I’ve never been able to get into Stargate SG1 or Atlantis, nothing really caught my attention, i’m more of a Farscape/BSG guy
however, i noticed that Season 5 is going to be featuring Ben “John Crichton” Browder and Claudia “Aeryn Sun” Black, so i may just have to watch it to see if Ben and Claud have that same on-screen chemistry they had in Farscape…
(Now all we need to do is get in Anthony Simcoe, Gigi Edgely, Virginia Hey, Melissa Jaffer, Raelee Hill, and Wayne Pygram as additional regular characters, get Henson to introduce 2 new creatures, “Pilot” and “Rygel”, as alien ambassadors, and we’ll be set)
so, what does a SG-1 Newbie need to know about the backstory so far, i may rent the DVD’s to catch up on the previous seasons if SG-1 hooks me in this time, however, a capsule review would be nice…
i know the Go’auld are the baddies, but what about the “Greys”, how did the SG-1 team get access to interstellar starships, i thought the SG-1 team was at our current tech level…
what’s the story with Tealc, seems to be a pretty cool character, seems to have a “Klingonesque/Luxanesque” warrior code of ethics…
Funny you should mention the new characters. I was actually wondering if this is the season when the show jumps the shark as a result of the new characters.
I actually like Ben Browder and Beau Bridges, but the duo of Browder/Black seems to be pandering to the “Farscape” crowd a bit much.
Throw that in with the loss of a(the!) major character, and the prior season loss of another, and you end up with a big question mark.
If they do it right, they should have a lot of friction between Bridges/SGC, and Browder/SG1, and maybe even some friction between Bridges/Browder. Develop the characters, and all that.
The main bad guys are these lamprey-like creatures that can live inside human bodies and control them. If they have a steady supply of hosts, they can live thousands of years, and most of Earth’s legendary gods (the Egyptian gods in particular, but other mythos as well) were Go’auld who enslaved humans. They also took humans throught the Stargate to many other planets, which is why SG-1 keeps running into humans, who usually are not aware that their forebears are from Earth.
The ‘greys’ are The Asgard, an alien race that is just slightly more technologically advanced than the Go’auld, and opposes them. They try to protect Earth and other worlds from Go’auld conquest, but they can’t really succeed, since they are outnumbered and other menaces keep attacking them. SG-1 has saved the Asgard from destruction almost as many times as the Asgard have saved Earth. Still, Earth would have been reconquered years ago without them.
Teal’c was once First-Prime to Apophis, one of the most powerful of the Go’auld System Lords. He is of the race of Jaffa, genetically engineered by the Go’auld to both serve as their loyal warrior armies and to incubate immature symbiotes. The symbiotes give the Jaffa long life and the ability to heal from seemingly fatal injuries. Teal’c carried his larva for years, but it was killed a season or two ago. He now survives with a drug that simulates its effect on his metabolism.
Oh, and SG-1 got intersteller spaceships in two ways: by allying themselves with advanced cultures (such as the Tok’Ra, a group of symbiotes that value life and freedom, and thus fight against the System Lords) and by stealing them from the bad guys. Samatha Carter can drive (and repair) anything in the cosmos, if you give her 15 seconds to look over the controls.