..This is the second instalment from Season 8 of the phenomenally successful, award-winning TV spin-off from the 1994 sci-fi blockbuster movie, Stargate. and the follow on from Stargate SG-1 - Volume 38.
Volume 39 shows episodes 5-8 from this season and here's a brief synopsis of each of these…
Icon - When SG-1 walk through "The Great Ring of Avidan", a museum exhibit and religious artefact on a low-tech world in the middle of a cold war, it leads to a religious fundamentalist uprising. Unfortunately the zealots see the reactivation of the gate as proof of their belief that their long lost ring gods will return and rule benevolently, regardless of SG-1's warnings that the Goa'uld were anything but. All of this upheaval results in the cold war escalating to a full-scale missile exchange, during which Daniel goes missing on the planet and the fundamentalists take over the gate site, refusing to allow the S.G.C. to look for him.
Avatar - Dr. Lee's team have been developing a virtual-reality training game where Goa'uld super soldier drones have infiltrated the S.G.C. but Teal'c finds it too easy and is persuaded to help them teach the game to be more realistic. Unfortunately, the game learns too well and every time he seems like winning, it introduces a new difficulty level and kills him first. It also correctly asserts that Teal'c is a warrior that would never quit until all the Goa'uld are destroyed so it locks out the failsafes and so locks him in a loop. His real body is also bearing the stress of repetitive failure and the shocks given each time he "dies" badly and he is in serious danger of cardiac failure if he doesn't win the game soon.
Affinity - Teal'c has been cleared to live off-base and he's settling in nicely, gaining a name as a local community hero when he steps in to stop some bullying. However, Jack O'Neill is under pressure to have him removed from the general population and Teal'c is told to keep a lower profile. But, big guy that he is, he keeps defending the weak but when he's overheard threatening to kill someone for beating up his girlfriend and then that someone is found dead, Special Forces are soon on his trail. Meanwhile Carter gets an unexpected proposal and Daniel receives a mysterious e-mail written in Ancient, revealing that there's much more going on they realise.
Covenant - Alec Colson, CEO of one of the defence contractors involved in making parts for the new Goa'uld technology derived ships and planes, claims he has shocking proof that the government is covering up a liaison with aliens, and that Earth was almost destroyed by an alien invasion some months ago. He then gives all of the nations involved 24 hours to go public with the truth or he'll do it for them. When the deadline passes and both Sam and Daniel fail to persuade him to back down, he does exactly what he said he'd do and during the live broadcast, into the pressroom walks an Asgard ... or is it?
Review
Season 8 got off to a good start with Volume 38 and Volume 39 continues in the same vein with mostly good stories from Damian Kindler, Peter DeLuise, Ron Wilkerson and Robert Cooper and good direction from Peter Woeste, Peter DeLuise and Martin Wood. As usual the core cast of Richard Dean Anderson, Christopher Judge, Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks give solid, entertaining performances and there's good support from regulars Bill Dow, Gary Jones and Dan Shea where they appear.
A few promotions have occurred - Jack O'Neill is now a Brigadier General and running the S.G.C. while Sam Carter is now the Colonel in charge of SG-1, which is down to three men due to Jack's promotion. There's no obvious contender as Jack's replacement in SG-1 yet though but maybe that'll happen eventually. Richard Dean Anderson still gets all the good comedy lines as he puts down anyone trying to give him a technical explanation for anything so it's business as usual.
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. I know I've mentioned it before but I'm still not entirely convinced with the representation of the Asgard, they just move too slowly and still look a bit unrealistic.
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 reasonable quality stuff although there's less off world and no deep space or real Goa'uld action this time around but there is more political manoeuvring, which makes up a bit for the lack of it in Volume 38.
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…
Icon - Yet another cold war story and I'm sure we've had a few of these already over the seven years. Okay, it's the first time the team's visiting a new planet has sparked a full-scale war and it's interesting from that moralistic point of view but it's essentially a bit of a dull and drab episode. Told in flashback over three months and focussing more on Daniel Jackson with some potentially romantic undercurrents between him and the wife of one of their host's chief military officers, it just seemed to move too slowly to grip my interest much. None of it comes to anything and the ending is pretty anticlimactic.
Avatar - Dr. Lee, resident geek scientist, is back and this time his team have come up with a virtual reality training system that does its utmost to defeat it's player. There's lots of action, albeit a bit repetitive as the game is reset back the start many times but this is a very good episode, where you're always wondering just what's coming next as the VR machine ramps ups the difficulty level. Teal'c is the main focus here and Christopher Judge is excellent as ever with good support from, Bill Dow as Dr. Lee and Andrew Airlie as Dr. Carmichael, the base medic trying to keep him alive.
Affinity - Another good episode, again focussing on Teal'c as the "local hero" and with lots of cloak and dagger intrigue to keep you glued to the screen as the story gets increasingly more complicated as it goes along. Christopher Judge is again brilliant here and really shows how his acting talents have improved as the show has progressed. The sub plot of Sam's off-base romance is also taken a step further, which could add some extra dimensions in later stories. It's almost just a run-of-the-mill cop story but it fits in well with the major story lines and there's good support from Erica Durance as Krista and David DeLuise as Sam's beau, Pete.
Covenant - It was bound to happen sooner or later with so many military personnel involved with the comings and goings of the S.G.C., the ex-N.I.D., now called The Trust, and the recent alien attacks on Earth - someone threatens to blow their cover to the public. This is a well handled episode where the S.G.C first try to discredit Colson and then, with Thor's help, try to bring him over to their side while The Trust have their own agenda. A nicely complex and interwoven tale with good performances from Charles G. Shaughnessy as Alec Colson, Tom O'Brien as his aide Vogler and Kendall Cross as reporter Julia Donovan.
All the above continues the Stargate saga much as I'd expected, albeit with the one dodgy episode, at least to me, in Icon. While there are no actual Goa'uld stories here, Avatar keeps the interest in them and their super soldiers alive and unhealthy. Basically we get a good spread of stories - Icon is about first contact and the horrors of war/religion, Avatar is a good science-fiction tale and Affinity and Covenant have loads of underhand political dealings and The Trust and Asgard pop their heads in as well.
Extras
From Stargate To Atlantis: The Lowdown Part 2 - The 25 minute second half of the featurette started on Volume 38, the whole of which was originally screened as a one-hour special on the Sci-Fi Channel and introduced by Amanda Tapping. The first five minutes are taken up with some nostalgic shots of Stargate SG-1 and the rest focuses on Atlantis with behind the scenes look at the making of the pilot episode, the sets, the visual effects, the Wraith and their ships. As before, there's interview footage from some of directors, producers and major cast members. This and the first half serve as a good introduction to Atlantis and it's evolution from SG-1.
SG-1 Directors series: Covenant - Another behind the scenes look at the making of one of the episodes, one from this volume, where the powerful CEO of defence contractor Colson Industries intends to make the Stargate public knowledge regardless of the consequences. There's the usual explanatory comments from the director, Martin Wood again, some of the cast goofing around and some technical stuff from a few members of the production crew. Reasonably interesting and lasts just over eight 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
Season 8 continues with a reasonable bunch of episodes, although not the best as representatives of the show, and the picture and sound are up to the usual high standard, but the extras are still a bit on the light side.
With the two-part introduction to Atlantis now over and done with, maybe we'll get back to some more meaty extras, like the excellent commentaries present on earlier seasons, on Volume 40.