Customer Reviews

Stargate SG-1: The Complete Seventh Season

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Looking back on the seventh season of "Stargate SG-1" it seems clear that the show was caught between the idea that this was the final season and an impulse to retool the series to keep in going into an eighth season. In short, I think if they knew then what they know now they would have done things differently, especially with the question of Richard Dean Anderson's status for season nine. When the new president made Dr. Elizabeth Weir (Jessica Steen) the new civilian head of the Stargate project that had a lot of interesting possibilities, both because of her gender and because she had an extensive background in diplomatic negotiations. But the two-part "Lost City" that ends this season becomes more about stopping Anubis from destroying the Earth than retooling the show and Weir is going to end up on "Stargate: Atlantis" (to be played by Torri Higginson). There is a lot that happens in those last three episodes, when President Hayes (William Devane) takes office and Anubis attacks, with the potential for more all sorts of interesting ramifications, more so than with what happens when the season starts.

That is when Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) returns from being an ascended being, albeit on an alien world without his memory ("Fallen"). This required getting rid of Jonas Quinn (Corin Nemec) to get the old gang back together again, which happens when Anubis download Jonas' memory and the Goa'uld attack Kelowna ("Homecoming"). Wisely, this is not the last appearance of Jonas for the season ("Fallout") as he becomes another one of recurring guest characters that are a major strength of the series. There are several Daniel Jackson stories that make a point of giving the actor interesting things to do, such as "Lifeboat," where his mind becomes a resting place for a bunch of alien minds, "Enemy Mine," which requires Jackson to show diplomatic skills, and big time flashbacks in "Chimera," to before Daniel first saw the Stargate. Overall, Jackson comes running to the rescue more often than any other character during this season (e.g., "Resurrection").

I understand now that Anderson had a reduced workload for Season 7 of "Stargate SG-1," and there are some interesting attempts to make the best of that situation, as when O'Neill is transformed into a teenage boy ("Fragile Balance"). For the most part the main tactic is to make O'Neill a supporting character and let the other characters do the heavy lifting. But when I look over the 21 episodes for the season it becomes clear that Teal'c (Christopher Judge) is primarily a supporting player for the year as well, with "Orpheus" and "Birthright" being the only episodes to really focus on Teal'c. You do have to admit, that nobody on the show milks a stare better than the big fella.

Overall, Season 7 is really Samantha Carter's season and Amanda Tapping has several episodes where she pretty much goes it alone. "Space Race" has her joining an alien pilot for a little intergalactic competition, while "Death Knell" finds Carter being hunted by the supers soldiers of Anubis after an attack on Earth's secret off-world base. In "Grace" Carter literally ends up alone when the Prometheus is attacked and she wakes up to find herself the only one on a ship drifting in deep space. The other characters show up as the angels of her better nature, which is the only way that Sam and Jack are ever going to have an honest conversation. She even has an actual boyfriend for an episode "Chimera," in a concerted effort to get rid of the "black widow" label that has plagued Carter. The unrequited love between Carter and O'Neill is pitch perfect, so just let them keep their unspoken thoughts and give this woman a social life. Of course we have to take this to an extreme and that would be the fantasies of Jay Felger ("Avenger 2.0").

The whole Anubis/Lost City bit ends up being equal parts time to beat another bigger and badder system lord and find a fitting end point for the series that can also work as a transition to the spinoff. In your free time you can speculate as to what they would have done differently knowing that there was going to be an eighth season of "Stargate SG-1," but I have to think there would have been some significant changes that would not have wrapped up things so quickly and conveniently. Besides, having read my Dante I have been patiently waiting for Robert Kinsey (Ronny Cox) to receive his comeuppance, and with everything that was happening in those final episodes that was a notable anticlimax.

The two main tensions in Season 7 are between the need to keep coming up with a bigger threat for SG-1 to face and the desire to keep the characters real. The former is represented by the super soldiers engineered by Anubis ("Evolution, Part 1") and Kinsey becoming Vice President ("Inauguration"), while the latter is at the heart of the two-part "Heroes," when reporter Emmett Bregman (Saul Rubinke) shows up at Cheyenne Mountain to document the Stargate project for some future posterity. The episode underscores the dangers inherent in what Stargate does, an idea which is revitalized by having the off-world focus being on SG-13, led by Colonel Dave Dixon (Adam Baldwin). The subtext for the episode is honoring the unsung heroes of the American military in the real world, and it certainly accomplished that goal and the performances are particularly memorable. Of course, the cast is given ample motivation given the script and the episode's emotional payoff.

While "Stargate SG-1, Season 7" is one of the weaker seasons for the series, it is still a pretty good science fiction show on a par with "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Farscape." The common denominator, of course, is that the best stories are character driven and not just dressed up by computer-generated special effects. Part of the problem at this point is that the characters are so comfortable with each other that pushing them to new levels becomes extremely difficult. But at least with "Heroes," they proved that SG-1 can still make the effort and meet the challenge.

Stargate fans old and new hail Season 7 as the most anticipated season yet. The return of Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) allows for a common nostalgic feeling among the shows viewers. Leaving after Season 5, his replacement Jonas Quinn (Corin Nemec, Season 6) added to the adventure, but left many SG-1 fans calling Season 6 "boring" and "tame". Diehard SG-1 fans acknowledge Season 6 adventures, but look to Season 7 as a new beginning.

On the list of favorites, Season 7 saw the greatest changes and challenges ever to be seen in the SG-1 universe. Seasons 1 and 2 offered adventures leading up to the defeat of Apophis, one of the greatest threats SG-1 ever faced. Season 7 offers a new, long awaited nemesis, Anubis, a dark and very diabolical Gou'ald, whom for his past transgressions, was cast out of the "High Council of System Lords" and into exile. Mid-Season, SG-1 has been given hints toward the evils Anubis has been cooking up while in his exile. These evils are confirmed at the end of the season, which allow for SG-1 fans old and new to enjoy some well deserved butt kicking, which hasn't been seen for several seasons, but also allow for the writers to set a platform for Season 8 and new franchise, SG-Atlantis. Also, season 7 sees the promotion of General Hammond (Don S. Davis) and then end of Dr. Janet Frasier (Teryl Rothery).

Overall, Season 7 is plentiful in story, and if you missed an episode on Sci-Fi, you missed too much. Attention to detail on-screen and in story is phenomenal, and I would recommend to any new SG-1 fans to purchase this season and enjoy! And of course to old SG-1 Fans, if you skipped Season 6, don't worry; you can get right back on track with Season 7 and the return Michael Shanks.

Thanks for reading. Hope this helps in your decision to buy!

I have tried purchasing this DVD set through many retailers including Best Buy, Borders, Amazon and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAS THE SAME DEFECT W/ THE LAST EPISODE. How can everyone still be selling this if it has a widespread defect across many major retailers?? Why isn't something being done about this?

Very disappointed that the set contained defective DVD's. Otherwise, I really liked them. I returned the set two weeks ago and still do not have a refund.

Have gotten two copies of this set and both disc fives had flaws that made most of the disc unreadable for my DVD player. Contacted Sony for replacement.

I purchased the boxed set through Amazon, and disc 5 of of the set would only play 2 episodes. When I returned the set, I did get my money back, so I thought I'd pay a little extra, and go buy the set @ Best Buy. A huge collosal mistake. I exchanged 2 different sets of season 7, and it was because they had the same problems with disc 5 that the first set had. Before I left the store, I had the Geek Squad people check out the disc, and they had the same problems I did. Rather than refund my money, I got the in store credit, and life goes on. However, for any amazon shopper, if it is a manufacturing problem, make sure you can get your money back, because Best Buy won't refund, even when they open the DVD set. As to the season, a great buy if all your discs work.

MGM is having major quality control issues...My 5th disc is bad and only plays corrupted, pixelated garbage. I returned this set for another and it had the same issue. An electronics store employee I know said he has seen this a lot lately. Apparently, a bad batch is out there....I'd wait until this has been cleared up to purchase this otherwise great DVD set.

This seemed to be the year of a bit more "reality" to the series and more personal character development as noted by many other reviewers. Many reviews are split between "I want shoot em up action" and the ones who wish to get a total view of the characters and the storyline as a whole

Reality says for over 7 years, this has been a secret from the world, (which is a stretch) and we touched the surface as far as the interactions of Politics, with the President being a person being on the other end of the red phone. With the addition of William Devane to counter Ronny Cox, this series has added two excellent accomplished actors and a more defined storyline in which the previous seasons only touched the surface.

"Heroes" is one of my all time favorites. While the death of Dr. Frasier saddened me (one of my favorite characters), how long can this series go on with its endless battles and no major character dies? The change in General Hammond in "Lost City" I liked, since in the real world few commanders stay on their command that long. He also is a favorite character, and his new "job" I think broadens his influence and inserts him into a more active roll.

"Lost City" is very close to being a favorite Sci Fi Episode of any series. The special effects that we take for granted on a Televison show exceeds that of many movies, the the acceleration in the action and the battle scenes is spectacular. I watched it twice in one day!

Great series such as the Star Trek shows, ("Deep Space Nine", Voyager") and Roddenberry's "Andromeda" excelled at mixing character development with true Sci Fi action and marked the success of those series, and it is true here. While I wish to see more of Richard Dean Anderson, I welcome the focus on others as well. Its true that this was the year for Colonel Carter, and I just hope they keep a mix of action as well.

Overall, I rate this as 5 star, with "Heroes" and "Lost City" being some of the best episodes ever in this genre. How can they top these? I hope they do! looking forward to Season 8 on DVD.

I think there is sufficient commentary on the quality of the episodes in this series. I don't need to add to any of that. Rather, I want to comment on the difficulties several have had with respect to a defect in the fifth disk in the set. I too received a bad set. The last episode on disk 5 failed to play. I had been hesitating buying the set because of previous postings, but when it was "re-released" at a much lower price, I figured the issue was resolved. Well, I was wrong. That's the bad news.

Now for the good news. As soon as I discovered the problem, I went to the Amazon customer service page and reported the problem. I indicated the disk was bad (defective), and Amazon immediately provided postage-paid labels to send back the faulty disks. Prior to my mailing back the set, I received an email saying they were sending a new set. Three days later, I had the new set, AND EVERYTHING WORKED!!!

So the disparaging comments against Amazon w.r.t. this issue are patently unfair. Their customer service department bent over backwards to resolve the problem quickly, and they succeeded. The problem, apparently, was with Sony Entertainment. I feel for the people who had multiple bad experiences in the past, but Amazon was not at fault.

Seasons One through Five were remarkably uniform, each season introducing new characters and developing storylines, but not really bringing about much in the way of major changes. Season Six was different because of the single-season departure of Michael Shanks. But Season Seven is the season where things were, as Elvis would say, all shook up.

For many fans the most painful moment in the season was the shocking and unanticipated death of Dr. Janet Fraiser, played by Teryl Rothery. Along with Tony Amendola (Master Bra'tac) and Carmen Argenziano (Jacob Carter/Selmak), Rothery was the most important non-opening credits actor in the entire run of the show, appearing prominently in several dozen episodes. She has been an extraordinarily busy actress, showing up on virtually every show ever made in Vancouver (off the top of my head I remember her in episodes of DEAD LIKE ME, THE X-FILES, and SMALLVILLE), but the show she is most closely identified with is STARGATE SG-1. Her death outraged and disturbed a host of fans. The most I can say about her death is that it helped correct one of the great shortcomings of STARGATE: how safe the characters all were. One of the things that BUFFY brought to genre television was the practice of making the world unsafe for characters. The moment when Angelus breaks Jenny Calendar's neck was one of the most shocking scenes I had ever seen. Until then, all major characters on all shows were more or less protected and safe. There over a dozen major deaths in BUFFY and ANGEL, and many fantasy and Sci-fi shows followed its example. Shows are simply more compelling when there is a real threat that major characters will die, and the very best shows are not afraid to have a body count (witness Season Two of VERONICA MARS).

The death of Dr. Fraiser was hardly the only change. Michael Shanks's Daniel Jackson returned to the show, necessitating the departure of Corin Nemec. Plot wise, we witness a major change as General Hammond is relieved of his command of SGC (though he has never quite left the series entirely). Don Davis's departure is understandable. In fact, as the series headed into its 8th season it was remarkable that so few major characters had left the show. Filming a series is a grueling affair and it is astonishing that so few performers had burned out. Michael Shanks left for one year but returned. Don Davis left as a full time performer. And Richard Dean Anderson would start reducing his involvement in the show. In this way, Season Seven can be seen as part of a trend that has continued.

Personally, I think the changes have been great for the show. Though it never quite started to feel stale, there had been a bit of sameness to the show that didn't help make it as good as it could be. Compared to some of the very best shows on TV (BUFFY, FARSCAPE, LOST, ANGEL, 24, or even SMALLVILLE) STARGATE had far less character and narrative development. But Season Seven started changing that.

The season ended with some major narrative changes as well. The alliance between the SGC and the Tok'ra became strained and threatened to collapse. And after multiple hints through the season that there was a great city of the Ancients that contained technology that would help them defend earth, it was discovered that this city was none other than Atlantis, leading not just to a thrilling season finale but to a spin off series.

All in all, this was yet another strong season in one of the most consistently excellent Sci-fi series we have seen, and certainly the longest lived.