Stargate SG-1 - Volume 38
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DVD Review
Ratings And Purchasing Information
Review
This is the first instalment from Season 8 of the phenomenally successful, award-winning TV spin-off from the 1994 sci-fi blockbuster movie, Stargate. and just to recap where the story was left off at the end of Season 7…
The Ascended Goa'uld Anubis has launched a massive attack on Earth and Colonel Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) has again downloaded the knowledge of the Ancients into his own mind. Jack hopes to use this to locate the Lost City of the Ancients and possibly find some means of defending the planet.
Meanwhile, in good old U.S.A., there's a bit of a power struggle going on as a new President takes the reins with the nefarious Senator Kinsey as his Vice-President. Kinsey is still desperate to gain control of the S.G.C. but gets thwarted as usual while General Hammond is replaced by Dr. Elizabeth Weir, an experienced international negotiator, as part of the lead up to potentially making the Stargate public knowledge.
Obviously Jack saves the day, or we wouldn't be here, by finding an outpost of the lost city called Atlantis deep under the Antarctic ice and uses its formidable weaponry to defeat Anubis but he knows that he cannot survive long with the knowledge of the Ancients overloading his mind and so puts himself into stasis.
Season 8 picks up pretty much where 7 left off and Volume 38 shows episodes 1-4 from this season, although the first two are actually shown as one continuous show, so here's a brief synopsis of each of these…
New Order - With Jack in stasis, Major Carter and Teal'c head off towards the Othala galaxy to find the Asgard and hopefully get them to fix Jack as they did before. Meanwhile a faction from the surviving Goa'uld System Lords send a delegation to Earth to negotiate a peace treaty. They hope to ally themselves with Earth and persuade them to use the weapons of the Ancients against the System Lord Baal, who is attempting to fill the void left by Anubis and has taken control of his army of super-soldiers. Sam and Teal'c find more than they bargained for at the Asgard home world and the Goa'uld, as ever, have an alternate agenda.
Lockdown - When the International Space Station barely avoids being struck by part of Anubis's destroyed mothership as it passes by, something hazy passes over and enters the station unnoticed. Meanwhile the newly promoted Brigadier General Jack O'Neill is drowning in paperwork and trying to get to grips with running the show. A few weeks later Colonel Alexi Vaselov, lately in contact with a cosmonaut on the station, transfers to the S.G.C. Guess who's back and now he's in the S.G.C. and looking for a way off of Earth at any expense.
Zero Hour - Jack, bogged down managing the S.G.C. and having second thoughts about the command, gets stuck with an aide who seems to be secretly working for someone else as well. SG-1 heads off to investigate one of Anubis's bases that Baal hasn't yet found and Dr. Lee has brought back an alien plant that threatens to engulf the base. When Baal says he's captured SG-1 and wants to exchange them for Camulus, the System Lord who requested asylum in "New Order", he gives Jack a deadline to comply or he'll kill SG-1. Oh, and the President's coming to visit!
Review
Season 8 is off to a good start with some good stories from regular writers Joseph Mallozzi, Paul Mullie and Robert Cooper and solid direction from Andy Mikita, Will Waring and Peter Woeste and, as ever, the core cast of Richard Dean Anderson, Christopher Judge, Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks give solid, entertaining performances. There are also some new faces this time around with Torri Higginson appearing as Dr. Elizabeth Weir for these few episodes before she leaves to head up the Atlantis project. Gary Jones, who has played the Stargate technician for ages seems to be getting a bit bigger role (and they've changed his character's name for some reason). Oh, and not so much a new face but a new hairdo, Teal'c (Christopher Judge) has spurned the slaphead look and now sports a reasonable covering of hair.
While Richard Dean Anderson took more of a back seat during Season 7 to spend more time with his family, his promotion here to base commander means that we may be seeing a bit more of him this season as he's no longer required to go off on location shoots so often. I'm hoping the rumour I've heard that he hasn't signed up for Season 9 is false as he's easily the strongest character and we'd really miss the little gems of humour he brings to the show.
The picture is presented in 1.78:1 (16:9) anamorphic widescreen and the quality is excellent throughout. Colours are solid with good black levels and no obvious signs of grain or artefacts. Visual and CG effects are, as usual, excellent - for example in the space scenes and the Replicators and the only exception to this is the representation of the Asgard, the little grey aliens. The mix of CGI and puppetry just don't do them justice and they're a far way from the quality achieved with Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings.
The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is a bonus for a TV show and as with earlier seasons, it can't really be faulted although it could have been better. Effects and ambient sounds emanate from the surrounds and there's some reasonable use of the bass channel, all of which is well used in battle scenes and the general chaos in the S.G.C. The dialogue and music are delivered from front and centre and are crisp and clear throughout.
The episodes included are all good quality stuff and we get a mix of Goa'uld, Asgard, Replicator and the Ancients storylines. Not a lot of politics this time round but you just know Kinsey will be back to be a thorn in there side and then there's Anubis, Baal and Fifth to worry about later as well…
New Order (Parts 1 and 2) - A great two-part start to the season with basically two story threads to keep the action and tension going. We get Goa'uld, Asgard and Replicators with loads of action all round. Steve Bacic, Kira Clavell and Vincent Crestjo turn in reasonable performances as the System Lords Camulus, Amaterasu and Yu the Great and Patrick Currie is good as Fifth, the human form Replicator and he'll almost certainly show up again, given the events here.
Lockdown - A wee bit of a slowdown after the introductory double episode but nevertheless one full of tension and the odd burst of action as we learn that Anubis isn't exactly dead and has infiltrated the S.G.C., causing the lockdown while they try to stop him getting off world through the gate. At the end, they think they've got him but it's only a matter of time before he'll be back if you ask me. Good performance from Gavin Hood as Vaselov.
Zero Hour - This one is bit overloaded in plot - the President is coming to visit, SG-1 is off looking for artefacts in one of Anubis's bases, Baal says he's captured them and will kill them if Jack doesn't give him Camulus, while Camulus has his own plans and then there's the alien plant and Jack's pondering resigning the command. However, it all works quite well and you're certainly never bored with this one. Walter the technician (Gary Jones) has turned into a kind of Radar O'Reilly character, clipboard and all and constantly pre-empting Jack's thoughts and Bill Dow is good as Dr. Lee, who appears to be assuming the role of resident geek scientist.
All the above made an excellent evening's viewing, okay it's a lot for one evening but the telly was crap as usual and there was this revue to do. Just as well they've sent me Volume 39 and Volume 1 of Atlantis - I need more Stargate, it's addictive.
Extras
Opening The Iris- From Stargate To Atlantis: The Lowdown Part 1 - A 26 and a half minute featurette, the whole of which was originally screened as a one-hour special on the Sci-Fi Channel, introduced by Amanda Tapping. It reflects on the last seven years of SG-1, the progression to Season 8 and the spin off to Stargate Atlantis. We get to see a lot of shots from previous seasons giving us a bit of the history of the show, its characters and their arch enemy the Goa'uld, with interview footage from some of directors, producers and major cast members. We also get some information on Atlantis, its characters and their new enemy The Wraith. Obviously, this is only part one and we'll get to see much more of Atlantis in the next part.
- SG-1 Directors series: Avatar - Another behind the scenes look at the making of one of the episodes from the next volume where Teal'c is stuck in a virtual reality game in a kind of Groundhog Day loop. There's the usual explanatory comments from the director, Martin Wood this time round, some of the cast goofing around and some technical stuff from a few members of the production crew. Reasonably interesting and lasts just over nine minutes.
Production Design And Photo Gallery - A rolling series of 50 stills and behind-the-scenes production shots from the four episodes on this disk. The whole run takes under three and a half minutes.
WWW - A 30-second promotional piece for the Stargate SG-1 Fan Club U.S. and Canada web site.
Overall
While the Season 8 storyline kicks off at a great pace and the episodes on the disc are up to the usual high standard, as are the picture and sound, I couldn't help being slightly disappointed with the extras. The usually excellent commentaries are nowhere in evidence and there's very little here that was made specifically for the DVD. Even the Director's Series feature has only one episode under the spotlight instead of the usual two or three.
Still, that aside, the episodes are a good quality mix of all that makes SG-1 great and fans of the series will lap it up. Roll on Volume 39 and Atlantis.
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