"Undomesticated equines could not drag me away." -- Teal'c
If a show lasts for ten seasons, it must be doing something right. (Now go ahead, refute this, and complain in the comments about all the long-lasting shows that were terrible. haha.). But I adamantly say that SG-1 does a lot of things right, and I am ecstatic that it got a whopping ten season run that I will re-watch and re-watch because it is so entertaining.
The premise of the show is that people from Earth can travel to thousands of other worlds in the galaxy through a device called a stargate. The Americans have a secret facility where they send teams of explorers through the gate to different worlds, and the show focuses on the primary team, SG-1. On their first outing, SG-1 encounters an evil, parasitic race called the Goa'uld and inadvertently riles them up. Stargate Command finds themselves in a full out war with these creatures who want to take over Earth and the rest of the galaxy.
By now you may have noticed that it's great characters that make me love a show, and SG-1 is no exception. Jack O'Neill, the leader of SG-1, is my favourite--possibly my favourite sci-fi character of all time. Richard Dean Anderson somehow manages to act simple-minded and smart at the same time. He is sarcastic, quick-witted, and funny.
The other three main characters are also enjoyable. Teal'c is SG-1's alien team member, and it is great fun watching him adjust to the customs of Earth and seeing how different his reserved personality is from the others'. Daniel Jackson is the heart and moral voice of the team, and Samantha Carter is the brains and beauty. The characters also grow and change throughout the run of the show, and I love watching this happen. The writing never gets stale or old, as new characters are added and different events unfold.
The only negative thing I can say about this show is that there are holes in the logic at times. When I'm watching, sometimes I will say "Why wouldn't they just do this instead?" or "Well, that was pretty coincidental." Occasionally the science just doesn't add up, and occasionally they will solve a problem by having a computer genius talk techno-babble and hammer out the solution on a keyboard. But whatever, it's sci-fi, after all.
Do check out this show if you haven't already, especially if you love space-exploration sci-fi but something like Battlestar Galactica is just too dark for you. SG-1 is quite a bit lighter, though it still has serious undertones. I watched this show the first time with my parents and brother and we all enjoyed SG-1's adventures on earth, on other worlds, in space, (and sometimes even in time!) immensely.
This was officially my most favorite show ever! I've seen every episode at least ten times. We own them on DVD and I run through each season at least once if not twice a year. Stargate: Atlantis was a good spinoff, but they lost me with Stargate: Universe because it was too depressing, repetitive, and featured sorry characters.
ReplyDeleteThey are great to re-watch, aren't they? I really enjoyed Atlantis as well, and considered putting it on my list, but I thought to keep things diverse I wouldn't. I actually liked Universe, but I can see why a lot of Stargate fans wouldn't, because it is so different from the other two.
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