This is it for SG-1, save for two movies. After 10 years, the plug was finally pulled on one of the longest running sci-fi television shows. It was a successful 10 years too; after all, SG-1 have over 200 episodes, 10 seasons, two movies, and spawned two spin-offs that combined lasted for seven seasons. If you ask me, the show should still be on the air in some form (lord knows the franchise is better than anything currently airing on SyFy).
The show continued the Ori storyline from the ninth season, and Vala Mal Doran was added to the SG-1 team and became a starring role on the show. This season also introduced Vala’s Ori daughter, Adria (played by the lovely Morena Baccarin) as the main villain (the face of the Ori in a sense). The former Gou’ald System Lord Baal (played to perfection by Cliff Simon) also played a big part in the season, serving as foe and ally to SG-1 throughout the season.
This season has quite a few great episodes, but my personal favorite from the season is the third episode “The Pegasus Project.” This is the episode that guest starred the cast of Atlantis, as SG-1 made a voyage to Atlantis for the first time in hopes of shutting down the Ori’s super gate and for Daniel Jackson to seek information on Merlin (this help comes from Sarah Strange playing the ascended ancient Morgan Le Fey). It’s a great cross-over episode, and frankly I would have liked to have seen more joint-episodes.
The 200th episode of SG-1 aired during the first half of this season (and unfortunately the cancelation of the show was announced soon after its airing), and it was titled “200.” This was nothing more than SG-1 comedy, with the crew spoofing various science fiction and fantasy entities like Star Trek, The Wizard of Oz, Farscape (which is great because it was a great show and more importantly because its stars were Ben Browder and Claudia Black), and other goofy stuff.
One of my favorite episodes of the season is the second-half episode “Bad Guys.” Finally, SG-1 goes through the gate and ends up being in a building from a civilization similar to Earth’s. There, the group is mistaken for anti-government rebels and have to play along, which means taking hostages. While they weren’t really bad guys, and the hostages did come to know this, it was fun to see the team play that role.
The season did have its episodes that while not bad weren’t exactly good either: “Morpheus,” “Uninvited,” “Memento Mori,” “Bounty,” and “Talion.” All the rest of the episodes were at least good.
There was some great stuff here with the Ori arch, including SG-1’s quest to find Merlin’s weapon that destroys ascended beings. It’s just unfortunate that the show was canceled in the second season of this storyline that had so much potential and gave the show a fresh breath. To make matters worse, the storyline wasn’t even wrapped up with this season but was instead finished off in a direct-to-DVD movie. Considering the amount of dread that came with the season nine finale, it’s just too bad that it didn’t get more time.
With all that said, the series finale (“Unending”) was a good and fitting one. The Asgard committed mass suicide, but not before giving the SGC its knowledge and giving Earth beam weapons for its ships and other Asgard technology. The beam weapons are effective at destroying Ori ships, but the crew is forced to activate an Asgard time dilation field surrounding the ship in order to avoid being hit by an Ori beam that would destroy the ship. On the Odyssey, SG-1 gets to live out the rest of their lives, just the five of them. Jackson and Vala even finally get together, but of course in the end they find a way to revert back and escape the beam and make it back home. Only Teal’c remembers what happened over the course of their 50 or so years on the ship. The final show shows the team walking through the gate, going off on another adventure. That’s a fitting end as it shows that the team continued on even though we haven’t gotten to see their adventures (outside of a couple of movies).
Season 10, by unfortunate circumstance, wasn’t quite as good as season nine, but it’s still a great season. Obviously, being the final season, this is definitely one that should be in your collection. The show should be in its 15th season as far as I’m concerned. This remains my favorite TV show of all time, Stargate as a franchise is definitely my favorite sci-fi universe.
Stargate SG-1 Season 10 gets a four out of five: GREAT.
