Posted by Jonathan Klotz | Published
Stargate SG-1 was appreciated as it aired, and today, 17 years after it went off the air, it remains a niche series even compared to its sci-fi contemporaries. Planted firmly between the adventure of Star Wars and the futuristic visions of Star Trek, the series managed to combine the best of both worlds and come up with its own winning formula. There are few episodes that exemplify this, and “Hero,” a double episode that begins as a humorous episode centered around a documentary and then becomes a tribute to a fallen hero that defies audience expectations at every turn.
Part 1 Fun and Games
In “Heroes, Part I,” Emmett Bergman (Warehouse 13 Sul Rubinek) is a documentary filmmaker brought in by the US government to film the inner workings of the Stargate program. The result is fun Stargate SG-1 the cast of characters we’ve grown to know and love react very differently to the presence of the camera, from Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) running and hiding from Teal’c (God of War Christopher Judge), who we know as a noble warrior and shrewd politician, who produces monosyllabic grunts while the camera rolls. On the other hand, Samantha Carter (A holy place Amanda Tapping) happily goes into detail about the science behind the Stargates before she overpowers Emmett’s desire to watch it unfold.
In fact, the only member of the Stargate SG-1 team that responds well to Emmett’s camera is Dr. Janet Fraiser (Teryl Rothery), who even agrees to have lunch with the documentary writer after the interview. It’s a great character moment for someone who may have been a fan favorite but often a supporting character in someone else’s story, never a true part of the main cast (Rothery was working without a contract for the first three seasons) and in retrospect. , her increased screen time was an indication 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 as the good doctor had to respond to a medical emergency. We see a corpse tied to a pedestal, covered with a sheet, making it unclear who died, a mystery that is not solved until the episode where Emmett’s tape is shown, and we see that Dr. Frasier was killed in action after that. to save another life. Manufacturers 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 and ended up breathing new life into the franchise as a whole.
Robert Picardo, The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyagerhe made his first of many appearances as Woolsey, a character that I, like most fans, hated at first but would eventually consider a favorite even though he didn’t change, we just changed the way we looked at him. Woolsey is brought in to find out who is responsible for the death of Dr. Frasier, but as Emmett’s tape shows, it was putting his own life on the line to save another that ultimately led to his death. Stargate SG-1 it was a series about war, and in war, there will be casualties, and the decision to make a moment, not a cinematic sacrifice but just the act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time out of a desire to do good, added more weight to the moment than anyone expected from a SyFy Original.
Stargate SG-1 Got It This Time
When Carter stands up at Frasier’s funeral and congratulates the good doctor for delisting everyone he saved in his lifetime, it’s one of the most powerful moments in the entire series. Stargate SG-1 had dealt with the trauma and emotional toil of war in its characters before, but this was a difficult moment that brought home audiences to tears. It’s one thing to see the doctor keep saving lives every episode, but it’s another to realize that this sense of authority has cost Frasier his life and all the lives that, if it weren’t for him, would have ended.
Stargate SG-1 got the one-two punch of “Heroes” for writing the most underrated sci-fi at the time. It would have been so easy for the show to lean on the goofball cheese of the adventure shows of the time, especially with MacGuyver himself, Richard Dean Anderson, as part of the cast, and while the show embraces the fun side of the genre, every single character gets fleshed out and feels like a whole person by the time the finale ends. the series continues. Some shows took the form of documentaries; for example, Amanda Tapping’s recent series, A holy placedid an entire episode from the film crew’s point of view as if it were found footage, but no other series used it to set up an emotional punch. “Heroes, Part 1 and Part 2” is a well-earned, almost perfect 90 minutes of everything great about sci-fi.
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