Stargate SG-1, does it get better?

I liked the series. I think it may have gone awry of what the producers of the movie were trying to do, but the show DID grow on me. Towards the end of the series, they really just went all wonky with it.

As to what others have said about "Monster of the Week" type show, this is one of them.

Qui-Gonzalez said:

I liked the series. I think it may have gone awry of what the producers of the movie were trying to do, but the show DID grow on me. Towards the end of the series, they really just went all wonky with it.

As to what others have said about "Monster of the Week" type show, this is one of them.

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That was rarely true. There were a lot of story arcs through the series, and only rarely did they do a 'monster of the week' story.

I would never classify it as a "monster of the week" show. Far from it.

Well, they are your opinions, gents. I have the entire series. The Asgardian thing, Merlin...the whole shmear...it was a bit much for me sometimes.

Qui-Gonzalez said:

Well, they are your opinions, gents. I have the entire series. The Asgardian thing, Merlin...the whole shmear...it was a bit much for me sometimes.

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Sorry, but a race that was a regular fixture to the series from the first season to the very last does not a 'monster of the week' show make. The Ancient known as Merlin was a fixture through almost the entire Ori story arc. You do know that a 'monster of the week' show means something shows up essentially once, is defeated by the heros, and is never heard of again right?

They do have their monster of the week shows, but it's less about a specific monster and more about a specific problem or situation they have to address which has limited or no bearing on future episodes. That's where the comparison to Star Trek comes in. It's not that the episode is necessarily bad. More that it just doesn't connect to other future episodes and relatively little connection to past episodes.

As for the whole "girl power" thing, keep two things in mind: (1) the show started in 1997 -- same year Buffy did, actually, and one year after the phrase "girl power" was really finally starting to trickle out. Anyone remember Lilith Faire? Yeah, same timeframe as that. So, you're likely to see some of that (plus that was in the pilot and the show definitely changed some after the pilot). (2) the "girl power" thing becomes FAR less pronounced as you move forward and becomes more just sort of "Oh, that's Captain Carter."

Really, I wouldn't judge the show based on the two pilot episodes alone. It definitely improves even within the first season after the pilot, and substantially improves in subsequent seasons. They get a bigger budget, the writers get better, you have fewer goofy episodes (although still some funny ones -- one of my favs is the "groundhog day" episode), better action, the characters become better defined, you meet more alien races that reappear frequently, etc.

You still have your standalone episodes where it's not quite "monster of the week" but more "situation of the week", but those aren't necessarily bad. I'll say that the story arcs are rarely quite as overt as they are in other shows, at least in the early seasons. But there are story arcs.

Kerr Avon said:

Sorry, but a race that was a regular fixture to the series from the first season to the very last does not a 'monster of the week' show make. The Ancient known as Merlin was a fixture through almost the entire Ori story arc. You do know that a 'monster of the week' show means something shows up essentially once, is defeated by the heros, and is never heard of again right?

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You mean like some of the Goa'uld critters, or some of the slaves like Teal'c? There were plenty enough one shot episodes in that series. I'm not saying I disliked the show, but I am recalling what stuck with me best. A lot of the "story arcs" were mere mentions in one of the "Monster of the Week" type episodes while the team solved some problem that would not rear its head ever again.

I don't recall the Asgardians being mentioned in the first season, but I will have to pop it back in and see.

I see where you're coming from, Qui. And that's a fair critique, too. The "story" episodes (as in the ones that tie into the overall season arc) are a lot looser in terms of how they develop the overall story than a heavily plotted show. So, yeah, what ultimately gets termed a "story" episode seems like it might only have tangential relation to the overall story of the season.

Example:

In, I think, Season 7, you have a new big bad guy (I'm not gonna reveal anything here, so as not to spoil for those who haven't seen). One "story" episode has him sending a new kind of seemingly invincible trooper to attack SG-1. The whole episode focuses on them fighting the new trooper itself, and doesn't exactly advance the story as far as how they're beating the bad guy for the season. If I recall correctly, while the new troopers do show up in future episodes, they DON'T factor into the big final confrontation with the bad guy for the season, or at least only sort of factor in. It's not as if -- ah ha! -- by virtue of having beaten the new trooper in the one episode, they know the big bad guy's critical weakness and can exploit it at just the right moment in the season finale.


So, in that sense, yeah, "Story" episodes aren't quite the same kind of story episodes that you get in other shows. Not all the time, anyway. That, however, is true in plenty of shows. In B5, you frequently have episodes that, while they advance the overall story of the season, do so only very incrementally and often while dealing with only the immediate problem which doesn't really factor in later. Same is true on Buffy and Angel. This is even more true in earlier seasons of all of these shows, where the show writers aren't 100% sure if the show will be renewed, and are trying to build interest. The idea is that, while you may get bits of story-arc advancement, if you happen to miss that episode, you won't be totally confused and you won't need a "previously on..." to catch you up. Compare that to shows like 24, Prison Break, Lost, TSCC, The Wire, etc. Those shows, from the very start, are HEAVILY plotted to the point where if you miss an episode, you're gonna be friggin' confused going forward.

I think you tend to see more shows like the heavily plotted ones that rely on repeated viewing more starting around the 2000s, whereas shows like SG-1, B5, Buffy, Angel, etc. are very much products of the 90s (even if they ran during the early 2000s). I think it tends to be "safer" for TV shows to structure themselves so that you don't have to watch EVERY week to know what's going on from one week to the next, especially when you're just getting started. Once you have a devoted following and solid numbers, you can start doing more complex story arcs, and SG-1 ends up doing that more towards the end of its run.



Oh, and FYI, the Asgardians are indeed mentioned in S1, although I don't recall if they were shown. But the SG team definitely goes to a planet where they find "Thor's hammer" and I think they visit it more than once in the first season.

I liked the movie, but found the show to be much better. The movie had potential, but never really did anything with it.

The show does have a "situation of the week" vibe for the first two or 3 seasons, but they also have story arcs at the same time. What I liked was seeing the takes on Earth's mythology and how it might have evolved on different planets. I mean, that is the basis of the show - people from earth are taken by the go'auld and brought to different planets as slaves.

Worst seasons, for me, were 6 (when Michael Shanks left and he was replaced with someone else) and 10, with the flying toilet bowls.

The two most entertaining episodes were the groundhog day one and the one with the puppets.

Stargate Atlantis was utter crap. Jack-lite, useless chewbacca, she-teal'c and doctory whiney made for the most uninteresting group of people to ever be trapped in outerspace. And the space vampires we're a poor substitute for the go'auld.

SG-U takes some getting used to, but just think of it as BattleStargate and that will give you the general gist.

-Fred

Oh, FYI, a few episodes that you should NOT judge SG-1 by in season 1:

1.) Hathor -- this one is just a weird episode and has kind of a weak plot. Plus if the "girl power" stuff irks you, this episode plays with it a bunch. Long story short, the SGC gets taken over by a female goauld, and only the girls on the base can fight her off because they're immune to her pheremones (which she uses to hypnotize the men).

2.) Politics -- clip show.

The first half of the Season 2 finale is also MOSTLY a clip show. At least 50% of the episode is recaps of other episodes. The way they did season finales in the earlier seasons is to split them with one half being the end of the previous season and the other half being the first episode of the new season.


Anyway, in retrospect, most of Season 1 is pretty good, with a few slower episodes here and there.

As most others have said, yes it does get better. I've recently started rewatching the series, and am still on Season 1. The season gets better as it goes along, and the season finale cliffhanger leaves you with the "uh-oh, what's going to happen next?" Thankfully, with DVD, you don't have to wait for months to find out.

I think season 5 is probably the strongest season, but I grew to like the last couple of seasons, even with the changes.

Erich Von Daniken should get royalties.:lol


Oh... yeah, pretty cheesy stuff. Can be fun sometimes, but doesn't really get any better, at least imo.