Sure there are some things here and there, the intro in the pilot definitely looks more SD than HD but overall, it does look more than okay! I almost dare to say it looks better than the first two seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise! Another benefit is that the menu is so much simpler now! On the DVD set you have to go through two or three menus’ before you can start watching an episode, with this set it is one click and the menu is kinda nice too, with a clip show showing us while we select an episode. Besides this, the packaging is wonderfully compact, and the disc are well protected. Here you can see the unboxing blog.

Back in the day, in 1997, for me, Stargate SG-1 wasn’t an immediate hit. I watched it, I liked it, but for me it no way was in the same league as my other favorites of that time: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5. Still, I liked it, but the 1^st season is a bit of a mixed bag, this was no different with Deep Space Nine! Especially with the first bunch of episodes there was some mediocrity. Episodes like “Emancipation” and “The First Commandment” and “Brief Candle”. The season improves halfway through its 1^st season.

While I was watching the first season, I suddenly noticed that the episodes are not all in the correct order, at least, in comparison to the DVD’s. For instance, “The Nox” is episode 7 on the DVD but episode 13 on this Blu-ray set! There are a few more differences (because of this) but in season one the order is not yet that important, so I decided to watch it in the order of the Blu-ray.

The pilot episode “Children of the Gods” follows up the movie, the Stargate is mothballed, O’Neill is retired, Daniel Jackson is, to the world, dead but he actually lives on Abydos. When suddenly the gate gets activivated and the Goa’uld Apophis and his Jaffa slaves come through the Stargate and kill the present military men and take a female soldier with them. Jack O’Neill comes out of retirement and again goes through the Stargate. He has to admit that Daniel is still alive, living on Abydos. A team is formed, among them Samantha Carter, once there, Jack and his team learn that Daniel is married to a beautiful woman called Sha’re but she gets taken by the Jaffa of Apophis, as also Skaara. Our team gets imprisoned, but Jack is able to convince one Jaffa to help them, Teal’c! He goes with them back to earth while Sha’re and Skaara are missing. In the final moments of the episode Kowalski becomes a Goa’uld himself. Note – Fun thing, in the first episode Sam uses “MacGuyver” as a verb!

“The Enemy Within” deals with the Goa’uld inside Kawalski, General Hammond at first denies O’Neill’s request to let Teal’c Join SG-1. But when Teal’c is instrumental in stopping Kawalski from escaping, he can join the team. “Emancipation” is where SG-1 gates to a planet where women are nothing more than property and Sam also has to deal with this. Just a really annoying episode if you ask me. In “The Broca Divide” our team gates to a planet where the population is divided between the touched and the untouched, the touched become like aggressive cavemen and women. Jack and Sam also get infected. First time we meet Dr. Fraiser. This a better episode than the previous two. “The First Commandment” is as I said also a mediocre episode in my opinion and fairly annoying at times. Captain of another SG team is acting and believing that he is a god to a people on the planet they were send out to. Carter had a relationship with him, he needs her to work her magic on a device which makes life above ground possible. Note - William Russ as Captain Jonas Hanson is really annoying, coldblooded. Other familiar guest star: Rogers Cross (Dark Matter, Continuum). “Brief Candle” where SG-1 visits a planet called Argos where people only live a 100 days. It actually was an experiment of a Goa’uld who didn’t want to wait too long to know how humans evolve. Jack gets laid by a hot babe Kynthia (Bobbie Philiips) but pays a price for it, he gets old real fast.

The best episode after the pilot is arguably “Cold Lazerus”! When Jack is injured unintentionally by a crystal alien, the alien duplicates Jack's form and out of fear of retribution tries to heal Jack. He returns to Earth in place of Jack, while Jack is still unconscious on the planet, to find the one thing he feels will accomplish this; the one thing that cannot be found again, Jack’s son. Meanwhile the real Jack returns and is considered a threat! The crystal aliens were attacked by the Goa’uld, they welcomed them and were destroyed, they now feared SG-1 because they look like the Goa’uld. Note - Really like it how Richard Dean Anderson plays this other O’Neill. “Thor’s Hammer” is also a strong episode where SG-1 goes to the planet Cimmeria to find allies against the Goa’uld. Upon arrival Teal’c and Jack are transported to another location, a labyrinth of sorts, which has been created by an alien race to keep in Goa’ulds. We meet the very first Goa’uld called an Unas (voice James Earl Jones). This is a big and scary monster, hard to kill. Daniel Jackson must destroy the device that could someday have saved his wife in order to free his friends.

“Tormant of Tantalus” is one of my favorite season one episodes. We learn that in 1945 the Stargate was activated; Catherine was there but she didn’t know it was activated and that her boyfriend Ernest went through. Daniel and Sam discover the address and decide to get him back, Catherine goes along. Once there, they find Ernest still alive naked! But there is no working DHD, so they have no way back and the building is about to be destroyed. But there is thunder, Sam might know how to use this. With help of Ernest, Daniel finds out that that there were 4 alien races who got together there and that they used the most universal language. “Bloodlines” is another episode which is not an episode I get excited about! We learn that Teal’c has a wife, Drey’auc (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) and a son Rya’c. We also meet Master Bra’tac (Tony Amendola), who was Teal’c’s teacher and mentor. He is 133 years old! It’s about his son who is about to come of age. Although the introduction of Bra’tac is nice, this is not my favorite episode, to be honest I do not really like these Jaffa episodes, same with Star Trek and the Klingon episodes. There are good ones, but most of them are not my cup of tea.

“Fire and Water” is an entertaining episode where SG-1 returns to earth without Daniel! They say he is dead. They are in shock, there is a memorial service for Daniel and his house has been emptied. But the crew more and more believe that he is not dead! They go back, Daniel has been imprisoned by a sea creature who heard Daniel has knowledge of Babylon and the creature wants to know what happened to his wife Omoroca. In “The Nox” Apophis and his Jaffa goons get to kill SG-1! However, The Nox, an alien race who reside on this planet, have special powers, and heal them again. But they do not differentiate, they also heal the killed Jaffa. It looks like the Nox cannot defend themselves, SG-1 keeps telling them, they want to help but finally before they go, the leader of the Nox shows a city in the sky, only to be seen when they want it to be seen. Guest starring: Armin Shimerman (Quark in DS9). Next up: “Hathor”, to be honest, not a favorite of mine either, where a Goa’uld is found in a sarcophagus on Earth, it is Hathor, the wife of Ra. She uses her female prowess, influence the men on the base to do what she wants to be done. Her plan is to rule from Earth by making snake babies. I believe this is a well-liked episode by most SG1 fans, it’s not a favorite of mine, barely average. “Cor-Ai” is another episode which is not high on my favorite list this season. Teal’c stands trial on a planet for killing a father in front of a young boy who is grown-up now and still recognizes him. It was during the time Teal’C was first prime to Apophis.

Singularity is a step up from the previous two episodes, where the Goa’uld use a young girl to attack earth! The girl the only survivor where a fatal bacterial mass-epidemic killed every living thing on the planet. The girl however is carrying the equivalent of a huge bomb and once she has been brought back through the Stargate to Chyenne Mountain, the girl gets ill and when she goes, the damage would be enormous. Note – Great scene when Sam goes with her into the bunker which is many stories deep, but she cannot leave her alone. Goa’uld Nirrti is responsible for this. When Cassandra went away from the Stargate, she no longer posed any threat, she lives with Dr. Fraiser now. “Enigma” is also an interesting story where SG-1 saves a bunch of people called the Tollan, but they aren’t grateful for it. They are way more advanced than us humans, their leader, Omoc, is not a very amicable man but he has his reasons not to want to share technology, he witnessed it firsthand how primitives misused it with disastrous results. Meanwhile Colonel Mayborne has orders to come and bring them to Washington for testing. Hammond and the others don’t agree and try to come up with other solutions, but the Tollan aren’t easy to please. The Nox are able to help them.

“Tin Man” is an okay episode where our heroes get duplicated. But when these duplicates wake up they still think they are the original ones and go back to earth. But soon they feel ill and they have to go back to that planet. Then they learn that they are copies and the original ones are still alive with their own consciousness intact. “Solitudes” is actually a pinnacle episode because here a 2^nd Stargate has been found, as it turns out, Sam and Jack also gated to earth. The 2^nd Stargate will become useful later on. “There But for the Grace of God” definitely is also one of my season one favorite episodes where Daniel suddenly finds himself in an alternate universe after he touches what at first seems like an ordinary mirror but is actually a doorway. There he witnesses the Goa’uld coming to earth with spaceships and ultimately destroying earth. When he gets back to his earth, he tries to warn his friends but they think he is hallucinating. Note – This is actually part one of a 4-part episode, and the finale episode being the first episode of season two!

The next episode, “Politics”, is a clip show! Meaning you get to see fragments of episodes of what happened in earlier episodes of that particular season! Normally I despise these clip show episodes but this one I found interesting enough because senator Kinsey (Ronny Cox) and why he is there. He is determined to close the Stargate program. As said, this is actually a follow-up episode from the previous one. The season finale is the 3^rd part of this 4-part story, “Within the Serpent’s Grasp”, one of the best episodes of the season. The Stargate is mothballed, no more exploring. Daniel has Jack convinced that they must do something, so they go, knowing court martial will be waiting for them at their return, at least for Jack & Sam. They arrive on a ship in orbit of the planet they dialed into. Skaara as Klorel is, because Apophis absence, the leader. Jack tries to save him but fails and with Teal’c, he gets captured. Meanwhile, not only Klorel’s ship, but also Apophis’ ship still is also heading for earth. Note - Zat’ni’ketel, too long for Jack, calls it a zat gun.

Final Word:

It has become another long blog, because I doubt any blog is being read on this website, I decided that it does not care how long it is. Season one is actually a good enough season with only a handful of episodes which where mediocre or worse, and it is only getting better. Really looking forward to the rest of the series, especially watching it on Blu-ray, does the PQ improve in the next few seasons, and I read that this is the case. The longest running US sci-fi show in history, Dr. Who has had a longer run but is of course British and also Dr. Who is not only sci-fi, but it also has many themes in one series. I would rate this season 7/10, can’t wait for season two!

Screencaps taken from: Gateworld