Stargate SG-1 turned a stunt episode into one of the show’s most powerful

By Jonathan Klotz | Published 1 hour ago

Stargate SG-1 was underrated when it aired and today, 17 years after it went off the air, remains a niche series even compared to its sci-fi contemporaries. Firmly planted between the fantastical adventure of Star Wars and the futuristic ideals of Star Trek, the series managed to combine the best of both worlds and create its own winning formula. Few episodes exemplify this as well as “Heroes,” a two-part show that begins as a clever episode centered around the filming of a documentary and then turns into a tribute to a fallen hero that defies audience expectations at every turn. .

Part 1 is fun and games.

In “Heroes, Part I,” Emmett Bergman (Warehouse 13 Saul Rubinek) is a documentary filmmaker hired by the United States government to capture the inner workings of the Stargate Program. The result is fun. Stargate SG-1 episode of the characters we know and love reacting very differently to the presence of a camera, from Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) running and hiding to Teal’c (god of war Christopher Judge), whom we meet as a noble warrior and astute diplomat, who produces monosyllabic grunts while the camera is rolling. On the other hand, Samantha Carter (Sanctuary Amanda Tapping) enthusiastically goes into detail about the science behind the Stargates before being dejected by Emmett’s desire to see it spin.

In fact, the only member of the Stargate SG-1 team who responds well to Emmett’s camera is Dr. Janet Fraiser (Teryl Rothery), who even agrees to have lunch with the documentarian after the interview. It’s a nice character moment for someone who could have been a fan favorite but was too often a supporting character to someone else’s story, never a true part of the main cast (Rothery worked without a contract for the first three seasons ) and in retrospect. , his increased screen time was a clue that this episode would be different.

Part 2 shows the tragedy of war

“Heroes, Part 2” picks up after the Gao’uld ambush at the end of the first episode, which interrupted Frasier and Emmett’s lunch when the good doctor had to respond to a medical emergency. We see a body dragged towards the base, covered by a tarp, leaving it unclear who died, a mystery that is not resolved until late in the episode, when Emmett’s tape is shown, and we see that Dr. Frasier died in action after saving another life. the producers of Stargate SG-1 They thought season 7 would be the last and wanted to kill off a major character, but in doing so, they produced one of the best sci-fi episodes ever made and ended up breathing new life into the franchise as a whole.

Robert Picardo, The Doctor of Journey to the stars: Voyagermakes his first of many appearances as Woolsey, a character that I, like most of the fandom, hated at first but would end up considering a favorite even though he never changed, we just changed the way we perceived him. She takes Woolsey in to find out who is responsible for Dr. Frasier’s death, but, as Emmett’s tape shows, it was she who risked her own life to save another that ultimately resulted in her death. Stargate SG-1 It was a series about war, and in a war there will be casualties, and the decision to make the moment, not a cinematic sacrifice but simply the act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time out of a desire to do good, added more weight at the moment than anyone expected from a SyFy Original.

Stargate SG-1 got this moment

When Carter stands up at Frasier’s funeral and praises the good doctor by listing everyone he had saved during his life, it is one of the most powerful moments in the entire series. Stargate SG-1 He had dealt with the trauma and emotional strain of war on his characters before, but this was a raw moment that made the local audience cry. It’s one thing to see the doctor constantly saving lives in every episode, but it’s quite another to recognize that this sense of nobility cost Frasier his life and all the lives that, if it weren’t for her, would have been snuffed out.

Stargate SG-1 scored the “Heroes” double through some of the most underrated sci-fi writing at the time. It would have been very easy for the show to lean on the silly cheese of adventure shows of the era, especially with MacGuyver himself, Richard Dean Anderson, as part of the cast, and while the show embraces the fun side of the genre, each character he develops and feels like a complete person by the time the series ends. Other shows have done the documentary style; for example, Amanda Tapping’s later series, Sanctuarydid an entire episode from a film crew’s perspective as if it were found footage, but no other series has used it to deliver an emotional gut punch. “Heroes, Part 1 and Part 2” is a well-deserved and near-perfect 90 minutes of everything good about science fiction.