Seth

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.

Seth - Season 3, Episode 2

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Transcript

SG1_302 Seth

 [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 also watching Stargate SG-1 for the 47th time.
But for the first time, I am going through this series looking for what Stargate is trying to teach us. Those sci-fi messages.
You know, those things that hold up a mirror to society, give us hope that things can be better in the future, or just plain tell us how to be better human beings to one another.
This week, Brent, we're watching Seth, which is the name of my boss.
And I think this is going to be an episode dedicated to him.
We're just going to see awesome leadership happening, supportive stuff, people doing great things for their teams.
This is just going to be a reflection from what, like 1999 on my boss here in 2024 as we record this thing. Totally makes sense.
Well, July 2nd, 1999, to be exact, which was the original air date of this particular episode, episode, second episode, season three, Seth.
And I mean, Jeff, you, you absolutely nailed it.
Boss, great leadership stuff. Yeah, there you go.
Nailed it, man. You got it. I don't even know why we need to watch the episode now. Go as high level as I possibly can. I'm going to get one of these right someday.

[1:27] Well, Hey, listen, I really want to encourage everybody to make sure you stick around.
Cause I've got some really cool kind of behind the scenes stuff for this.
And it's not really behind the scenes, just other things we've got.
Guys, I want to encourage everybody make sure you stick around for the talk at the end because there's some fun information to share about this episode uh but with that jeff it is time for us to go watch this episode if you're joining us for the very first time first of all welcome you're amazing you're awesome thank you so much for joining us while you're here please click subscribe whether it's to the youtube channel or the podcast feed you're listening to or wherever you happen to be hit subscribe also please leave us rating and review and the way this is working is jeff and i are going to watch this this episode right now for the very first time.
If you're hanging out with us on YouTube, you're actually gonna get the video of that. It'll be, I'll be chopped up and all that kind of stuff. Be YouTube compliant.
However, if you want the full unedited version, head over to patreon.com slash and you guys can catch that one, uh, over there.
If you're listening on a podcasting app, you're about to gate into the future.
You're gonna catch us after we watch the episode.
You're gonna hear my first time reactions. You're going to hear any of the sci-fi messages Brent found in this one, and I am eager to build those memories so I can give you that reaction.
Brent, let's dive into Seth.

[2:47] Music.

[3:04] All right. Well, I want to welcome back all of our listeners on the audio podcast who just gated into the future. We have caught up with you.
Jeff and I have just finished watching Seth for the very first time.
Jeff, before you go, I will, I will tell you, this is an episode I almost always skip.
Really? And I got about halfway into it going, why do I skip this episode?
Maybe, maybe maybe like three-fifths of the way it was a little more than half why do i skip this episode this is really good and then i was like oh yeah this is why i skipped this episode but that's brent's thought jeff you had your first time viewing of this take us through it bud what you got about the episode seth this is a fun episode it was it was cool yeah i enjoyed this one i'm not going to say i enjoyed it a lot but i enjoyed it i think this is we're in season three right and And for so many 90s sci-fi shows, season three is where the ball really starts rolling.
Usually towards the end of the season, I should say.

[4:05] That's fair. That's fair. I think it has good episodes, but it really picks up towards the end of the season, typically.
But to me, it's less about the episodes and more about the momentum and theme and just being able to write the episode.
They've figured out the world, the characters, and those things.
And this felt like that. this felt like a i mean stargate has never not felt fully realized like from children of the gods it's felt like a complete universe but for the first i mean one of the first times this was just like we're gonna dive in to evil gould of the week and just go just go and it's and it's gonna work because i don't have to tell you what a zat gun is i'm gonna pull nishta out of nowhere and it's just gonna make sense because of course there's something like nishta like i get it well Well, and you've kind of already seen it a couple of times.
Exactly. Or versions of like they even mentioned like, like Hathor's thing. Oh yeah.
But even, even worse. Yeah. Or that thing that, you know, Poff is used on Ryak, my son. And you didn't have to ask who Ryak was. You knew.
Got all this stuff. And so I think there's been a couple episodes that I say is like the culmination of stuff.
And this isn't the culmination in like the apex, the peak or anything, but this is an episode that was built on the episodes that came before it.

[5:16] I mean, there's some meat to this. You're going to have some sci-fi message stuff to talk about. I know that. But beyond that, there's not a lot of meat.
This is just an episode. This is a Gould of the Week episode.
That's all it is. It was fun. It was interesting.
I think my favorite, I had a couple pieces in there that I liked.
One was learning more about the System Lords. There's a couple dozen System Lords, a couple thousand Gould, and the Tok'ra are keeping track of them and stuff like that.
So, okay, cool. and then sam got a hand thing a gould hand thing and totally rocked it i want her to never stop wearing that hand thing if in the next episode she's not wearing it i'll be like what cell mac come on dude it's it's not it's not exactly standard issue they could the tokara probably have more or they could make one or steal one well but i mean no but like she's she's u.s air force doesn't she have to have like certain pieces of gear and stuff like does she not get it something special like it's special qualification right so she'll be okay you know captain carter slash gould hand thing special qualification yeah because she has a dead gould inside her body.

[6:26] That's her qualification it's kind of a big deal what is her qualification she can make it work here you put it on tell me what happens nothing here you go she literally buried a gould with it that was a slick scene right into the ground i like how he used the word blended yeah you've been blended well that i mean isn't that the word that um the trill used joined oh joined yeah yeah the uh i really didn't like the actor that played seth uh hey fun facts about him yeah a few episodes back in season two he played daniel jackson's father are you serious yeah i remember the episode we were going back in the memories and stuff yeah he was daniel jackson's dad which is fascinating because in that episode he got crushed by a bunch of rocks and in this episode he got blasted down into the ground as if he was hit with a rock i am really insensitive about his death let's let's start counting how many times daniel's dad gets killed via rock.

[7:26] But yeah i could tell what they were going for with him and he just i mean he wasn't bad but it was just like oh you you got the 50 cent version of the guy you were looking for It was okay, but yeah, no, this was an enjoyable episode.
I wonder why, because Daniel, they're talking about this guy.
So his name at first was Satash.
Yeah. We're looking for Satash. And then Daniel's like, oh, that's Seth or Seth or all these different names. Why did he stick with Seth?

[7:53] You know, I don't know. I feel like. It's the modernized version of the name in English, I guess. Yeah, I could guess. I would have gone with Set, you know, but I mean, that's just me.
If I was a ghouled god system lord, I'd go by Set. Brett, there are some prime messages in this one.
I'm curious to hear your take on the sci-fi messages in this one.
Seth well before i get to that jeff a couple of things couple of things in this episode uh you didn't name this gold goes by many names we did we we talked a little bit about this during the video so i want to make sure we just hit it here for our audio folks real quick we do discover that there are many golds out there but only a few dozen have attained the level of system lord i tell you it's really probably not even that many to tell you the truth like it might be a dozen or a baker's dozen right a couple dozen but most of the gold though are in service to other gold uh and i will tell you this is something you will you will begin to see more of oh this this gould serves that gould and certain things like that uh this is the episode the first time we ever see tilk laugh and we got a pretty good chuckle out of that as well yeah i i can't believe i missed that was one of my favorite things he had a joke uh also let's track jeff how many gould Gould have been killed by SG one.
So now we have Hathor and in theory. Yeah. Uh, did horror, horror, horror, got killed.

[9:14] No, no, no. There was other dude. This would be the third, third.
Yeah. Cause there's raw.
We called raw. Yes. Yeah. That's okay. Raw Hathor and last episode.
And then Seth in this episode, I wonder who else we talk about them being the fifth race, right?
If you're going to go down, who's killed a chunk of Gould. I bet that the other four were were named in Thor's chariot or the fifth race actually so.

[9:39] So this ghoul takes the the personality of Seth and if you remember, These are not these ghouls are not the gods of old they are portraying the gods of old which I still find very weird Mm-hmm, but the the real-life mythology of Seth actually I find very fascinating, Seth was the brother of the Egyptian god Osiris whom I'm sure you've probably heard.
Mm-hmm. Oh Cyrus was the the He first thought to be the first Pharaoh of Egypt, the first ruler of Egypt, according to mythology, not in real life.
But basically, Seth was his brother, and he was the god of the desert, of foreign lands, thunderstorms, earthquakes, eclipses, stuff like that.
He was considered very, very powerful, very, very frightening.
He often was used as the patron god of various pharaohs throughout time, particularly those who wanted to come off as powerful and frightening.
Ramsey's and you know these conquerors I'm gonna take Seth as my god right Seth, killed his brother Osiris to take his throne, chopped him up into pieces, scattered him all around Egypt.
Uh, eventually Horus, who I think was Seth's or Osiris's son, or maybe other brother.
I think Horus might've been the other brother or something like that.
He went around, found all the body parts, gave them to Isis, Osiris's wife. She sewed him back up and he becomes the Lord of the underworld.

[11:00] Osiris does. Okay. Okay. And, and he eventually defeated Seth in combat.
Now post this defeat, Seth was later adopted by Ra, and basically Ra made him Thor.
He was the god of thunder. And rock and roll.
Right? And he protected Ra from Apophis, because the way they would say is when the sun goes down, because Ra was the sun god, right?
When the sun goes down, he's traveling through the underworld at night, is what Ra was doing, to come up on the other side so he could go around so while he was traveling through the underworld every night seth would be protecting raw as he goes through from from apophis okay a little bit of the real world mythology of of seth or set or satash that's kind of cool so you asked me about the messages so you know the litmus test we use here right is holding up a mirror to society giving us hope that things can be better in future i'm not going to say we had any of that really maybe a little bit just it kind of all ties back together.
But certainly, how do we be better human beings to one another?

[12:03] Probably could get a little bit of mirror to society, although I'm going to say this is more to the individuals than opposed to society as a whole.
But to me, I mean, Jeff, this really focuses on the relationship between parents and children.
We had Jacob come in and we learned right at the top of the episode, he and his son are very much estranged, so much so that Sam is also estranged.
We saw earlier that jacob and sam kind of didn't necessarily always get along in previous episodes and jacob's sitting here saying oh i'm not mad at him and he didn't come see me and i'm not hurt he's not even my son anymore and blah blah blah and then we get this dad looking for tommy right looking for his son.

[12:47] And he's like man i'm gonna do anything and i we were fighting i don't he just literally holding up a mirror to jacob and here's teal just just death glaring jacob how could a father not love his son jacob carter you know right right getting in his face and and there's just this great line that boils the whole thing down and you see the love of the sun when he pops up out of the hole tommy and he's like tommy didn't even let him out of the hole you know we're like dude there's people below the ladder get out of the hole right but they they're hugging and they're embracing and you know all that crap whatever separated them didn't matter at that point all went away all went away cry you know but there had been a crisis there had been something that happened all of a sudden it was cured we see at the end jacob shows up on mark's doorstep.

[13:35] You rightly pointed out last mark knew his dad died or about died or whatever and all of a and there's no words spoken they just look his dad grabs him and hugs him and he sort of stands there for a second and then puts his arms around his dad and is super cool with him meeting his kids come on in dad let's have dinner or whatever let's catch up yeah um that one didn't really feel like it had that same averting the crisis thing but maybe it did maybe you could pull that in but anyway opened the door it clearly opened the door literally and figuratively to potentially doing And I think it really you know, it's not the hey, this is how it works in the real world as much as here's the metaphor Here is that we got it. We got to wrap this up in 10 seconds.
So here we go Teal says the line he says the line he says there are many things that are complicated I'm gonna paraphrase what he's what he said.
He said there are many things that are complicated Loving ones children ought not be Wow, wow like.

[14:38] Talk about wisdom right there from the mouth of teal man sometimes it is as jacob said but it ought not be loving your children should not be complicated and and should not be hard i say that with the understanding that there are lots of viewers out there right now there are lots of people who are listening to my raspy voice go yeah but brent you don't understand what's going on between me and my kid yeah but brent you don't understand what's going on between me and my dad Look, let me tell you what, you know, the last two words my biological father ever said to me was you. Yeah, that's right.
The last two words he ever said to me. I don't I'm I have been I know what it is to be in a difficult relationship with a parent.

[15:19] It's probably what drives me as a parent to make sure that lines are constantly clear with my kids. I never I never pretend to be perfect with my kids when I screw up and I do I own it I own it quick.
I apologize and I ask forgiveness for my kids so we can move on and come right back to being good And you know what?
I'm fortunate enough and I'm very happy to say I have a great relationship with my kids you do and I love those two I really do.
I love those two everything in my life Really revolves around those two you have super cool kids like they are great.
They are cool they get most of that from their mom they get most of that from their mom let's just be honest that's my nice way to say you have a really great family because your wife's really the star of the show she really is she really she is amazing but the truth is is that i keep those short accounts because of what happened with my dad you know what i mean like like i'm intentional about that i understand that things ought not be difficult but i can say this throughout my entire my entire life with my biological father, I always wanted a relationship with him. Yeah.
Even when things were bad, I wanted the, I'm sorry.
I wanted the, the, when Jacob shows up and he hugs Mark, I want the hug.
And literally that's all it really needed to take, you know, again.

[16:42] I'm not speaking to everyone's situation out there i know things can be difficult but in the words of tilk they ought not be i'm not saying they're not i'm just saying they ought not be i don't know what it takes to find forgiveness i don't know what it takes to extend i don't know what it takes to get out there but i think there is something that is deeply innate in the relationship between a parent and child that even when things aren't good you want them to be they it it is potentially the dare i say the easiest relationship to mend or at least the most accessible relationship to mend the easiest door to open to use my earlier metaphor yeah because because it's still mom and dad you know my mom and dad are never their first names to me i know for some people they may but But even, even when we're, when Mark opens the door and he sees his dad sitting there, it's not saying, oh, hi, General. Hi, Jacob. It's dad.

[17:39] You know what I mean? Like, it's still, it's still that.
So I, in, in that there's a hope in the future that, listen, if you're estranged from a child or any loved one or parent, there is hope that that can be reconciled a mirror to society.
Society again this might be more mirrors to individuals to tell us how to be better humans to one another go to them do the work do do whatever it takes it might be it might require more than showing up on the doorstep and giving them a hug yeah that's very true but do the work because there are many things in life that are complicated but loving your children.

[18:18] Shouldn't be one shouldn't be shouldn't be and i want to be really clear that i'm saying shouldn't to be. Cause I'm not saying they're not.
And I want to dive in on that point. Cause I think it's really important.
I know people and very close to me who are in situations where it's not safe for them to be around their kids. Fair. Yeah. Yeah. It's a real thing.
And boundaries are important. And when I say safe, I don't just mean physically, you know, I mean, it can be emotional.
It can be financial, you know, for a lot of people, but, but it puts them in a place where it's not safe.
So, I mean, you're saying it really well. It ought not to be, but sometimes it is.
I just really want to double down on, for those of you out there who have put up and are enforcing boundaries with your kids for these reasons, you're doing the right thing.
And what I, what I have often thought, and this is, this is kind of my take on the message there is that doesn't mean you stop loving them, right?
Like there, I think my opinion, the world, according According to Jeff, your love for your child should truly be unconditional and eternal.

[19:21] Forever. Now that doesn't mean you have to like them. Love and like are different things.
And so keeping that in mind, I can love them from afar with boundaries in place that protect all of us.
But that love is there. And part of that love being there means the door is never locked.

[19:39] So I have these boundaries up for my safety, for their safety, people's safety.
That's not a forever thing. It might be, it might be for you a forever thing, but there's always that chance, that opportunity that they can come back, become the prodigal son or daughter, you know, and come back.
And, and frankly, that's, that's what I'm talking about. There's always that one, like that particular relationship there.
It is always the one that is again, not the easiest, but the potential is always there.

[20:05] Exactly. You know, like that, that one. And, and I think that in generally that's shared from both sides.
Um, and you, Jeff, I thank you for saying that because you're a thousand percent right having boundaries with somebody oftentimes is loving them amen to that loving them does loving them does not always look like opening the arms for an open embrace to just kind of come in and do whatever you want very true so chevrons i gotta bring oh my gosh uh i gotta bring this all down uh chevrons you know a lot of times we hold this up like is this the core message is this whatever no i don't think it was the core message of the whole show really No, no, I don't.
But I will say it was a thread from the opening scene, literally to the closing scene. That's fair. So it carried through.
It was it was the through line, I think, that made us care about this episode because without Tommy, who cares about Seth? Yeah, exactly.
We had no connection to anybody on the inside until SG-1 went and got themselves locked up. Like, without Tommy, we didn't care.

[21:09] And to be able to turn around and put that back on Jacob and...
Expand the carter family a little bit or quite a lot actually by a third anyway or more well and you got a grandkid slash niece on the on the board now yeah and apparently there's you know there's got to be a mom involved in that too so you know there's there there is certainly that expanding so jeff i think in looking at it if looking at it through that lens of what this episode really comes down to this is i'm gonna give this one like three and a half uh chevrons really like Like, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's, it's a pretty strong message.
Like it's, it's right there on your face. And I mean, tilk says the line, there are many things that are complicated.
Loving your children ought not be. And it's a little low, I think for where I would have gone, but I think it's a fair rate.
I, I, I think it was more than a thread in this.
I think in a lot of ways, the Seth storyline was a vehicle to have Jacob and Mark reconcile reconcile the whole existence of Levinson and Tommy was to, that was the, the, the prime mover to get, you know, Mark Jacob and Mark to have some reconciliation.
I think that was the story of the episode.
The Seth stuff was just a vehicle to get us there.
You know, Jeff, I think you're right. And you know, I think we talked about in the last episode, sometimes I'm still having problems with the seven Chevron scale.

[22:30] I'm going to bump this up to a five. Yeah. I think that's great because i because i i really do like is it a seven like this is what the whole episode was revolving around no but i you know i do like it like it's it's i'm with you i'm with you good point i'm i'm swayed now you sway me sometimes i sway you true jeff i rate you nope yep i rate you rank where are you ranking this one in our season three 100 completely accurate and definitive definitive ranking of s g one uh we only have one episode out there right now that number one episode is the episode from last week which is into the fire jeff where do you place this one this is very easy this is our new number two oh into the fire is going to be it's going to be that's gonna be a tough episode to beat i'm not gonna lie they spent a lot of money on it it shows it was great i said this is a good episode i enjoyed it this wasn't a great episode but uh i, initial thought on is i'm not going to skip this one on a rewatch necessarily, it's okay it's number two and i'm gonna go ahead and predict right now that it will not stay in the number two spot for long you know i i mentioned to you earlier like this is what i usually skip and i was watching the first half and i'm like what it's right about the time i think when we meet seth that i'm kind of like oh yeah the whole cult thing just, that's where it kind of i don't want to say gets goofy or goes off the rails for me it's just.

[23:53] It kind of just becomes like between the cult thing and the over-the-top atf guy it becomes a little tropey tropey that's a great word for it but i will tell you i very much appreciate the father-son relationships throughout this more than i ever have before looking at it through that eyes so absolutely uh good stuff all right jeff well that is going to do it for us here for the episode seth would you like to know we're watching next time i suppose all right oh i said oh come on fuck up buckaroo i'm just nervous about guessing again i'm just like i'm getting a little well you should be able to get those things i do think that the title does give this one away fair game fair game maybe it doesn't give it away but well it could be a hunting episode right it's fair game the human hunting one the island of dr moreau oh yeah i bet that i bet we'll have that episode at some point i don't think this is it i think fair game uh this is gonna be the um take me out to the the holosuite of SG one, they're gonna end up on a planet and it's gonna be some good relations or whatever, but like their culture is rooted in sport of some kind in order for them to like really get relations moving, they're gonna have to play their game.
Just out of curiosity, who was the gold then that took this group over? Took a question.

[25:12] Zeus Olympus. Oh, there you go. Sure. Yeah.
The Olymp, the Olympiad itself right there. Right. right yeah i think this will be this is this we're gonna they're gonna have fun they're gonna play some sport and it'll be great all right all right well you're a good guesser jeff sure yeah and we'll see we'll see if that's what's going on right here next time on stargate sg1 for the first time thank you guys so much for joining us hey don't forget wherever you are to like subscribe rate review all those sort of things it just lets other people know how awesome we are here and not so much how awesome we are here just this great community we've got built up don't we just amen to that there's inc i mean come for the stargate stay for the people that are here like the community is incredible they really are really are we're just we're just like the we're the window dressing the real stuff's inside absolutely absolutely so you guys make sure you do that and uh hey listen be sure to share this podcast with somebody that you know who loves stargate sg1 or somebody who needs to get into the gate just like my good friend jeff over there so with that until next next time before Jeff stops me, I'm gonna get out of here.
Dang it. Missed it by that much.
Yeah. Jeff, what's up? You know how we're both kind of not feeling really well, right? A little bit. Yeah.
Do you know, out of curiosity, how with us not feeling well, how you can tell which one of us actually, um, ruined this episode?
Uh, no, it's the one whose nose is dripping. Oh, for crying out loud.

[26:37] Music.