Okay, okay, I know it’s been a few days and I’m sorry! I’ve been working on stuff, I went home last weekend (folks got a new dog… super-adorable Golden Retriever; she’s such a sweetheart, also family was in town) and I’ve also been preparing for Halloween. One of my costumes (yes, plural, costumes) is… for Captain Samantha Carter. Yes, I will provide photos. It’s decidedly “ghetto”, to use the terms of my generation, but I like it, haha. Air Force for the win!
Hm… so. “Fair Game”, huh? You know who doesn’t play fair, or at least didn’t in December of 2009? Texas Longhorns at the Big XII Championship for football. You know who doesn’t play fair in SG-1? Well, of course you do. The Goa’uld don’t. Maybe there’s something about them we don’t know. After all, I would expect nothing less of the very talented writers of SG-1! So let’s see what they have in store this episode…
We’re at an awards ceremony on base, where the Secretary of State speaks of the SGC’s valiance, honour, bravery, and all that good stuff. However, O’Neill’s got an oddly uncomfortable look on his face. Hammond then presents Carter with…
…a commendation to Major! No more Captain; she’s a major now! Yeah! Cool! Go Sam!
O’Neill steps up to speak on her behalf –
- and then he vanishes?! But-?! How-?! This-!?
He just got Star Trek’d out of there, but this is Stargate!
While the base erupts into chaos, O’Neill finds himself on a ship in Earth’s orbit. It’s an Asgard ship, and who would be there but our good buddy Thor.
Well, this should prove to be very interesting indeed… but I suppose not unexpected. They just offed two Goa’uld. It’s about time someone noticed.
O’Neill learns from Thor (gosh, it is so weird associating that name with this little gray alien) that the Goa’uld are now targeting Earth. Despite the fact that SG-1 has more or less done them favours (Apophis was pathetic, Hathor about to overthrow them, and Seth a fugitive) they still see it as a threat. Thor wants to help negotiate a peace treaty with the System Lords and keep Earth out of the conflict. O’Neill agrees to give it a shot, and is transported back to Cheyenne Mountain.
Hammond doubts the Asgard’s intentions are as pure as they seem, but SG-1 is confident in their ally. As if on cue, Thor beams in and details this negotiation thing…
Three System Lords will arrive in four days, since it is custom that the targeted world be host. O’Neill is the chosen representative for Earth, and that doesn’t exactly fly with him, but he’s not about to argue with Thor. The alien leaves, and it’s 96 hours until all hell breaks loose.
During a briefing led by Jackson (of course), we learn about the three Goa’uld:
The first is Cornus, and he was apparently a mortal enemy of Apophis. (Hm… I’ve got my eye on you, Teal’c.)
The second is Yu, who’s actually Chinese. He’s the most likely to favour this treaty. Sa-weet.
The third is… Nirrti. Oh my god, she’s that CRAZY LADY who tried to kill Teal’c and O’Neill in that first episode with Cassandra! She’s a BAMF but not in a good way! Oh man!
Hammond wants Teal’c to be liaison to the Goa’uld, but he vehemently refuses and Jackson picks up the slack. Yeah, I can definitely foresee some major issues arising here. They also have to store away all weapons, but indeed, he’s reluctant to hand over his staff weapon. He does eventually… begrudgingly. Can’t say I’e ever seen that much resentment in his eyes towards his fellow crewmates before. Hm…
The Goa’uld arrive as expected. None of them are happy about the accommodations, and Cronus and Teal’c have some serious issues with each other. We then find out that Teal’c’s father was once First Prime of Cronus, but he and his family were banished after a battle gone badly. That was when Teal’c vowed to one day be Apophis’ first prime and avenge his father.
Oh. That makes sense.
O’Neill, the System Lords, and Thor all gather, but the colonel inadvertently offends them and they leave.
Oh, and also the Asgard have an even greater enemy than the Goa’uld, where they’re from. That explains why they can’t help Earth much. Fun times. Wonder who these bad guys are.
They reconvene and Yu gives the first demand: Earth can’t advance to the point of being a threat. However, it gets worse:
They also want both Earth Stargates forfeited.
Ho boy.
The Secretary of State announces that they accepted all terms of the treaty… when klaxons blare! Cronus is injured! AND SO IS TEAL’C!! Omigod! Teal’c! What-!? Why-!? How-?!
Oh, wait ten seconds. Right.
Teal’c’s going to be okay, but Cronus is in really bad shape. It gets worse. They have security footage of Teal’c entering Cronus’ quarters just prior to the mishap.
I hate where this is going.
Jackson finally lets it slip about Teal’c’s father and we get an oddly hysterical line from O’Neill:
“Oh, for crying out loud, why doesn’t he tell us these things?!”
Nirrti tries to use a Healing Device on Cronus, but it doesn’t work. Yu and she are really upset now.
Well, there goes the treaty.
Right?
Teal’c wakes up (oh thank goodness you’re okay!) and says that Cronus had requested his presence. When Teal’c got there, he denied it and then they were attacked by some invisible force.
CONSPIRACY?!
Then they remember that Hathor (the creeper) could go invisible. Hm… My eye’s on you, Nirrti.
Carter gets an idea and tries the Healing Device for herself. It… works?!
But Nirrti-?!
They pull a bluff and get Nirrti to, essentially, confess her use of the invisibility phase technology and her attack on Teal’c and Cronus. So not only is she in big trouble, but they’ve helped solve an attempted homicide case.
Man, they make Scully and Mulder look like downright slackers! They solved that fast!
Yu and Cronus agree to spare Earth and let the Tau’ri keep their ‘Gates open since they saved Cronus and revealed Nirrti’s treachery. However, through the ‘Gate and offworld, they’ll be cut no slack. But they’re all alive, and the treaty was even more successful than they thought it would be.
Final thoughts… Confession: I love political thrillers. I love conspiracy and intrigue and “who dunnit” and all those very X-Files-y things. I keep half-expecting a Goa’uld version of the Cigarette Smoking Man to show up. So, needless to say, this episode was right up my alley.
I loved perhaps more than anything the look into the Goa’uld (particularly System Lord) structure and society. By giving them depth and variance they’re made out as a much, much more interesting antagonist. I especially liked Yu. He’s so level-headed and just cool in general. I hope he shows up again. Also, it’ll be interesting to see if Cronus shows once more, especially since Teal’c’s got the whole grudge thing against him.
But what’s up with all these Goa’uld women being seriously off their rockers? Hathor and Nirrti were both pretty conniving, scheming, and all that. Certainly that mentality isn’t true for all the female characters on this show (there have been plenty of fine women) but with these Goa’uld… And we don’t know about Amonet. She might be okay. Who knows.
This is a really minor, kind of stupid thing to be honest, but I’m not that impressed with Thor’s… um… design, shall we say. I find his movements kind of awkward and… yeah. Okay, it’s the late ‘90’s on a TV budget but that’s something I kind of hope will improve. Not that he’s any less of an awesome character. Just something I noticed. Shame on me, being so spoiled with my Star Trek: Enterprise awesome CGI aliens and those neat guys from Falling Skies, among other things!
Overall, really good. I liked how this Goa’uld episode played out a lot better than, say, “Serpent’s Song”. Great stuff here! Nice to see some cool Goa’ulds after that lackluster Seth.
PREDICTION/REFLECTION THINGY
(SG-1 sighs in relief.)
O’Neill: Whew. Disaster averted… again.
Teal’c: We should only be so lucky.
Carter: Hey, this was way more interesting as my first assignment as a Major than I could’ve ever imagined!
Jackson: Ugh, I could’ve gone without it.
O’Neill: From your mouth to God’s ears, Daniel…
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