Okay…My turn to review a season of Stargate. Just a heads up – this is a review of the shows, not so much the DVDs. I haven’t watched the extras or listened to the commentary yet. Be warned – the one extra I did watch was more than a bit cheesy. Buy these if you want it for the SHOW.

Cast

Richard Dean
Anderson as Colonel Jack O’Neill
Michael Shanks
as Dr. Daniel Jackson
Amanda Tapping
as CaptainSamantha Carter
Christopher
Judge as Teal’c
Don
S. Davis as
Major General George S. Hammond

Teryl Rothery as
Captain Janet Frasier

Crew

Numerous directors and writers. The
IMDB page that
lists them can be found here.

Original Airdate

The third season aired during the summer of 2000.

Okay…so Stargate is an institution in my household (apartmenthold?). I got my wife addicted shortly after we got married and my mild interest has become an addiction from simple self-defense. I bring this up only because the previous reviews have been done by fiz, who had never before seen the shows he was watching. In contrast, after getting the dvds I glanced over them and realized I’d only missed one. So I’m familiar.

So.

Synopsis

This particular season is actually a bit light on storyline advancement. There are a lot of one-off episodes, and a few that introduce some new enemies, new types of aliens. One or two even put to bed some dangling story arcs. All in all a good season, but nothing overly impressive. Even the season finale isn’t nearly as good as the wrap-up at the beginning of season 5. The one major new development was
the introduction of the Unas as something other than “Monster Goua’uld hosts”.

High Point

There are many. I particularly liked episode 6, “Window of Opportunity”, but then I’ve always been a sucker for Groundhog Day-like stories. Humor is VERY well utilized as always…

Low Point

Of this there are also many. In this case, though, it’s mostly a matter of “I’ve seen that episode 20 times and it’s just not holding my interest any more”. The only one that really struck me as a BAD episode was number 2, “The Other Side”. If you’re going to do a sci-fi show about racism and genocide, at least throw a twist on it. Having a person from another PLANET dislike Teal’c just because he’s BLACK is…well…almost bizarre enough to be sci-fi in its own right. There were numerous other things that just didn’t quite work. The more I think about it the more it feels like sloppy moralizing.

The Scores

The originality of the show still feels pretty good. They’re taking the show in new and interesting directions that I never would have predicted from the first season. Still, they’re using recycled plot devices in between every original show they do. I have to give it a 4/6

The effects are still PHENOMENAL for a television show. If they keep up this level of production, I’ll be very happy. I give it
a 6/6 given what they’re achieving with what they’ve got.

The stories…well, the stories they tell tend to be pretty well written. The thing here, though, is that it’s only slightly a story-driven show. It’s far more a character driven show. The stories are almost secondary. still, they’re not bad. They really try hard to keep the SF good…and that’s worth a lot, in my book. I give it 4/6.

The acting is excellent. These people really KNOW these characters. I have trouble imagining them as anyone else. They ARE the characters. And to think at one point I expected to have trouble with MacGyver in a different role.6/6

The emotional response can be a little thin. Primarily this is because of the fact that I’ve *seen* them approximately 3000 times each. Partially because if anyone’s actually going to die they’re going to broadcast commercials indicating that this is the case for an entire season before they actually get around to killing them off. SO. All we really get is the laughter, and some concern that the government’s going to make things difficult for them and change the way the story works – but not so much that it would actually cause
any uproar and drive anyone away from the series. I think I’m leaning towards a 3/6 on this one. And that only because I’m generously predisposed to the show.

The production is great. Wonderful. Stunning. I’ve always been impressed. Good show, old chums. In particular this DVD set has 5.1 surround digital sound, which I’ve never had with these shows before…it’s more than a little bit cool. 5/6

Overall, I wasn’t as impressed with this season (taken by itself) as I had expected to be. But I think that part of the reason this show works is because it’s not really a season-by season type show. It’s a great story with some really neat characters. Part of
the fun has been in watching for the missing pieces and going “so THAT’s where he came from…”. So I’m not going to knock it too much.
This particular season has some of my favorite episodes, and some of my least favorite. So I’ll go with a 4/6.

In Total, Stargate SG-1 recieves 32/42

OH! One last great line? “I said `I am the great and powerful Oz…`”