From Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Stargate SG-1 was underrated when it aired, and today, 17 years after it aired, it remains a niche series even compared to its sci-fi contemporaries. Situated firmly between the fantasy adventure of Star Wars and the futuristic ideals of Star Trek, the series managed to combine the best of both worlds and develop its own winning formula. Few episodes exemplify this as well as “Heroes,” a two-parter that begins as a gimmicky episode about the filming of a documentary and then becomes a tribute to a fallen hero who defies the odds at every turn Defies audience expectations.
Part 1 is fun and games
In “Heroes, Part I” Emmett Bergman (Camp 13 Saul Rubinek) is a documentary filmmaker commissioned by the US government to capture the inner workings of the Stargate program. The result is fun Stargate SG-1 Episode in which the characters we have come to know and love react very differently to the presence of a camera, by Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), who runs and hides, all the way to Teal’c (God of War Christopher Richter), who we know as a noble warrior and clever diplomat, who makes monosyllabic grunts while the camera rolls. On the other hand, Samantha Carter (sanctuary Amanda Tapping excitedly goes into detail about the science behind the stargates before becoming crushed by Emmett’s desire to watch the stargates spin.
In fact, Dr. Janet Fraiser (Teryl Rothery) the only member of the Stargate SG-1 team who responds well to Emmett’s camera and even agrees to have lunch with the documentary filmmaker after the interview. It’s a sweet character moment for someone who may have been a fan favorite but was too often a supporting character in someone else’s story, never a real part of the main cast (Rothery worked without a contract for the first three seasons) and, in retrospect, her extended screen time was a hint that this episode would be different.
Part 2 shows the tragedy of war
“Heroes, Part 2” picks up the aftermath of the Gao’uld ambush at the end of the first episode, which was canceled Frasier and Emmett’s lunch when the good doctor had to respond to a medical emergency. We see a body rolled into the base and covered with a tarp, making it unclear who died, a mystery that isn’t solved until well into the episode when Emmett’s tape is shown, and we see that Dr. Frasier was subsequently killed in action to save another life. The producers of Stargate SG-1 thought season 7 would be the last and wanted to kill off a main character, but in doing so they brought out one of the best Science fiction episodes ever filmed, breathing new life into the franchise as a whole.
Robert Picardo, The Doctor of Star Trek: Voyagermakes his first of many appearances as Woolsey, a character that, like most fans, I initially hated but ended up seeing as a favorite, although he never changed, we simply changed the way we perceive him . Woolsey is called in to find out who is responsible for Dr. Frasier is responsible, but as Emmett’s tape shows, it was she who risked her own life to save another, which ultimately led to her death. Stargate SG-1 was a series about war, and in a war there will be casualties, and the decision to bring about the moment was not a cinematic sacrifice, but simply the act of being in the wrong place at the wrong time out of a desire to do good do. gave the moment more weight than anyone would have expected from a SyFy original.
Stargate SG-1 deserves this moment
When Carter stands up at Frasier’s funeral and praises the good doctor, listing everyone she saved throughout her life, it’s one of the most powerful moments in the entire series. Stargate SG-1 had dealt with the trauma and emotional toll of war on its characters before, but this was a raw moment that brought home audiences to tears. It’s one thing to see the Doctor constantly saving lives in every episode, but quite another to realize that this sense of nobility cost Frasier his life and all the lives that would have been snuffed out without it.
Stargate SG-1 earned the one-two punch of “Heroes” by the most underrated sci-fi writer at the time. It would have been so easy for the show to fall into the goofball cheese of Adventure shows of the timeespecially with MacGuyver himself, Richard Dean Anderson, as part of the cast, and although the series embraces the fun side of the genre, every single character is fleshed out and feels like a whole person by the time the series finale rolls around. Other shows have adopted the documentary style; for example Amanda Tapping’s later series, refugeshot an entire episode from a film crew’s perspective as if it were found footage, but no other series has delivered an emotional punch in the gut with it. Heroes, Part 1 and Part 2 are a well-deserved, near-perfect 90 minutes of everything that’s great about science fiction.
