Stargate SG-1 made a gimmick episode one of the show’s strongest

by Yonatan Klotz
| published 7 seconds ago

Stargate SG-1 It was not so appreciated when it aired, and today, 17 years after it went off the air, it remains a niche series even compared to its science fiction contemporaries. Planted firmly between the fantasy adventure of Star Wars and the futuristic ideals of Star Trek, the series managed to combine the best of both worlds and come up with its own winning formula. Few episodes demonstrate this as well as “Heroes,” a two-parter that begins as a gimmicky episode centered around documentary footage and then becomes a tribute to a fallen hero who defies audience expectations at every turn.

Part 1 is fun and games

In “Heroes, Part I”, Emmett Bergman (Warehouse 13 Sol Rubink) is a documentary maker brought in by the US government to capture the inner workings of the Stargate program. The result is fun Stargate SG-1 An episode of the characters we’ve grown to know and love reacting very differently to the presence of a camera, from Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) running and hiding to Teal’c (of the god of war Christopher Judge), who we know as a noble warrior and shrewd diplomat, producing monosyllabic grunts while the camera rolls. On the other hand, Samantha Carter (the temple Amanda Tapping) excitedly elaborates on the science behind the Stargates before being upset by Emmett’s desire to see it spin.

In fact, the only member of the Stargate SG-1 team who reacts well to Emmett’s camera is Dr. Janet Fraser (Terle Rothery), who even agrees to have lunch with the documentarian after the interview. It’s a cute character moment for someone who might have been a fan favorite but Was too often a supporting character in someone else’s story, never a real part of the main cast (Rothery worked without a contract for the first three seasons) and in retrospect, her increased screen time was A hint that this episode will be different.

Part 2 presents the tragedy of the war

“Heroes, Part 2” takes place following the Gowald ambush at the end of the first episode, which was short Fraser And Emmett’s lunch as the good doctor forced to respond to a medical emergency. We see a body rolled into the base, covered with a tarp, which makes it unclear who died, a mystery not resolved until the end of the episode when Emmett’s tape is shown, and we see Dr. Frasier killed 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 science fiction Episodes that were ever made and ultimately breathed new life into the entire franchise.

Robert Picardo, Ph.D star trek: VoyagerMaking his first appearances as Wolsey, a character that I, like most fans, hated at first but would eventually consider a favorite even though he never changed, we just changed how we perceived him. Woolsey is brought in to find out who is responsible for Dr. Frasier’s death, but as Emmett’s tape shows, she put her life on the line to save another which ultimately led to her death. Stargate SG-1 was a series about war, and in war, there will be casualties, and the decision to make the moment not a cinematic sacrifice but simply an act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time because of the desire to do good added more weight to the moment than anyone expected from a SyFy Original.

Stargate SG-1 earned that moment

When Carter stands up at Frasier’s funeral and pays tribute to the good doctor by listing everyone she’s saved in her lifetime, it’s one of the most powerful moments in the entire series. Stargate SG-1 Her characters have dealt with the trauma and emotional toil of war before, but it was a raw moment that moved the home crowd to tears. It’s one thing to see the doctor constantly saving lives in every episode, but another to recognize that this sense of nobility has cost Frasier her life and all lives that would otherwise have been erased.

Stargate SG-1 Earned the one-two punch of “heroes” through the most underrated science fiction writing of the time. It was so easy for the show to lean on the crap cheese of Adventure shows of the timeEspecially with MacGuyver himself, Richard Dean Anderson, as part of the cast, and while the show does embrace the fun side of the genre, every single character is fleshed out and feels like a whole person by the time the series finale rolls around. Other shows did the documentary style; For example, Amanda Tapping’s late series, receiverMade an entire episode from a camera crew’s point of view as if it were found footage, but no other series has used it to set up an emotional gut punch. “Heroes, Part 1 and Part 2” is a well-earned, near-perfect 90 minutes of everything great in science fiction.