Having purchased season 2, you are no doubt eager to see if the main cast and the planet earth will indeed die in episode 1. I salute your willing suspension of disbelief in dedication to the Stargate program. The TV program I mean.
Episode 1: The Serpent's Lair
The mighty Bra'tac arrives to give SG-1 the edge they need to send Apophis and his Skaar-stealing son crawling back to their home territories. This and the last really are pretty decent action episodes, and this one has a great finish. They escape a giant fireball in death gliders. That sentence alone should sell the episode.
Episode 2: In the Line of Duty
After a fairly disturbing opening scene, where Carter's reward for trying to resuscitate a human alien with CPR is to get a mouth-to-mouth brain snake infestation, Carter is possessed by the Tok'ra Jolinar. Carter's life is ultimately saved by the alien's sacrifice. This is the first indication that not all parasitic brain worms are as evil as they might appear at first glance. An important introduction to the Tok'ra with many repercussions down the line.
Episode 3: Prisoners
A prison episode! The team gets sent up the wormhole after accidentally breaking the laws of a draconian alien civilization. Here they meet a helpful old chemist who helps them escape. They then set her free, because it fails to occur to them to ask what she's there for. It turns out she used to make chemical weapons of mass destruction and unleash them on planets as a former career. Oops. Also, for a prison episode, there was a disappointing lack of homoerotic subtext between team members, trapped in a strange and confusing place. Or was there? I like to imagine Teal'c and Daniel Jackson had some tender moments in between scenes.
Episode 4: The GameKeeper
A classic SF trope episode, featuring Barkley from Star Trek. The team is trapped by VR chairs in the middle of a garden. There an insane AI has trapped real people in the virtual reality he's constructed, and convinced them that it's too unsafe for them to disconnect. I think they've done this exact same episode in Star Trek Voyager and Lexx. Kind of a good episode, a little creepy and a little goofy.
Episode 5: Need
The team is captured after Daniel saves the princess of another world. Except for Daniel, who is rescued by a princess who gives him access to a goa'uld sarcophagus. Little does anyone know, but extended use of goa'uld sarcophagi makes the user kind of crazy and unpleasant. So that doesn't end well. My favorite part is how everyone on the team spends the whole episode toiling away in a mine and hating Daniel, who is quietly going insane on the surface. But hey, at least we know why the Goa'uld have such charming personalities now.
Episode 6: Thor's Chariot
Another great Asgard episode. The team returns to Cimmeria because they broke Thor's Hammer, the magic device that protected Cimmeria from the Goa'uld, and they've since become enslaved by Heru'ur. The team journeys deep into an asgardian temple, where Thor is revealed to be a little grey alien via long-distance holgram. Most notable for the awesome CGI ship they must have dumped most of the episode's budget into revealed in the last few minutes. One of my favorite scenes in the series.
Episode 7: Message in a Bottle
One of the gloriously weird alien machine intelligence episodes. A crazy device pins O'neill to the wall and threatens the entire base. Just a brutal and tense episode. One of the best this season, although there are many good ones here.
Episode 8: Family
What a totally awkward episode. For one: child actors. For another: lots of crying and yelling from child actors. Teal'c's son has been brainwashed, and they all attempt to deprogram him. Has the weird vibe of an after-school show about cults. Ends with this excruciating scene where Teal'c shoots his own kid with a Zat. The solution literally turns out to be: shoot him with a stun gun. Not my favorite episode, just more fall-out from Teal'c's choice.
Episode 9: Secrets
The second act of Daniel's doomed marriage. He returns to Abydos to find his Goa'uld wife pregnant with his enemy's son. So that's a little rough. I think this was about the time they weren't going to make much long-term use of Sha're's character, so they just set her on the downward path. Also features a reporter on Earth threatening to expose the program, which is a topic they return to often, but never to my satisfaction. Ends with the government apparently murdering the reporter by vehicle in order to keep him quiet. This show has a pretty dark view of U.S. politics. But really, can you blame them?
Episode 10: Bane
A good Teal'c episode. Teal'c gets stung and starts turning into a bug man, as happens so often in the Stargate universe. After he escapes the SGC he befriends a precocious child who tends to him while he cocoons himself to complete his transformation. I'm reading that sentence again and realizing this is a very weird episode with some cool bugs.
Episode 11: The Tok'ra (Part 1)
A great episode starting the end to the story arc between Carter and her dad started a few episodes back. The team finally meets the Tok'ra, introducing Carter to her second alien suiter, Martouf/Lantash. Lots of freaky-voiced people standing around in silver outfits though. Although not subtle on the fore-shadowing. Hmm, this alien is dying and needs a host. Hmmm, this human is dying and an alien parasite could cure him. If only there were a way to meet both their needs. Both are doomed I guess.
Episode 12: The Tok'ra (Part 2)
Or are they? I really enjoyed the scene where Carter tells her dad about the stargate and the miracle head-slug cure. They didn't have that kind of moment enough in the series for my taste. The ending you didn't see coming happens on alien planet and Carter's dad becomes part man/part snake. I tease, but these couple of episodes are pretty good. Selmak/Jacob is one of my favorite characters, and his "origin story" is pretty good.
Episode 13: Spirits
The team attempts to bargain with the descendants of native americans (again, roughty 30 within walking distance of the stargate) for mineral rights to a valuable mineral. An odd story about guardian forest spirits who turn out to be weird aliens with fancy technology. I'm not sure what to think of it.
Episode 14: Touchstone
An "earthmen can be bad guys too" episode where the team tracks down a rogue team running illegal missions from the second stargate. Features a very silly island nation whose very comic booky "weather machine" has been stolen by Team X. And, as they've been violating the natural weather with their machine for hundreds of years, the planet unleashes a grudge storm in an attempt to destroy all their simple huts and carefree island barbecues. Warehouses are investigated, shots are fired, nobody gets caught, but hey, at least the islanders get their machine and carefree lifestyle back. I like to think Daniel and Teal'c took a moment to celebrate amidst the dunes, under the moonlight, waves crashing to the shore ....
Episode 15: The Fifth Race
The first official contact with the Asgard! I love everything about Jack talking to the little grey aliens. And the bit where he gets the ancient language upload and starts inserting random ancient words into sentences is played well. Also introduces the concept of 8-gate address for connecting to other galaxies. Great episode.
Episode 16: A Matter of Time
Another one of my favorite episodes of the series. A panicked team dial Earth trying to get away from a black hole. But they're so close to getting sucked in it causes a time to slow down at the Earth's end as well. The fact that the physics if all wrong in this scenario is waved away by the presence of the stargate. A fun episode with some fun time compression aspects about a black hole nearly destroying Earth through the back door. Sneaky bastards.
Episode 17: Holiday
An old man switches bodies with Daniel and won't give it back. Not as much fun as Freaky Friday. Not my favorite.
Episode 18: Serpent's song
The first death of Apophis and the introduction of Sokar. The team captures Apophis, watches him die, and then, under threat of attack via scary Goa'uld hologram, returns him to Sokar who will undoubtedly revive and torture him. So not a feel good episode, but a good episode.
Episode 19: One False Step
One of the last and weirdest classic SF stories of the first 2 seasons. Little strange, mute bald boys in earth-tone unitards running around everywhere. The alien physiology turns out to be interesting but definitely a foray into the weirder, experimental theater side of Stargate.
Episode 20: Show and Tell
A nice and enjoyably weird episode about a boy and his invisible bug mother who arrive to warn of an attack by invisible bug terrorists. Luckily the Tok'ra have some invisible bug-exploding black light weapons to suss them out. Solid all around.
Episode 21: 1969
Probably my favorite episode of the second season, even though it's completely silly. A solar flare sends the team back down the wormhole only to emerge in 1969. I mostly love it for Teal'c dressed as a tie-dyed hippie. Although the time travel stuff is kind of fun too. And I suspect Teal'c and Daniel learned a little something about the summer of love. Which again, they frustratingly leave on the cutting room floor.
Episode 22: Having learned nothing from what I imagine was a well-coordinated and irate letter campaign about season cliffhangers, the season ends with the team once again on the brink of disaster. This time they've been captured by Hathor the seductive snake, who puts on an elaborate charade to convince each member of the team that they've been frozen for 8 decades or so and should therefore casually mention all of Earth's secrets. Disappointingly, due to this setup, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c have no opportunity to exchange lingering glances. The real cliffhanger, as always, is when those two are finally going to admit how they feel about each other. Not this time. Maybe next season.
Time to buy season 3. Yes, these summaries will probably eventually be taken over almost entirely by slash fiction style shipping of Daniel Jackson and Teal'c. Yes, that would be awesome.
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