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On a distant planet a person healed by a Prior falls ill with
a mysterious ailment. Vala is able to heal the man, weakening
the Prior's influence. The disease suddenly begins to spread.
As chaos ensues, Daniel and Vala realise that they have played
right into an Ori trap...
The
Powers That Be
sees Vala pretending to be Qetesh, the sex goddess she masqueraded
as before her symbiote was removed. Jackson tells her that
she has to come clean and admit to the villagers that she
is not really a god if SG-1 are to have any chance
of getting them to stand up to the Ori.
This
episode shows what a versatile actress Claudia Black is. Her
scenes, when she realises the consequences of her selfish
actions, are some of the best to ever appear on Stargate.
This is one character that the writers, and Black, obviously
have a lot of fun with and it's a shame that she is not going
to be a regular member of the cast this season. Greg Anderson
also makes a return in this episode - his character has now
become a Prior for the Ori.
It's
also worth mentioning the music for this episode - in fact
for all of the episodes this season so far. The music score
seems to add so much more to the drama than in previous years.
Landry calls upon Lt. Colonel Carter, who has developed a
potent weapon that Landry is convinced can wipe out the Ori's
forces. After several attempts at peaceful negotiations prove
futile, Carter launches her weapon. Unfortunately, instead
of destroying the force field, the detonation only results
in enlarging it...
Beachhead
sees
the return of Amanda Tapping as Sam Carter. It also, sadly,
sees the departure of Vala - who will be sorely missed.
This
episode also sees Maury Chaykin guest star as the Goa'uld
Nerus - who loves nothing better than feasting. Nerus comes
through the stargate to warn the SGC that the Ori have started
to wipe out the Jaffa on a distant planet. These Jaffa have
decided to not follow the path of the Ori. SG-1 jump into
action to help the Jaffa, only to discover that they are too
late. The best they can hope for is to send a message back
to the Ori that they must stop their inhumane ways and leave
other planets alone. But the message they send doesn't quite
have the desired effect.
This
episode has a rather poor audio commentary. It's not that
the two people on the track aren't interesting, it's just
that for some reason both of them are from the effects department
- so the whole commentary revolves around the special effects.
This is fine, but when there are no effects on screen they
don't really know what to say - which results in a lot of
dead air time.
Another
entertaining episode, which finally sees the SG-1 team back
together.
When the team investigates the death of a Jaffa, they find
evidence suggesting that the former Goa'uld system lord Ba'al
may have had a hand in the slaying. With his presence on Earth
no longer a secret, Ba'al has planted a bomb somewhere in
the United States and threatens to detonate it if pursued...
Ex
Deus Machina sees
the return of lord Ba'al. To be honest, he was never one of
my favourite system lords, but the fact that they set him
up on earth as a potential Richard Branson character is rather
interesting. Garek also makes a return, and it looks as though
he is acting in his own interests again in order to get the
Jaffa council's support.
While
this is an enjoyable episode, the void left behind by Vala
is too big to fill and there just seemed to be something missing
- the chemistry doesn't seem to be cemented yet between Mitchell
and the rest of SG-1. Hopefully this is something that will
change as the series progresses.
SG-1 is eager to meet the legendary warriors of Sodan, but
the team gets ambushed. In the fire fight, Mitchell is separated
from the others. His captors cure his injuries, only to inform
him that because he has shed Sodan blood, he must suffer a
ritual battle to the death...
Babylon
is
a little clichéd, but it works really well. If you
don't work out who Mitchell is going to have to fight within
ten minutes of him being dragged off to the Sodan encampment,
then you probably haven't seen enough sci-fi shows. The story
pays homage to The Last Samarui, which is rather interesting.
There's also a nod to the original Star Trek series.
This
episode also sees Tony Todd (who is better known as Candyman
and numerous roles in the Star Trek franchise) makes
a guest appearance, as does William B Davis (the X-Files
smoking man).
The
audio commentary for this episode is by Peter DeLuise and
Gary Jones. This is by far the most entertaining (not to mention
bizarre) commentary on this collection, although they obviously
say quite a few things that were wiped from the final cut
as there are a few too many pauses - not something you'd expect
from a DeLuise/Jones commentary. In fact they start off explaining
that this will be the last commentary that they will be doing
together. And then, as they are about to explain why, the
soundtrack goes suspiciously quiet. It was amusing to listen
to their ramblings on what style of sports bra Michael Shanks
wears and the numerous (well, three to be exact) names that
Gary Jones's character has been given over the years.
Extras include Inside the Stargate Prop Department (a
15.5 minute featurette that lets us go rummaging in the props
department's archives); SG-1 Directors Series: The Powers
That Be (a 11 minute look behind the episode The Powers
That Be with director Will Waring); audio commentaries
on all four episodes and a photo gallery.
Another
entertaining collection of episodes that illustrate perfectly
why SG-1 is not going to retire any time soon.
Darren
Rea
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