Deadman Switch

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.

Deadman Switch - Season 3, Episode 7

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Transcript

SG1_307 Deadman Switch

[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 SG1 for the 47th time.
But for the first time, I am looking for what Stargate is trying to teach us using that sci-fi thing that sci-fi shows do so well to hold up a mirror to society, to give us hope that things can be better in the future, or just plain teach us how we can be better human beings to one another.
Brent, this week, we're watching the seventh episode of the third season of SG one dead man switch.
Yeah. Last week I said that my guess is that, uh, SG one is gonna be captured, held hostage and there's a way out.
They gotta take dude out, but he's got some sort of a dead man switch.
If they take him out, things are gonna fall apart. I'm excited to see how right or wrong I am. Why don't you give us some details on dead man switch?
Well, this is the seventh episode, season three air date, August 6th.

[1:20] 1999 this one jeff is written by our good friend robert c cooper i've often called him the michael pillar of sg1 and this is a martin wood joint nice we need a little drop for him for that yeah yeah i feel like we need a sound drop for that one uh we have a very cool guest star in this episode jeff okay now i gotta tell you it doesn't really mean much to me because it was a little bit past my time like like a hair past my time so i this is not something i grew up watching um Um, but I know people who did and Jeff, I've got a feeling, I've got a feeling this might be more up your alley than it is mine.
That's a lot. That's a lot of pressure. No, no. We'll see. Cause you'll, you'll either just be like, yeah, okay, whatever.
Or like, oh, I know this guy.
Uh, if you know him, you'll, you'll, you'll immediately see him as soon as you see him.
Now, with that, Jeff, let's go watch an episode. That's a good idea.
Hey, listen, if you guys out there are joining us for the very first time, first of all, welcome. You're amazing.

[2:20] And this is how this works. You're watching the video out here, here on YouTube.
Jeff and I are going to go watch this episode live together right now.
Stick around right here on YouTube.
And we're going to do, like, the reaction video thing. And right at the end, we're going to talk about Jeff's first watch experience. We'll talk about the messages that I've found.
If you want the full unedited version of this video, head over to our Patreon page at patreon.com slash Bye nerds.
And if you're listening to us on a podcasting app, you're about to gate into the future where you're gonna hear our for the first time or my, for the first time reaction, you're gonna hear about the sci-fi messages that Brent pulls out of this thing, Brent, let's kick it off. Dead man switch. Let's go.

[3:03] Music.

[3:19] All right jeff we have just watched dead man switch uh me for the 47th time you for the first First, I was looking for messages you were just enjoying or maybe not enjoying. I don't know. We're about to find out. Lay it on us.
How'd you feel about this episode? Dead man switch.
Dude, it had Flash Gordon in it.
Flash.
Ah flash that's queen's big that's what almost resurrected queen was that i mean it was bohemian wayne's world that actually resurrected them but i did this big moment in the early 80s with flash gordon i recognized dude in a second i uh texted you because like you said when we're heading in and a little before your time but one of my favorite pictures of him i sent it to you, is that not i mean that's a face that gets burned into your head right there he looks like like the same but like some some hard hard living in between then and now I just I just want to clarify Jeff there's like what two or three years between you and me like an age those are key years though key those are key years right right right right right but it's it's not like this is where a generation removed like I just I think it's I think it's important though to point out because Because Flash Gordon specifically was a huge deal for like four months.
And then I think everyone realized, oh my gosh, that's kind of ridiculous.

[4:48] Yikes, yikes. But there was that moment where it was huge. And you were too young in that moment. So you missed it.
I enjoyed the episode, Brant. It was all right. I really, so Eris Bach took me on a journey in this one.
I say that a lot. there's a journey that's the thing i think stargate is really good at is introducing you to a thing and then you go on a journey and sometimes you end up in the same place often you end up somewhere different and at first i thought this was going to be a story about an old uh bounty hunter who just isn't what they used to be and is living on their stories and telling everybody how great they were i thought he was going to be ineffective i thought that everything he said said was gonna be fabricated, right?
So he comes out and he says, I disabled the Stargate.
You're stuck here. And they just take him at his word. I'm like.

[5:39] I would go check oh i could kill you with this okay i just gonna take him at his word the whole time he's very confident you know when he says the things so it kind of makes sense that they're believing him a little bit but it's i don't know so i thought it was gonna be the story turns out he might be like the missing link there's something about him and his people where they reject the symbiote they can't be implanted with a gould my guess is it's the roshna the ketra cell white that they are addicted to and he gave sam a little vial of it so so you know she can do her stuff and figure it out well not just not just the humans but think about the jaffa like what would it mean for teal can his people if they didn't have to carry around a larval form of the gold just to stay alive could be huge change everything right we we learned a new thing we we learned about tax tax your work with stick-ons yeah yeah that was great so those are those are automatic remote weapons they can use so we have that in there but rather this episode kind of fun to watch the whole i think there were they were really uh there's really one big point of this this whole episode and it was, um, Hey, here's the Tokrah.
Remember these guys, they're going to be a big deal this season.
They've been one, they're going to be bigger here. They are also, um.

[7:06] We need to remind you and make it crystal clear they are not gould there are tokara they are gould and they are not the same uh bach comes out with you know they've got bad blood the same bad blood and they're like no actually no they're quite different that's what i think that the point of this episode let's have a bounty hunter let's have a little fun kinda and um and then just remind you the tokara are going to be the culmination of this season somehow my hope in this i kind of hope we We see Aris Bach again, I kind of like him and they built a whole set, a new ship, gave him a lot of like character stuff in there.
It would make total sense for him to be an ongoing concern and I think I'd be okay with that.
The thing about Stargate Jeff is they can put a person in an episode.

[7:57] You could not see them for seasons, seasons, and then all of a sudden they're back or it could be several episodes or it could be the next episode.
How often have we seen Bray tech jump in and out or Jacob or that Knox lady girl?
You know, like she just randomly showed up at the end of one episode. Yeah.
So yeah, there's, there's, there are, there are certainly the possibility we could see somebody again, but.
But also maybe not, maybe not, but it also could be a while or not.
So, uh, my, I think my advice to you is don't hold your breath when, and if it happens, that's when it will happen, but not before.
Frankly, Brett, that's a good way to live your life.

[8:37] Yeah. You know, don't hold your breath. If it happens, it happens.
If it doesn't, it's all good.

[8:41] All good there you go I feel like I might be short changing things on this but that's really my reaction on this there wasn't a lot that happened tokrah bounty hunter uh a little more and the other reminder was sokar so oh yeah we got we got to mention him before and we got so got him again so I think like we're at the point in the season nearing the Midway point so it's like we're heading to the end of this it'll be tokrah sokar this whole thing with the system some lords and so just here's your little reminder there are these players and next week we'll probably go somewhere else i will tell you jeff um stargate doesn't typically work like that like there's really not a big overall story that they have planned out that they're trying to tell as much as hey here's episode one here's episode two let's keep going hey what's the next chapter of it's like they're kind of uh they're almost rpg-ing it like they're the the writers are just sort of as they go hey you know what you remember this guy we had back here it'd be a cool time to bring this person back in or like let's bring this thread and and i think occasionally and now this is let me big hell yeah i never sat in that writer's room i don't really know i'm just telling you what i've heard and what i what just seems right to me yeah but they you know i think they had some things like you just kind of mentioned like we kind of want to do this during the course of the season but when and where that shows up and then obviously you have your your your filler episodes.

[10:08] You know, I always say if, if I watch seasons now and shows, especially these old ones that I've seen so many times and I go, if I were to do the beam me up treatment.
And for those of you out there who don't know what beam me up is, that's an old podcast that I used to do with my buddy, Matt, where we went through the entire franchise of star Trek, uh, but only doing the key episodes.

[10:30] Would this be an episode that I would put in or when I leave it out?
And this is very clearly to me, one that I would leave out.
Uh of beating me up that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad episode, i will tell you this is one i tend to skip but i actually enjoyed it a lot more on this watch than i thought i would like i kind of i kind of went into this episode like oh it's this episode.

[10:51] Before i go any further just want to update our tracking sheet i i didn't catch any for crying out louds indeeds daniel deaths or and jeff i have i've decided what we're going to count for samantha oh okay and we've got to go back and we've got to think about it uh boyfriends her boyfriends her boyfriends we're gonna count her boyfriends so she's had uh she had hansen we're back in the first commandment oh okay okay okay right we're doing quote boyfriends yeah yeah yeah yeah people she's been in relationship with right okay uh do we want to count jack like her and jack kind of had that little thing during broken divide okay not counting that one do not let me be really let me think about that for a second absolutely not.

[11:36] Let's further alienating the community right there right right right uh you know we really should have a graphic we put up on this for the youtube folks and the and the patreon folks in the video oh yeah of all the yeah uh let's see here brief candle no thor's hammer bloodlines i'm looking through here i'm looking through here okay are we going to count jack from the the mirror universe being that her and mirror sam nope nope okay um i could go i could go either way with that let's hear prisoners okay what about martoof now martoof was jolinar's boyfriend.

[12:09] But they had a little they kind of i'm gonna count it i'm counting that one oh oh the dude from the tolan remember the the yep kind of weird dude all right so we're gonna count three i think that's all we got so far yeah i can't think of any more yeah okay that's fine that's that's totally fair three three is where we're gonna drop yeah we'll hit that and pick it up from there uh that was that by the way is thank you to our patreon folk who uh made that as a suggestion um cool all right all right jeff so we're talking about messages so you messaged me you sent me a little message we were you know during the episode as sometimes happens go figure guys and ed i think we were like five six minutes left in the episode and you're like this is gonna be a short discussion afterwards and stuff and i was like yeah i said i'm not getting any messages out of this one this is just whatever and then the end of the episode happened right so let's talk about it right let's talk about it this is one of those messages i've seen in several sci-fi shows and i love it because it is such a core message really speaks to that how do we treat each other better as human beings also holding up a mirror to society exactly yeah eris bach, grouped all gold all gold in together your gold you're bad there was no individuality there was no individual choices there was no whatever just nope if you're that it doesn't matter what your name is who you are the choice like he's he strips you.

[13:35] Of your identity and everything that makes you a person and just says if you're that then you're bad um in the real world we do that all the time if you're of this political party you're bad or you're good if you're of this country you're bad or you're good if you're of this lineage you're bad or you're good uh if you're uh if your favorite football team is this team then you're are awesome.
Otherwise you're awful.
If your favorite color is blue, then you're like the most amazing person in the world because that's a great color.
Take your pick. Doesn't matter. You're blonde, you're brunette, you're male, you're female, you're, you're, you're gay, you're hetero, you're trans, you're cis, you're whatever, right? Like whatever.
None of those define who a person is. What defines who a person is, how they live their life, the choices they they make those are the quality what are the qualities we judge people on Jeff like we should or that we actually do because I think those are very different things no we should what are the ones we should the content of your character exactly yeah how do you how do you treat the people around you exactly exactly when you take away anything else you lump them in together and it makes it easy to hate those people and then it makes it easier to destroy them it makes it easier to fight them but when you when you stop to get to know the one it gets hard i think of the great star trek episode iborg where they captured one of the borg they got to know it.

[15:04] And it became a him and suddenly they couldn't do the thing with it that they were going to do with it which was turn them into a bomb and send them back because it would be not right it may be good for business to not care heiress box the whole business was he's going to go trade these people people in didn't matter innocent or guilty didn't matter.
He didn't care. He just had to go trade him in. That was the job.
But you know what here's the thing it's not good for your soul when you live life like that of not caring we saw eris bach he was seemingly fine he was comfortable he was cocky he had a good living he was the greatest out there why was he the greatest out there because he was alive because he was doing what he had to do still living but you know what there were times that we saw he was was just as much a slave, a servant to the gold as any of the Jaffa or any other host being used by the gold.
He was still in subservience to them and he hated it.
And he said, so as much, he's like, look, I don't want to do this.
I hate them as much as you do.
He gets to know the Tokra, right? He stops. He's like, why would you do that?
Why? That's a choice you made. You were going to sacrifice yourself. That's not gold.

[16:12] That's, that's not, Oh, we're going to get this jaffa here we got tilk what's he do when he has tilk and he's flying away so why did you do what you do what's going on he listened he got to know the one and all of a sudden what's he do jeff practically abandons his whole plan his whole lifestyle he's gonna go on the run he's now gonna have to fight and trade for this roshna stuff until he can get a cure for it again uh it's really that piece don't judge people this is the sci-fi message right don't judge people by simply, what they are judge them by who they are you know did robert c cooper sit down to write this sort of a of an episode and say this is a message that i'm trying to deliver through the episode i don't know i'm not in his head i haven't asked him maybe but he could because everything in the episode pointed to that last five minutes yeah we can go back all the way through through the very first moment we met eris bach and track it all the way there and it all built it all led to this one one moment where he could have this conversation and have this realization to say, I can get to know. And you know what wound he wound up having a change of heart.

[17:21] And he became a better when he left sam after giving him after giving her that little vial she just had a little smile on his face right yeah he felt good about like hey i'm doing this thing yeah like because that's how we judge people that's how we go forward um and if you just if you just treat them like meat sacks and who they are doesn't matter it's just you're this and so this is how i'm gonna judge you or treat you it's bad for the soul man it's bad for the soul it is So it comes down to me to rate this, to say how many chevrons we do a scale of zero to seven chevrons as far as how strong the message is.
A lot of times we throw intent. Jeff, I'm going to abandon the intent.

[18:03] Yeah, I think this message was pretty strong, even though they didn't really discuss it till the very end.
They discussed it and they you didn't need them to discuss it a ton because they had set it up throughout the course of the episode.
Episode it also wasn't a deus ex machina type of a message where it just came out of nowhere they really had been setting it up so to me um out of seven i'm gonna give this one a five chevron rating like it's a pretty good message pretty strong message so i like it five chevrons i feel like the whole episode built to that moment when he and tilk were in the ship and he looks over to you know they look at each other and like oh we're gonna do some stuff like let's go yeah and it is Yeah, you're right.
I think we went back and watched it, which I don't know if I'm going to go back and watch this one.
But if we did, I think all of those pieces lead to that moment.

[18:52] And he has any he blows up his ship they go flying out of the escape pods and away he goes so i do like it this is one of those episodes jeff i got to tell you after going through this process with you my opinion of this episode has raised and elevated this episode wow it has by a lot because like this is an episode i was like yeah yeah actually there's a lot to this episode i'm kind of excited to go back through it again and watch for that in a way that i've never looked at it before that's why i love doing this for the first time i've never done this show like this uh through this lens now jeff that's just what it did to me it raised it raised it in the ranking for me however you my friend you're the one who is doing the official stargate sg1 for the first time ranking of season three so you're the one you're you're the person whose job it is to place this one into our ranking our current ranking as it stands is number one fair game number two learning Turning curve, number three into the fire, number four, legacy number five point of view.

[19:53] Jeff, how do you rank this one? Before I rank it, I just need to point out to everyone that this ranking is definitive.
Oh, absolutely. I am the authority on SG one.
And uh, if you don't agree, you can comment below there. There you go. There you go.
So, uh, again, I've said this every time I get to rank and it's been a great season, good episodes, blah, blah, blah.
Law Brett this is going to be our new number five right above point of view and and really very much based on the last five to eight minutes of the episode I I like that I think that's probably a great place uh for for where that goes all right Jeff well with that that is going to do it for us right here this time on Stargate SG1 for the first time watching Dead Man's Switch would you like to know what we're doing next time i would like to know yes all right well next time jeff buckle your seat belt we were watching an episode called demons an adventure a guess as to what demons could possibly be about.

[20:51] I got it so when we were in watching the episode uh i was trying to remember did i remember the name keltar no no i didn't i never heard that it was so car so cars the one i'd heard before and we talked about how so car is like the devil of stuff so this is going to be a so car episode the demons are going to be like his minions or whatever so they were going to start building up a little more we had apophis you know for the first two seasons and this is going to be like one of the big first things that brings so car up to be like the big bad for season three all right well jeff you are a good guesser my friend oh yeah really really great we'll find out just how accurate you are next time right here on stargate sg1 for the first time hey thank you guys out there so much for joining us you're amazing you're awesome we love you guys listen please while you're here please be sure to like the video subscribe to the channel if you like what we got going on here at buy nerds babylon five uh we've got uh sg1 who knows what else we're gonna have by the time all this stuff goes out jeff uh so much stuff happening and make sure you guys join us over on patreon you can get our discord you get access to all that sort of stuff uh patreon.com slash bye nerds and uh hey listen wherever.

[22:06] You are out there please let someone know know about the show the best way you can help us grow is by getting the word out so let somebody know who is needs to fall in love with the series for the first time or somebody who like me already loves the series and they just want to relive it for the first time so thank you guys so much we're gonna get out of here jeff for you for me i'll say see you later guys hey hey brent yeah what's up i'm looking i'm looking at my calendar here i've got a lot i have so much going on this this week, I'm really busy.

[22:36] Can you run the edits on both the audio and the video this week, would that be cool?
Let me, no, no, Jeff, I can't, no, I will not.
I've got a lot going on too, man. Dude, you are such a pain in the micta. Indeed.

[22:54] Music.