Redemption, Part One
‘Redemption, Part One’ showcases some nifty plot devices. A hugabye moment for Teal’c with his son Rya’k, a heart wrenching plea from the nauseating Jonas Quinn about wanting to rid the universe of evil, and a corny apparition of a big bad goa’uld. Throw in some inter-stellar flight in an Area-51 doozie, and a grumpy Russian Colonel whinging about the injustice of the week and you have the season six opener. And yet, all this is still not enough to make this a crap episode. What pulls this episode through is the extra dose of wit from character Jack O’Neil, and of course, Teal’c bashing Jonas in the head a few hundred times in the boxing ring.
The following concept occurred to me while watching this episode: When casting Rya’k for his first appearance several years ago they went for a local child actor who could pull it off and look about as much like Christopher Judge as they could get. Unfortunately, he’s not dead yet and so they still have the character and actor making occasional appearances. If Neil Dennis was still 7 and a crap actor I could understand. But by season six he’s about 13 or 14 and still a crap actor and it just grates my cheese. It spoils every scene — you are wrenched from the nice fantasy world to be reminded that it is all in fact a work of fiction. It nice every now and again to be able to believe tv actors. I realize casters make mistakes and once in a while you get a Tara (‘Buffy’) or Rya’k, and to err is human. But honestly, it deflates the whole illusion. Poor boy. Sorry to put this all on you.
A remarkably well-played character, in counterpoint, is that of Dr. McKay (David Hewlett). He suits his purpose perfectly. Here is a character designed to irritate, and if ever I were to throw my popcorn at the screen (figuratively, of course) it would be at that shmuck.
Overall, this episode is not one of the greatest of the series, though there are lots of greats out there. To be fair, it is a two-parter so I have only cooked half the ingredients here (ooh, I’m making up sayings!), but SG-1 will be hard pressed to save this mission from its inevitable disaster.
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