Overall Rating: 5.5
This would certainly not qualify as a POOR episode, but it is pretty "run of the mill" without a lot of intrigue worthy of deeper thought or memorable dialogue, and it commits the sin of convenient resolution (a pet peeve of mine).
Plot Synopsis:
While on a routine survey mission, SG-1 encounters what appear to be an SG team (they've been missing SG-11 for some time now, and O'Neill this is them) in battle with a group of Jaffa. The fight does not appear to be going well for the SGC personnel so after failed attempts to contact the officers and warn them of an impending ambush, the fab four try to intervene in the battle and are shot unconscious by their would-be allies. When they awake, they realize that the weapons being used were non-lethal stun devices called Entars and the teams of Jaffa and human soldiers are engaged in a war game simulation formerly under the tutelage of Apophis' replacement first prime. Their mission - to learn the ways of the Tauri by living as humans and absorbing their culture in preparation for an infiltration of Earth while simultaneously honing their skills as warriors worthy of Apophis' personal guard.
Thinking quickly, O'Neill and the rest of the team pretend to be fellow recruits sent by Apophis. They try to reclaim their weapons, but the boys - thinking they are harmless Entars, have distributed some of them back into the ongoing battle games. When one of the boys is serously injured by a real P-90 assault rifle, the rest take this as a sign that they should upgrade to the real weapons as well and begin the final war game. Only the survivors of the final battle will be chosen as Apophis' new Jaffa.
There's just one problem. Apophis is currently presumed dead and is likely never coming back to reclaim his warriors. OK...there's another problem...the seriously injured boy needs medical attention and refuses to be taken back through the Stargate to Earth, believing that Apophis will return to judge his worthiness and heal him in a sarcophagus. They must trick the lad into going back to the SGC where they can show him footage of his false god dying. Seeing that, after some resistance, the lad is convinced that Apophis is really dead upon viewing the tape, SG-1 decides that the same recording must be broadcast through a camp's Voquum so that it may reach the rest of the boys before they senselessly slaughter each other (and, oh by the way, begin plotting to infiltrate the SGC). Though an intense firefight nearly derails their plan, they are able to broadcast their message and the remaining recruits are convinced to lay down their weapons and return to their planets of origin.
Writing: 4.0
Not only is the script exceedingly dull and lacking in panache from a literary perspective (the writers like to communicate in approachable language, and this is fine, unless every line becomes so tediously routine that you watch the entire episode and remember NOTHING worthy of quoting later), but the plot has no viable ending. What they chose to do defies the illogical nature of the human condition. When a person has dedicated their entire young adult life to a belief system, seeing one tape is not going to make them instantly convert to a new one. I could buy the conversion story for ONE boy...but a pitched battle IN PROGRESS which very nearly kills Carter and O'Neill as they struggle to get the voquum working is not going to be stopped instantly by the tape. They should have at least dealt with the POSSIBILITY that someone might not be convinced and might want to resume the battle. I would have liked this episode MUCH more if, after viewing the tape recording, several of the recruits drew weapons and started killing the ones who laid down their arms or at least each other. Something...anything to recognize the reality that you can't change a person wholesale in FIVE MINUTES let alone a whole battalion of persons. The conclusion betrays the potential of this plot to make a poignant comment on the dangers of our tendency toward being slow to accept when we're wrong and winds up feeling intellectually lazy and rushed.
Acting: 6.5
The mainstays on the cast do nothing to stand out or to look foolish...it's a boring script and it's acting with the same technical proficiency and lack of panache. Nothing to see here. The guest cast is a bit on the weak side, but I'm certainly not in the mood to break down the performances of characters that lack any real relevance.
Message: 6.0
This episode went from communicating one message throughout the first 30 minutes (as mentioned above, it appeared to be making a strong case for the necessity of a flexible mind) to communicating no message at all in the final act. It shoots any potential meaning squarely in the kneecap, leaving it a mindless action plot with a par score on the message front.
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