While the second season wasn’t bad by any means, it wasn’t as good as the first season. Thankfully, things got back on track in the third season and for the most part remained on track throughout the rest of the series. Season three began with the conclusion of the season two finale, which wasn’t all that interesting. This season opener (“Into the Fire”) likewise wasn’t that good, but on the bright side the story was better in the second part.
After the season opener, there is a string of quality episodes (episodes two through seven) before taking a one show dip (episode eight, “Demons”). Luckily, it picked right back up and continued on strong for the rest of the season. The mid-season two-parter in particular was great with Sokar and his planet made to resemble Hell and the surprise return of SG-1’s best villain, Apophis. We also meet the Asgard “Thor” in this season’s third episode (“Fair Game”), which was a really good episode that had some important developments (treaty with the System Lords, and the promotion to Major for Samantha Carter).
Late in the season is an episode titled “Shades of Grey.” The reception for this one is mixed, but I personally love it. This is the episode where Colonel O’Neill starts acting out and retires from the program, only to join up with Colonel Maybourne’s rogue NID team that’s been out stealing stuff from other planets. It is a fun episode as far as I’m concerned.
The season ends once again with a cliffhanger, and it’s an episode that would be an important one for the next several seasons (and really the franchise as a whole). It’s in this episode, “Nemesis,” that we meet the enemy that has been terrorizing the Asgard… the Replicator’s. These are the nasty replicating mechanical bugs that have been destroying Asgard ships. The Asgard are apparently too smart to know how to kill these bugs, so they need the primitive human’s to help, which is where Colonel O’Neill comes into play. The episode ends with a ship crashing into the Pacific Ocean, and a Replicator survived the crash.
The third season is a strong one, especially when compared to the previous season. This season began the trend of great seasons that didn’t end until the forgettable sixth season (aka “the Jonas season”), but we’ll get to that one in a few days. This season is packed with a lot of good episodes, and while the majority of Stargate fans will already have it in their collections, those who recently came to the series through seeing reruns or even through a streaming service like Amazon Instant shouldn’t hesitate to pick this season up on DVD.
Stargate SG1 Season 3 gets a four out of five: GREAT.
