They really did make a silk purse out of a sow's ear with the (rancorous and divisive) departure of the often temperamental Michael Shanks.
Plot Synopsis:
A well-written synopsis of this episode can be found at the Stargate Wiki. I guess the fans felt that this wiki-link needed extra attention. :)
The Skinny:
I've gone through a number of phases in my growth as a spiritual person. Each was tied to another level of development in my ability to reconcile cognitive dissonance and self-doubt (not to mention my desire for intellectual understanding) with the need for true faith (in things that cannot be completely understood intellectually). When I was a teenager, I thought religion was annoying. Quite literally, I thought church was mindless repetition of scriptures which can't possibly have been entirely divine (a man had to write them down and as a consequence, there are many apparent contradictions within those verses). I think on some level, I thought I was too human...too fallen...to deserve enlightenment beyond the worldly gathering of knowledge. The rules of the more stringent faiths (Catholicism, Judaism, Orthodox Christianity) often seemed outdated and unfair. But a young adulthood lived like that - having no true faith because I thought I saw too many untenable contradictions, and thus being inwardly focused on my own wished - produced an emotionally stunted and depressed college student. I moved from agnostic to firmly deist (believing in intelligent design of the universe, but not in a God who intervened in the physical world) to vaguely Eastern (not quite to the point of buying into reincarnation, but certainly believing that our soul traveled either toward the light or the darkness after death based on whether we continued learning once we'd died. Finally, I came back to Catholicism (after entertaining the prospect of being a conservative Jew by Choice), and that final return was driven by arguments made by C.S. Lewis (and read to me by my sister and co-author here) and a realization that many of the things I least liked about Catholicism in the past made more sense with a little time and perspective.
Some examples:
- Confession (I hated the idea of telling secrets to a priest who would pass judgment on me) now seems like a crucial step in being truly self aware. I sinned in ways I didn't even realize could be damaging to others, but saying those things out loud helped my brain process the problem (I learned this in cognitive therapy).
- Exclusivity (the concept that there is only one way to God) always felt entirely unfair. I knew many outstanding people who were not Catholic - how could I be happy in a faith that condemned my friends to (at best) a very long time in Purgatory? This is a matter of faith - we have to believe that God will save those who lived as Catholics in deed even if they never had the proper exposure to Catholic teachings to make an informed choice. It also requires a deeper understanding of the history of Christianity and the reasons that other faiths are missing something crucial. That all came to me with time spent actually studying the various faiths.
- No women in the priesthood always seemed like a major hurdle. I firmly believe that if someone feels called to a profession, they should be allowed to pursue it. However, I have come to believe that there is nothing particularly sacred about one brand of holy work and that Catholics hold nuns in perhaps even higher regard than they hold priests. (this required some additional exposure to practicing Catholics like my friend Joe and my Grandmother)
Firstly, how do you maintain your moral rudder? If we followed Oma Desala's teachings literally, we would be the sole arbiters of whether we were good or evil. I sincerely doubt that even Adolph Hitler thought that he was evil. No...we need some concrete rules for what things are clearly evil and to be avoided and what things we can do to be good...there needs to be one truth - even if we don't have a perfect understanding of that truth and are thus shooting blindly at a general target and hoping to get as close as we can, we will do better than presuming that Oma is right and that we are the arbiter of what is right and wrong for us.
Secondly, personal acceptance has been the opiate of the educated masses for fifty years now. In our public schools, we teach kids to love themselves first and foremost, and we produce spoiled, intellectually limited, socially incompetent, brittle children who crumble at the first signs of adversity. In our homes, parents have come to believe that disciplining kids routinely will cause them to doubt their instincts, and we've produced two generations of rudderless, selfish kids who go on to fail at the parts of life that require self-discipline and self-sacrifice. The singular focus on accepting your achievements as sufficient and "releasing your burden" sounds wonderfully mystical and empowering but lacks real-world depth...and frankly...it just doesn't work.
Thirdly, Oma is essentially asking Daniel to have faith in the justice of the natural world and in himself...both of which are important...but she's not asking him to have faith in something greater than himself. At least...not really. She's not requiring him to accept unprovable truths (such as the existence of God or the birth, death and resurrection of His Son). This is important to achieving enlightenment even if you don't believe in Jesus Christ as a holy and miraculous messiah. You know why? Because it requires you to abandon your own position as the center of your universe. One of the things I learned along the way to a more mature outlook on life was that I had a tendency to want to be respected and seen as significant to others...this kind of ambition is healthy when directed properly but is also the root of many evils. It's absolutely vital to hone the skill of SUPPLICATION...we all need to humble ourselves before something we can admit is greater than we are. The lack of this in the teachings of Oma Desala is perhaps the most damning thing of all.
Having said all of that (and used this review to finally get my mini-essay on paper regarding spirituality in Stargate SG-1), I will still respond positively to the message in this episode, because it represents a giant step in the right direction for sci-fi as a whole. The existence of an accepted form of spirituality and its use as a major plot point in a number of episodes raises the level of discussion far above the usual for sci-fi fandom, requiring people to think about what they believe and make room for the possibility that not everything can be explained scientifically.
Above all else, though, this episode is a tour de force for the actors and a wonderful albeit temporary) goodbye to a beloved character. Everyone in the core four gets to say their heartfelt goodbyes and we as fans needed that. The episode is at its best when the writers are focused on the emotional impact that these events have on our heroes (including Jonas Quinn, FWIW).
Writing: 9.5
Touching, effective and intelligent dialogue and a stirring plot to introduce a new hero to the cast and say farewell to another.
Acting: 10.0
All of the regulars, especially Shanks, RDA and Amanda Tapping have their moments here and I don't feel that there is a missed beat at any time.
Message: 9.0
Although I don't buy into Oma's way to enlightenment, I nonetheless find this to be a far more poignant and thought provoking way to kill a character than anything you'll see on the other major sci-fi shows, with the possible exception of Deep Space Nine.
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