right foxy with that cut. I liked Sam’s gelled up hair, too. Daniel had a new pair of glasses, which are actually in style now. It took me a couple of moments to realize it, but Teal’c had his tattoo removed.

I thought the triangle between Ambassador Joe, Sam, and Jack was intriguing. It was pretty clear that Jack felt letdown by Sam, and Joe didn’t trust Jack. Since Sam sucks at dating, she must have picked Joe over Jack at some point. It was strangely typical of her to fall for a guy who was complicit in genocide.

There was one other thing that caught my attention. This was the first time I watched this episode since Don S. Davis passed away. It was sad to hear the toast to General Hammond knowing that he really is gone.

Oh, and Kinsey as the President was not a pleasant thought.

My Rating: 7/10

The Curse

Poor Teal’c. He was roped into fishing an empty lake with Jack. The whole team was given personal time after the death of Daniel’s former professor, Dr. Jordan. Sam spent her time working on a motorcycle with Sergeant Siler.

At the funeral, Daniel met up with some of his former colleagues. Sarah, his ex-lady friend, and Steven, who had always been jealous of Daniel, were surprised to see him after a five year absence from the academic circle. They had been studying some rare artifacts with Dr. Jordan before an explosion killed the scholar. When Daniel saw the pieces, he knew something was wrong.

Two of the artifacts were vessels for Goa’uld symbiotes. The snakes had been held in stasis for thousands of years. One of the Goa’ulds, Isis, died after the seal broke. The container holding Osiris was missing along with a golden amulet.

Daniel, Sam, and Dr. Fraiser traveled to Egypt suspecting the Goa’uld had taken Steven. He was already unconscious when they arrived at an isolated ruin. Osiris was actually inside Sarah. After beating up the team and zapping Daniel’s brain, she escaped in a buried ship.

Dating Daniel definitely has drawbacks. Let’s go down the list of his known lovers up to this point. Sha’uri – taken as a host. Sarah – taken as a host. Hathor – Goa’uld queen. Shyla – pretended to be a Goa’uld. Ke’ra – the destroyer of worlds. The best of the bunch might have been the cavewoman he hooked up with during “The Broca Divide.”

After all that, he’s still better at dating than Sam. She turned down another cabin offer in this episode. Grr…

My Rating: 9/10

The Tok’ra, Part I

During a dream, Sam had a vision of Jolinar that included a gate address, so the team set off to meet the Tok’ra. Just before they left, Sam called her dad. Jacob was facing his last days in a battle with cancer. Sam went on the mission knowing Jacob would not want to be seen in a hospital bed. 

Once again, Sam proved that she is terrible with men. A Tok’ra named Martouf used a couple of cheesy lines, and she turned into a big pile of mush. Lord only knows what would have happened if Daniel didn’t interrupt their handholding session. 

I’m probably the only person who thinks like this, but does anyone else see the resemblance between Martouf and Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show? In my opinion, that’s a more believable Sam and Martouf relationship than the one involving Captain Carter. 

Jack was considerably less friendly with the Tok’ra than Sam. He seemed extra grumpy and argumentative in this episode. In the end, the Tok’ra fulfilled Jack's fears. They decided not to form an alliance with Earth and held the team as “guests” after Hammond sent SG-3 to inform Sam her father was about to die. 

Never trust anything with a snake in its head. To be continued. 

My Rating: 8/10

Enigma

I really enjoyed this episode. The Tollan were introduced, Maybourne made his first appearance, and the Nox saved the day. Hey, Sam even kissed a dude. 

The Tollan, led by a balding jerk named Omac, were found moments before death by SG-1. The team rescued them and brought them back to Earth. The highly advanced Tollan were stranded, because their new home world was outside the stargate network. 

Colonel Maybourne then arrived at the SGC to take control of the Tollan. He planned to use them as forced intellectual labors in an effort to develop new weapons. He played a predictable bad guy in this episode, but he later becomes one of my favorite characters. Everyone loves to hate Maybourne. 

While the Tollan were stuck on Earth, Narim took an interest in Sam. He dropped a couple of cheesy lines on her, and she gave him a cat. God, somebody should buy her a book of dating advice. She’s just not very good with boys. 

Those two eventually did a little smooching but were interrupted by Daniel, who was busy trying to save the Tollan. His “whoops” in this scene was comic genius. Well played, sir. Well played. 

Lya, the female Nox, showed up at the end to save the Tollan from Maybourne. Omac finally dropped the jerk routine to thank Daniel. Then Lya did a neat trick to open the gate and disarm the soldiers trying to prevent an escape. 

This was a great episode, but who picked out the silver jumpsuits? I mean come on. Also, Omac was a little too annoying in the beginning. 

My Rating: 9/10

The First Commandment

This episode was the first to hint at Sam’s many dating issues. We meet Jonas, Sam’s sunburnt ex-fiancé, after he has enslaved a race of cave dwellers and declared himself a god. He is in the process of tyrannically working his followers to death in an effort to construct a temple. To be fair to Sam, I doubt any of this was in his Match.com profile when their relationship began.

While Sam and Jonas were getting reacquainted, Jack got caught in the middle of a rather pathetic rescue attempt. Daniel and Teal’c used their time more productively and solved the mystery of the orange sky. They used this information to expose Jonas as a false god and prevent Jack’s execution. The cave dwellers weren’t particularly impressed with the whole working-them-to-death routine, so they threw Jonas into a wormhole to be splattered against the stargate’s iris. 

I liked the unintentionally funny warriors in this episode. They looked like a bizarre cross between Mr. Potato Head and Dark Helmet. Not very intimidating.

This episode also gets bonus points for a few Wizard of Oz references.

My Rating: 6/10