Overall Rating: 1.5
Just another "religious fanatics stupidly fight wars while the men of science are our only hope for enlightened rational progress!" episode. If Gate has a persistent ideological weakness, this is it.
Plot Synopsis:
A full summary of this tired plot can be found at the Stargate Wiki.
The Skinny:
SG-1 arrives through the stargate...THROUGH THE STARGATE!...which several locals have actually SEEN OPERATE!...and only one person within a hundred miles of the Gate believes it's even POSSIBLE that the Gate is an interstellar transportation device that brought humans to their nation/ Why has all rationality been suspended? Becuz people hu beleeve in a relijin r stooooopid! It's the scientist who comes to Teal'c's rescue when he is blinded and wishes to present Teal'c as proof of off-world life. It's the scientist who comes to the rescue of SG-1 while the military types grunt on with "Optrican Spies!!" nonsense that would be hard to swallow even if I believed the modern post-"enlightenment" philosophy that religion and science conflict and only dispassionate science can save us from "isms."
Suffice it to say, I've seen this often enough on Gate to have lost my patience with it...the writers here are usually not quite as arrogant...it's only when they do the science vs. religion schtick that I feel like I'm talking to a Hollywood elitist again. If they would have left that topic alone or tackled it in a manner at least approaching fair and balanced...I'd have been more receptive to this episode. That didn't happen (and still hasn't really happened, with the exception of the Stargate Universe episode "Faith" and the Stargate Atlantis episodes "Tao of Rodney" and "Sunday"). This episode also suffers from some seriously lame guest acting and dialogue that is COMPLETELY uninteresting from start to finish. Boring + insulting = FAIL.
Writing: 0.5
Unserious plot concept, boring dialogue, repetition that gets downright annoying (if I heard Optrican spies" or "Optrican lies" one more time, I was going to throw my TV out the window)...what a tasty banquet of SUCK.
Acting: 4.0
The regular cast appeared to kind of phone this one in with the possible exception of RDA's reaction to Daniel nearly dying under torture. They weren't bad...but there was a notable lack of sparkle. The guest stars, particularly Daryl Shuttleworth (Commander Rigar) and Richard Ian Cox (Nyan) were...to put it delicately...amateurish.
Message: 0.0
We get it...you think the only people who question their beliefs are scientists. Coming from a scientist, I find this offensive on oh so many levels. Move along...nothing to see here...unless you enjoy being lied to for 45 minutes.
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