While this episode has a very strong CSI bent, I am reminded more of Beyond 2000. SG-1 encounter prototypes or advanced alien artifacts with potentially revolutionary applications, but when followed up turn out to be flawed and impratical or years away from commercial availability. In this case it’s a memory transfer device, with amazing possibilities as a training aid. Everybody’s keen to get Matrix style downloadable knowledge but aren’t fully aware of how the technology could be misused.

The researchers on Galar are lead by William Atherton who does a great job as the obviously guilty Galaran Emissary. With only four Galarans with names in the episode, and one of those is the murder victim, there isn’t much room for surprises in this murder mystery but thanks to the Emissary’s great job of drawing the attention away from the murderer, the ending remained a surprise. He crossed the line into too-obviously-guilty towards the end of the episode but that was because the plot had to have a twist in it and the murderous off-world leader has been done before. Knowing his innocence while rewatching makes him a sympathetic character; just under pressure to get results for his secret projects and off-world relations.

The focus was on Mitchell’s painful memories. He’s getting better by the episode. He still lacks O’Neill’s confidence in leading but fits into the group now. Each SG-1 member acts independently but now Mitchell has lost his fanboy attitude, he could probably give orders convincingly. This episode is a better attempt to give Mitchell a backstory than ‘Avalon’ While the memory device felt a little contrived, his flashbacks were of a higher quality this time.

Despite being a Mitchell-centric show, Sam, Teal’c and Daniel could have been involved more. The little things like their amusement at Mitchell’s flirting attempts are what Stargate excels at; it’s a pity that the actors’ capabilities aren’t taken advantage of more. SG-1’s trust of Mitchell thankfully allowed them to bypass the question of his guilt, the kind of thing that Buffy might have painfully laboured over in season 7.

Having decided to stay on Galar to find the murderer, the episode became bogged down in the technical details of the memory implantation device. It had been flowing smoothly from demonstration of the device to the party to the murder to the investigation until the machine gave a false positive in its test of guilt. This happened in Divide and Conquer to Sam and Jack when they tested positive for false memories and were accused of being za’tarcs. I appreciate that the guilty scientist was able to hide the traces of the memory implantation from himself and is logical as a plot point but as everyone had already decided that Mitchell was innocent it felt like it was just there to lengthen the episode.

The attempt to explain the device was admirable but led to inconsistencies. The ability to control the patient’s memories was painted as tenuous and requiring finesse yet they had the ability to rewind, pause and magnify memories. Too much CSI influence at this point of the show. It’s also not explained how the scientist wiped his own memories by himself without remembering it.

I’m disappointed with Landry. He’s going soft. He started the season authoritarian but now resembles Hammond’s laissez-faire attitude. “Mitchell’s had a memory implant, been framed for a murder and is now in a self-imposed exile seeking vengence? Very good, carry on.” I was hoping he’d be closer to Major General Bauer than Hammond and not let SG-1 run all over him. The scenes with Dr Lam have lost their tension since he’s reconciled with her.

While I like Stargate’s simpler plots more than Alias continual twisting, especially because they’re deftly written and this steady pace has yielded ten seasons, extra subplots could be put into an episode like this one to make the most use of the whole episode. I don’t think this episode actually had a subplot. If the writers could learn from BSG or Firefly how to develop multiple characters simultaneously, these later seasons could be some of the best.

This entry was posted by the illustrious Andy Cocker on Thursday, February 2nd, 2006. It concerns such pressing issues as Stargate SG-1, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.