Mark Watches ‘Stargate SG-1’: The Fifth Race

JUST READ THIS BECAUSE THERE’S NO WAY TO SUMMARIZE THIS WITHOUT SPOILING THE ENDING

Thanks to Christopher for commissioning this because I didn’t know I needed this in my life. To stream today’s commission video or to download it using Quicktime Pro, go here. You can otherwise download the file on Dropbox if needed.

• I promise to freak out in a bit, but I wanted to talk about a realization I had about the main characters. None of them are particularly over-the-top and dramatic, which is both distracting and spot-on. Like, some totally fucked up shit happens in this episode, and most of the time, Carter, Teal’c, Hammond, and Daniel barely react to it. It’s distracting because HOW ARE YOU NOT PEELING YOUR FACE OFF IN TERROR, but then I think about how these are all military people. (Well, Teal’c is an alien, but that’s not the point.) My father was trained not to react dramatically, and I imagine these people are the same way. 
• That being said, security procedures and protocol are completely thrown to the wind in “The Fifth Race.” So many times during this episode I was screaming about the fact that this group of people let O’Neill do whatever the fuck he wanted. Why on Earth are you sticking your face into an alien-built receptacle that totally looks like H.R. Giger’s creation? Why are you letting O’Neill wander the base? After he hacks your computer system right in front of you, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LETTING HIM TOUCH ANYTHING AT ALL? Granted, that’s what ultimately saved him, but seriously, it was kind of bizarre that these people didn’t do much of anything to stop O’Neill from possibly sabotaging everything.
• O’Neill really was the best character to inflict with the knowledge of the ancients. He’s the kind of guy who is always vaguely irritated with everything, detached from what’s going on. I really believe that Richard Dean Anderson has nailed down this portrayal of a tough-skinned Colonel in the Army, so it’s both comical and deeply frustrating that he is the one spewing this alien language and dealing with scientific theories he previously had no interest in understanding.
• Lord, this episode really cranks up the tension to a point where I was unsure the writers could resolve all the chaos they’d written into the story. I was wrong. I WAS SO WRONG.
• The reveal that the Asgard race are actually LITTLE GREY PEOPLE is so completely fucking incredible that I almost never want to watch another episode of Stargate because this is the pinnacle of sci-fi perfection. Look, I grew up on The X-Files and was deeply obsessed with UFO culture as a kid, so that first glimpse of the Asgard sent me back to a very specific place in my childhood. The thing is, Stargate posits that there are countless alien races in our solar system, and they’re generally humans in elaborate costumes or freakish parasites. (Granted, I’ve not seen every SG-1 episode before this, so this is a terribly general statement.) Never in a million years did I expect that the show would put the archetypical version of aliens in front of us. Ever.
• Not only that, but the title hints towards a future plot/story line that is just stupendous. Oh my god, the references to the Asgard observing the human race? Everything O’Neill says about the human spirit and our resilience? The creature design? This is, without a doubt, the best episode of this show I’ve seen.
• Bravo, Stargate. BRAVO.

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