cast: Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, Christopher Judge, Don S. Davis

Our rating: 4 out of 5

Rated: not rated (content warrants a PG)

reviewed by Charity Bishop
 

When the Asgard, a highly-advanced alien race, show an interest in negotiating with their feared adversaries (and Earth's mortal enemies) the Goa'uld to include Earth under their protection, SG-1 is chosen to oversee the proceedings. As the team member with the most experience with the Asgard, Colonel Jack O'Neill (Anderson) is asked to represent his planet in the negotiations. No stranger to lethal encounters with the system lords, Jack is the commanding officer of an underground military team whose objective is to explore distant worlds through the Stargate, a circular device that generates wormholes to other planets. His talented associates are Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (Shanks), the brainy Samantha Carter (Tapping), and an alien warrior known as Teal'c (Judge).

Having been involved in several recent altercations with the Goa'uld, Earth is in no shape to turn down the negotiations, but the system lords become infuriated when one of them is brutally attacked. A former rivalry with Teal'c makes him a suspect, but there is more to the matter than meets the eye -- and the outcome will impact the future of Earth forever. Picking up where the last season literally left off -- in the hot seat, imprisoned on another world and facing a mortal enemy, season three continues the pattern of previous seasons in establishing friends and allies, revisiting and filling out former plot threads, and continuing to build on the histories of some of television's most beloved characters. It's hard not to become fond of the nuances of Daniel and his endless search to free his wife from the Goa'uld, or to smile each time Jack O'Neill suggests they turn around and go home after arriving on a creepy planet. What surprises me most is how fond I have become of Teal'c, the stern-faced, burly member of the team who speaks in short, focused sentences but has a surprisingly good heart and even an odd sense of humor.

There are many great episodes that deal with a number of unique plots, from an infection that threatens Daniel's sanity and places the Stargate program in peril to a civilization in which children are used to gather information at the cost of their sanity. (The conclusion to this episode is particularly touching.) Familiar faces return for individual episodes (such as a member of the Nox, a highly advanced race of pacifistic creatures) and one formerly unfinished storyline is fully explored. It was nice to see closure not only in that case, but also in resolving the angst surrounding Daniel's wife. I also suspect that "The Crystal Skull" may have largely inspired the plot that later became the most recent Indiana Jones film, as the comparisons between them are profoundly obvious.

Enemies you hoped were dead resurface, along with a host of new characters, and more unraveling of the mythology that shapes its vision of the world. There is rarely any mention of the Christian God, but numerous mentions of false gods and -- in one episode -- Satan. While this theme did not prove offensive to me, it bears further examination. The Goa'uld system lord names are those of the gods of Egyptian mythology -- Hathor, Ra and others, indicating that most of the non-Christian religions on Earth originated from stories of these system lords. The series is wise in not approaching any current religions with similar perspectives but does introduce one lord who professes to be Satan in the episode "Demons." In it, the team discover a medieval, heavily-Catholic community on another planet who are bound in superstition and live in fear of demons harvesting them as hosts. When the team attempt to save them, they are subjected to arcane practices and Teal'c is believed to have arisen from the dead after surviving an attempted drowning.

None of this particularly bothered me, but more sensitive viewers might find it disconcerting (although there is some minor discussion about Christianity and reading scripture among the team). Other than that, there is not much content to be wary of -- as is typical for this kind of series, there are numerous battles, explosions, and instances in which the characters are in peril and/or injured. The Goa'uld employ dangerous devices capable of killing people with the palm of their hand; Sam decimates an enemy with one, and Daniel is nearly killed with another. Alien weapons leave singed marks in adversaries, killing them instantly. Jack and Sam endure a form of torture that renders them unconscious. There are general profanities but no sexual content, although it is implied that believing he is forever trapped on another planet, Jack becomes involved with a local woman, whom he may have left pregnant. (She asks him for a child, and they kiss before the scene fades out.)

It is rare that you will find me enjoying every single episode in a 22 part season, but somehow SG-1 always manages to deliver humor and emotion along with fantastic adventures. It's rare that you figure out the solution to a problem before the team does, but it's fun going along for the ride.