Serpent's Song

This is Stargate SG1 For the First Time! From the creators of Babylon 5 For the First Time, Jeff Akin is watching this iconic show for the first time while Brent Allen, who has seen it at least 47 times, is watching for the first time for those sci-fi messages that hold a mirror up to society or show us how to be better human beings.

Serpent's Song - Season 2, Episode 18

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Transcript

SG1_218 Serpents Song

[0:00] Music.

[0:15] Welcome to Stargate SG-1 for the first time still, not a Star Trek podcast.
My name is Jeff Akin and I'm watching Stargate SG-1 for the first time.
And I'm Brent Allen and I'm watching Stargate SG-1 for the 47th time.
But for the first time, I'm going through this series looking for what Stargate is trying to teach us. That's right.
I am looking for those sci-fi messages. messages, those messages that sci-fi is uniquely positioned to tackle messages that hold up a mirror to society, things that give us hope that things can be better in the future, or even just teach us how to be better human beings to one.
We're gonna see if any of that shows up in this week's episode, we're watching serpents song in the last episode.
When you told me that was the name of the episode, I guessed that Apophis is gonna be in this one.

[1:06] It says serpent and that tends to bend the pattern glad you picked up on that right and there's going to be some sort of like a siren song that's going to beckon to sg1 let's see if that's what happens in this episode but before we watch that brent why don't you tell me about this one well today's episode is the 18th episode of season two or is it the 18th episode of season two, entitled serpent song the original air date was january 6 1999 for anyone keeping track that is one week prior to last week's episode last week being holiday that we did uh it's basically more chicanery with the viewing order jeff that absolutely does not matter watch them in any order you want very few of these episodes especially this early in the show really matter which order you watch them in i love it when it doesn't matter does really not matter uh so i I don't know why they go from one order to the other.
Anyway, there are two people of note I would like to point out in this episode.
Before we get going, you're going to see neither on screen, unfortunately.
The first one is our writer. The writer for today's episode is none other than our good friend, Catherine Powers.
Oh, here we go. Here we go. She's back. This is Code of Honor lady, Emancipation.
She brought us such hits, Jeff, as Fire and Water.

[2:25] Thor's Hammer. gemmer she did bring us thor's hammer and thor's chariot she did both of those she also brought us enigma the very cool episode enigma where we were introduced to the tolan yeah uh as she did brief candle which we liked quite a bit more that's where jack got old really fast so here's the question are we gonna like this one or not well we'll find out we'll find out here in just a few moments but this is katherine powers this is her final entry in for season two uh the other one i want to direct is a newcomer to the stargate franchise this one is directed by a guy named peter delouise does that name ring a bell to you jeff like dom delouise this is his son really he is the brother of david and and uh i have david and david delouise in the notes over here dom david david and peter ddp i forget who it is anyway uh there's all three of them uh all three Three will make, all three of the Deluise brothers, Peter included, will make appearances throughout the course of the show.
It kind of becomes a family thing a little bit. I'll point them out to you when they appear.

[3:31] But like I said, this is the first episode he is involved with.
He's directed a few other things. He is going to go on to direct 57, Jeff, 57 episodes of SG-1.
Oh, my God. Which is more than any other director through the entire franchise.
Franchise add in Atlantis and universe.
He's going to helm a grand total of 78 episodes.

[3:51] Throughout the course wow as you may have guessed he will eventually join the production full-time in season four as a creative consultant which is going to put him in the writing room he will eventually go on to pin 20 episodes of stargate along with directing 78 episodes of stargate uh i did not look to see if he ever wrote and directed a single episode if any of those are crossover i do not know he might he might not have i bet our fantastic audience out there would be be like yes he did it with these over here um let's see here what else um oh he also in season seven gets elevated from creative consultant to producer and by season eight he becomes a supervising producer i don't know how that's exactly different from a go runner or an executive producer but his title there will be supervising producer as early as season eight here in sg1 so he's going to be around pretty uh heavily involved guy in the creation of the stargate you stargate stuff i would say stargate universe but that's more than just the one show uh he's very involved very very involved like i said we will see him uh from time to time i don't even do we see him more than once i don't know we'll i promise you we'll catch him uh which by the way it's that's not something unique to him we see most of the brad wright and robert c cooper and dan shay is Sergeant Seiler, who's the, uh, he's the stunt coordinator for the show.

[5:17] Martin Woods around, like we'll, we'll see these guys. They make cameos all the time. It's just part of the fun of Stargate. That's cool.

[5:23] Anyway, with that, Jeff, uh, I have nothing else to tell you about this episode.
So it's time to do the thing where we go watch the episode.
If you guys are joining us for the very first time, welcome to the show.
Here's how this works. Jeff and I are going to go watch this episode right now.
And by go, I mean, we're actually going to sit right here and we're going to press a a few buttons and it's going to pop up like right down here, uh, kind of in between us a little bit.
So for our audience folks out there, our audio folks out there, Hey, head over to youtube.com and you can catch our reactions to this episode live. As they happen.
If you want to join the full unedited folks, uh, well, if you want to join the folks who get the full unedited version, Heather head over to our Our Patreon page, the most updated link is down in the notes below.
And you guys can check that out for a low, low fee.
Because if you are an audio listener, you're amazing and we love that you're listening to this, but you're about to gate into the future.
You're gonna skip over the reaction altogether.
You're gonna hear my, for the first time reaction when we come back and Brent's gonna share any of the sci-fi messages that he might've found in this one, Brent, let's listen to the serpent song.

[6:36] Music.

[6:53] All right jeff so we have just watched serpent's song welcome back to all of our audio listeners who have just gated right here into the future we finally caught up with you jeff take us through it how was your first time watching experience of serpent song just a few minutes into this one i was like is this the gold ducatification of apophis ah yeah like this This is where we get more insight into him. Maybe he's not such a bad guy after all.
Not really the case. This is a lot more complex version, though, than Gold Ducat. Gold Ducat was just a dude who had a lot of stuff going on.
This is two dudes with a lot of stuff going on.
So the cool thing, one of the cool things in this episode is we got to meet Apophis' host.

[7:40] Yeah. That's kind of cool. So he was a scribe, a scribe way back in ancient Egypt, and just seemed like a guy.
The i don't know i don't know the actor's name for apophis i've never really paid attention before peter williams peter williams yes great job the tone of his voice the way he kind of carried his shoulders changed a little bit you could tell when he was being host and when he was being apophis but even as apophis as things went down and it continued he got more vulnerable and like at the very end you know one of the last things he said is i'm i'm afraid and i believed that you know just the the acting really really brought this thing home so we met i got the concept of this guy named sokar ancient gould powerful gould that at some point he was like the ruler of all the system lords and apparently now he's back and he's going after apophis and the same time we got to see martufa is that his name martufa martuf martuf yeah just martus martuf again or shade hater if you're a hundred fan but we got to see the tokrah and martouf again brent i am staking the claim right now that the tokrah are working with sokar martouf just knows way too much and is way too confident about what his next moves are going to be with the equipment that he has and everything he was way way invested.

[9:06] In getting them to send apophis through the gate back to sokar can i poke poke a hole in that.

[9:12] Okay. I'm not saying you're wrong.

[9:15] Lots of times though. They have told us they have operatives out there.
They have their secret people out there. They have their people out there collecting information. They've told us that multiple times.
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong.
Also, they do have lots of spies out there that give them all sorts of information.
But to me, it's not so much, it's not just that they have all that information. It was.

[9:38] Urgency they had hey stokart wants this thing and you better give him this thing better give it to now yeah yeah yeah like i said i'm not saying you're wrong i'm just you know throwing throwing stuff out that's all that's just throwing it out i like i liked the additional dimensions to apophis in this i liked that he's not just bad guy anymore he's still a bad guy but like he's got a little little more humanity to him now a little more a little more sympathy not like in the sense of like oh maybe he's kind of a good guy but in the sense of like there's a human there a tauri there that is suffering in this unending nightmare yeah i loved tilk tilk takes it away for me in this episode just his posture his voice everything he's just like i have waited so long for this.

[10:26] And i am going to enjoy every second of his suffering can i can i i'm sorry i'm sorry just while you're talking about tilk can i can i just dive into something i said this to you while we were going through the recording but the audio folks didn't get to hear me say this there's that moment at the end when apophis has died and tilt comes into the room he was not there to see the death he was not he comes into the room and he's like oh it's oh oh there he is and then the next shot we get is teal carrying apophis's shrouded body and throwing him through the through the gate and i said when i saw that i was like i actually get teal cure i really get teal care My biological father and I, uh, unfortunately I didn't know him very well growing up. He was never a huge part of my life.
Uh, not for lack of want on my part.
He just chose not to be there. Yeah.
He did try to come back into my life a little bit when I was an adult and, you know, it just never, never really worked.
And then, and I tried, I tried reaching out. I tried those things.
And my dad, unfortunately, uh, he just wasn't a great dude. I hate to say it just wasn't a great dude that literally the last two words he ever spoke to me were F you.
Yeah. He told me that that's, uh, but I remember when he passed away, I was in key west.
I was on spring break with some college buddies.
When he passed away and i got a phone call saying you need to come up here because.

[11:52] Literally i am the only one who can like sign paperwork and stuff for him like if i didn't go you know so i was like okay and i remember i got up there and i was i was outside of his you know he was he was in full-on heart failure full-on hospice like he was done and uh i was standing outside i was talking on the phone to my mom i was like you know he's he's just stubborn enough he's enough of a jerk maybe he's just gonna pull through you know and they came out like actually he just passed oh like i wasn't in the room when it happened right and i remember walking in and just kind of there he was and i was like like i i kind of saw something in teal's eyes there that it was like it just seemed very familiar you know and and i remember on the back side of it feeling like i had a responsibility to finish him to to, feed that piece through whatever even though i had no responsibility like by all rights like you know what f him right yeah but it was still like it's the responsibility of a son i think to, to put put the the the period at the end of the sentence and move on and so to see teal can this moment where he was the one carrying so car it's not that he was carrying uh the frail past body of Apophis.
Not because he was the strongest or he was the only one who could carry him.
It was right and proper that Teal'c be the one.

[13:22] To to send him on and in many ways like apophis was his not good dad yeah i don't know i just it kind of struck me in that moment in a way it's never really struck me before of like, i kind of think it i where teal is coming from like he feels a responsibility to be the one to do that not even necessarily there's a whole lot of pleasure in it it just it's a responsibility, it's a responsibility it there is a bit of catharsis in it i think that's just my story That's me interpreting Brent's own life onto a piece of art.
So I think for you, you know, you can say your dad wasn't a good dude and I didn't know him.
I only know what you've shared with him, but I know there had to be some good in him because you came from him.
Oh, there you go. That said, though, he didn't give you much more during your life.
That bit of life, though, was enough to give you that.
I need to carry this out. Sure. With Tilk and Apophis, Apophis kind of gave him life also, made him a Jaffa, made him the first prime.
And so much of who Tilk is, is a direct result of Apophis and decisions that Apophis made.
So to see him dead, one, is something to celebrate for Tilk.
I have wanted this for so very long.
Also, I have a responsibility here because I exist because of you.

[14:45] And in, in a weird way at that moment, it's not really a celebration, but the truth is in the moment itself, it's, it's very somber.
I was gonna say it really is Martouf in this talks about all the, all the crimes Apophis is guilty of all the, the, the atrocities that he's committed. Sure.
And he says he cannot escape punishment for this.
And it's almost that where Tilk has wanted the death of Apophis for so very long.
He's wanted to punish him for everything he's done. Now he's punished.
He's dead. head he's a shell sitting there just a just a body nothing else and he's like wow this really doesn't do it the punishment actually didn't make anything better and I still kind of have this hole in me I need like I said need some catharsis so I'm going to put him through the gate and feed him to socar but this is this did not give me what I was hoping to get turns out you know what that is not a message I think this show is going for but I absolutely think that that is contained within that moment right there i think so but you have to you have to really read through the lines to catch all that anyway go ahead jeff i i interrupted you oh now i feel i have a couple other thoughts i just feel they feel empty after this big conversation but but the one the one that i that i will the two things that i'll hit and then we'll dive into those sci-fi messages.

[16:08] One was that we we learned a little bit more about joel and r in this that i think is important and And that was, Jolinar was executed specifically with this device that was then used on Apophis that really causes like this hyper aging thing to happen.
And it's an excruciating way to die. So note.
Also a note on Catherine Powers. Okay. This is a good episode.
It had a lot in it and I, and I enjoyed watching it.
She's had a number of those episodes, Brief Candle, the Thor's, the Thor's episodes.
They're like, these are, these are good episodes. episodes, but just like the Thor's ones, geez, like.

[16:47] Is she capable of writing an episode that doesn't feel like you're walking through molasses running uphill in the winter time?
At some point, I'm just like, this episode's got to be almost done.
And I looked at the little runner. It wasn't even halfway there.
And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
The pace picked up a little bit, like in the middle of the last quarter.
But just, I found myself getting bored more than once during this one.
I hope you didn't find yourself getting bored, Because there was some stuff I think to dive into in this one intentional or not.
What were the sci-fi messages you pulled out of this? Oh, gosh, Jeff. I mean, there were so many that they went into.
And, you know, a lot of times we talk about the intentionality of the message.

[17:30] I think they were all here. You know, one of the things we often talk about here in Stargate specifically is this idea that they introduce a concept and then they don't do anything with it.
They just go on. They don't discuss it. this is probably about one of the better discussions of a topic that we ever got and i'm not even really sure how well it was discussed but there's a great conversation i think between jack and apophis that really sums the whole thing up where apophis is asking for a new host that's the price for all this stuff that everybody wants because there's this debate of what do we do with him what do we do with him should we have shot him should we just kill him you know does he have rights as an enemy who is who has been captured does he fall under the geneva convention jeff right yeah and what is the purpose of the whole geneva convention how do we treat humans how do we treat people what of the host do we have to consider the host in this whole thing we saw the host we heard from the host we saw papa saying i am i am scared i'm afraid Yeah.
And, and he gets this whole, whole spot and his, his whole thing is I'll do all this stuff you want because turns out to the Gould, all that really matters is to live, not to live with quality.
They just want to live, which I think might inform a lot with them when you think of them as slave masters and that sort of stuff.
And, and as hosts, uh, as parasites using hosts, well, at least she's alive.

[18:58] Cause that's what really matters. But it's this, he says, is a single human life worth so much that you would risk the entire world?

[19:06] And jack says yes that's why they call us the good guys yeah it's so good such a great line.

[19:13] And you know so i think it goes back to that so what is what do we do with our enemies what do we do i think the easy the two easy ones that always come to my mind these are the easy ones to go to there's hitler from history and then within our own lifetime osama bin laden you know those are the two that my mind immediately go to but you can go throughout all human history and and find some big evil, you know, archetype guy who is just worst of the worst. What do you do with them when you catch them? Yeah.
Do you still treat them with any kind of respect? Do you give them medical care?
How far, you know, on some level they were giving him medical care so that they could keep him alive to talk to him. Okay.
But were they, but Dr. Frazier's like actively trying to save his life as well.
This is a sentient being right here. I need to, I'm a doctor. I'm going to protect it.
And listen, we could talk about it being for the host and trying to do it for the host.
The host didn't even factor into the thing until halfway through the whole deal or maybe even a little bit more.
They were trying to save Apophis, not the host, at least at first.
There was a concern for Apophis, even in the middle of that, though, that he wasn't tortured. They offered him morphine comfort.
They didn't have to give him morphine. that was not required to keep him alive or maybe I don't know can you pass out and die from pain I guess I don't know yeah suppose.

[20:40] But still there was there were they would not let certain things happen they weren't going to just toss his body back through the gate and let Sokar have his way you know they were very against that for their own personal reasons but also for humane reasons that's when they really brought in the the host martuf jack ilk all of these people even daniel were constantly questioning whether or not apophis just deserves whatever he gets it was a constant question that they discussed that they never gave us a direct answer and i'm not mad at that because lots of good sci-fi doesn't give you a direct answer they present the question they discuss it They show it to you from both sides and then they say, here you go, make a decision.

[21:22] Jack, though, specifically is our stand in more often than not.
He is the stand in for the viewer.
OK, explain this really hard concept to me like I'm eight years old for all the viewing audience out there because they don't get it either. Right, right.
He seems split at times. And I think the answer is, is because we are supposed to be split on something like that.
Yes, there is a humanity. humanity yes we do not want to torture yes we do not want to want to uh we want to be better than our enemies are to us at the same time they're absolutely deserving of everything they get yeah by the by the choices they made they gave up their their rights to comfort and to uh they gave up their did they give up their human rights that's the question maybe maybe not not.
You know, I do think Jack typically was on the side of screw you, dude.
I'm not doing anything for you, but still there were times where it felt like he was kind of waffling both way to be a decent human, but to recognize, no, this is actually a really bad guy.
And here's what we get to do with really bad guys.
I, he's like, I just should have shot him. And he's right. It would have made it so much easier to shot him, be done with it.
Uh, and I think he would have been well within his, his, uh.

[22:38] His rights to do so, you know, talk about a clear and present danger.
Uh, with that said, Jeff, I, I really thought it was there. I think it's a fin, a fascinating discussion.
What do you do with an enemy combatant, an enemy general, when you capture them, who has truly been an awful, awful human being committed so many war crimes, what do you do with them?
How do you handle them? uh jeff i'm gonna give this one five out of seven chevrons wow because i think i because it it hit the message it discussed it it went back and forth didn't really answer it is there more they could have done yeah i do i think there's a lot more they could have done they could have had a lot more of the moral dilemma the moral conversation but they just allowed the characters to be in the moral dilemma without really like discussing it a whole lot which was okay i'm not i'm not knocking But yeah, I'm gonna give this one a, a five out of seven.
That is my, uh, completely accurate and random number that I pulled accurate, immutable, made up number.
I, I love that because, because what it does is like right now, based on everything that it showed in that episode, you and I could debate.

[23:48] What's the right thing to do? Like it, it, it lays the groundwork for that conversation.
It doesn't tell you, it doesn't force anything down it, but it opens the door.
A question up and it makes it, makes it very easy for, for two people or a group of people to have a conversation about it.
I think that's, that's the thing that sci-fi does better than almost any other art form.
And, and especially when we, when we start, when we not only recognize that there was still a host, but suddenly the host emerged and we started hearing the host.
Who's been under the spell for how many thousands of years at this point so long you gotta i mean you've got to feel for that host it's at this point like you know just put the it should we just put the host out of his misery at this point is it mercy now yeah well he goes i've been i've been in a nightmare for so long i'm waking up just to die like that sucks also i want to see my wife and my kid like it's been thousands of years and that's all i want that was a cool thing i think also that the host only wanted that also all apophis wanted was was uh was charlie was out.

[24:56] Eminets eminets that's that's kind of sweet that's romantic you know and i mean and it's yeah it's powerful stuff so five out of seven is what i'm gonna uh randomly give it jeff i I rated the episode.
You, my friend, get to rank the episode.
Now, this is 100% accurate, immutable, definitive.
Our ranking of season two, actually Jeff's ranking of season two, Stargate SG1.
Jeff, our top five currently, I'm going to go from the bottom to the top.
Number five is currently Spirits. That's where we found out about the Trinium.
Number four is Thor's Chariot, a Catherine Powers episode. Number three is Secrets. Thank you.
Where we find out about jacob the number two episode is serpents crafts plus serpents layer.

[25:44] We're gonna add another serpent to the top five let's find out and then our not top episode of the season is the fifth race jeff where do you place this episode serpent's song well the top five like i said has a serpent's episode and a catherine powers episode there will not be a a second one of those in the top five, but it's gonna be close.

[26:06] I, I, I, I was waffling a little bit on just exactly where I was gonna place it amongst these, the, the couple in this, in this spot, but I feel again, that I, I, I've really enjoyed this Joel in our story, getting to know the Tokra and all this stuff that's tied to that.
And this, this touches on that in a real way.
So I'm gonna kind of keep it in that line as I put it just above in the line of of duty making it our new number seven fair enough fair enough yeah you do you have clumped right there six seven and eight tokara parts one and two serpent song and the line of duty uh i dig it i dig it i i see one in there i still think it's a bit low but it's okay it's okay but then you said duty so i did well jeff with that uh that's gonna do it for us here with serpent song song, another episode in the books as we turn the page, Jeff, would you like to know where we're watching next week?
Yeah, let's hear it. We are watching an episode.
I want to see if you can figure out what this one's going to be about.
We are watching an episode titled one false step.
One false step. Yeah. Give it a guess.
Big high tension situation.

[27:25] I'm thinking of, um, I'm thinking of the scene in the office.

[27:29] Okay. which is a scene that's played out in many things, where everyone's holding their gun hands up and they're all pointing it at each other.
And whoever makes the next false step, the whole thing's going to break down into a big shootout. So some sort of a stalemate happens.
And whoever makes the wrong step is going to make the whole thing blow up so are we able to find a diplomatic way out of this thing or are things going to escalate into a really big conflict.

[27:54] You're a good guesser jeff i sure sure am i think i've gotten one episode out of like the 50 we've watched so far so well folks that is going to do it for us here on stargate sg1 for the first time thank you guys so much for joining us especially through some of the technical technical difficulties we had in tonight's episode.
I don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcast, leave us a rating, a review.
Please don't forget to subscribe to the channel right out here at YouTube and be sure to head over to patrion.com slash Babylon five first, or check show notes below for the most updated link and get all the behind the scenes, the full unedited videos, early access to notes, all sorts of stuff that's happening over there.
Jeff, I don't even know what we're going to be doing by the time this episode gets out there, but it's going to be something cool.
I promise you guys that. So make sure you head over there and let somebody know about this show.
Share this show with somebody, you know, that loves Stargate SG one, or maybe somebody who like our buddy Jeff over there needs to watch the show for the first time.
So with that guys until next time, we'll catch you later.
Hey Brent. Hey Jeff.

[29:03] Wasn't there a time that you would die for me? yes but that time is no more for crying out loud.

[29:11] Music.