Watergate

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.

Watergate - Season 4, Episode 7

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Chapters

• 17:08 [Ad] Royal Highness!
• 18:01 (Cont.) Watergate

Transcript

[0:12] 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 Dallin and I'm also watching Stargate SG-1, but I'm watching it for the 47th time. But for the first time, I am looking for what Stargate's trying to teach us. Jeff's watching it just to see what the whole show's about. I'm watching it to see what the show's about. You know, looking for those lessons that hold up a mirror to society. Maybe they give us hope that things can be better in the future or Just plain teach us how to be better human beings to one another. This week, Brent, we're watching Watergate, the seventh episode of the fourth season. I feel that this episode is going to be a China or Russia are going to learn all about the Stargate program because they're going to have bugged something, communication device, computer, some something like that. So kind of like Watergate, but with a little more at stake than there was back with good old Richard Nixon. Are we talking about Hammond of Texas?

[1:13] And all the stuff that they've been hiding from the international community. Why don't you tell us about Watergate? Well, this is the seventh episode of The Four Seeds entitled Watergate. The original air date, frankly, Jeff, I have no idea. I forgot to look up what the air date was. It was somewhere around there.

[1:28] August 2000. Yeah, probably somewhere right around. Actually, hold on. I got it right here. Literally right here. Original air date was August 11th in the year 2000. You're right. Still airing on Showtime. This one is directed by our good friend Martin Wood. So let's be on the lookout for him and his big wrench. I don't think we I think we're oh, for like eight of the episodes he's directed so far. I don't think we've seen him once, but he'll be in there somewhere. This episode is written by Robert C. Cooper, another big name. We've definitely talked about a lot before. So this one certainly has the name power behind the creation of it. Jeff, I told you last week we have a super cool Trek crossover for this one. Now, it feels like it's been a minute since we've had one of those. this one needs no introduction because as soon as you see this person you're gonna immediately call it out and know who it is um this brings our number though i was looking at this this brings our number up to four we like to count stuff here at sg1 for the first time uh so that's we've had armin we've had dwight we i'm on a first name basis with all these folks of course we've had renee and uh we'll we'll add a new name to that list today well we had uh we also had a jellico Oh, we have. So this might be our fifth. This is our fifth. It's fifth. Yeah, that's right. I mean, if we got to count Dwight, then we're definitely counting Jellicoe. I can't believe I can't remember the actor's name. I feel bad. Oh, it's burning in my head right now. I'm like, I know. Ronnie Cox. There you go. There you go. In the middle of the episode, you're just going to be like, I know.

[2:57] Minor spoiler for this episode, Jeff, that I really don't mind giving you this one. They do sneak in a 47 reference in this episode, and it is 100% intentional. Nice. So we can be on the lookout for that as well. A little behind the scenes note that has absolutely no bearing on the episode whatsoever or has anything to do with our discussion here, what for anything, it was just a note I found. I was like, okay, that's interesting. It was during the filming of this particular episode that they had a special visitor to the set. What none other than a guy named Kurt Russell. Jeff, do you understand Kurt Russell and his connection to the show and why he would be such a special visitor? O'Neill with one L. Yes. Yes, he did. He played O'Neill with one L in the film, swung by to say hi. And I don't know, I guess him and RDA captured a few pictures together or whatever they did. I don't know. They gave him a stamp of approval on the show. I don't know. I'm sure they've been begging for that this whole time. It's like the one piece that's been missing for him or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It'd been really cool if they actually put him in, you know, because Star Trek does. I'm not saying that they should do what Star Trek does, but I like one of the things Star Trek does is they, at least during the Berman era, like they would always put in an existing Trek actor to like.

[4:06] Stamp that that particular series you know yeah it's how each one started we had mccoy for next generation yeah reicher for deep space nine no quark you had picard for deep space nine also picard but you also had reicher doing the send-off later but that was later but you had part of the card in the in the uh pilot episode yeah card was in the pilot episode you're right for voyager and then uh who do we have for enterprise we had uh cochran stuff from cochran from First Contact. Yep. There you go. There you go. So anyway, hey, did we get any of that with the new Trek stuff? It doesn't matter. You know why, Jeff? Because this is still not a Star Trek podcast. Exactly. With that, let's go watch this episode of Stargate. Hey, listen, folks out there, if you're joining us for the very first time, because it's always somebody's first time, welcome. You're amazing. We're glad you dropped by. Hope you enjoy the show. What's about to happen is Jeff and I are going to go watch this episode together right now. We haven't watched this episode first taking a bunch of notes and now we're here to talk about it nope we're gonna go watch it right now if you're hanging out with us on youtube you're gonna get to catch our reaction to that if you want to see our full unedited reaction i gotta do is head over to our patreon page link down below and if you're listening to us on a podcasting app you're about to gate into the future where we will be there waiting for you i'm going to share my first time reaction brent's going to share those sci-fi messages that he found so brent what do you say we pick up the phone and listen for some watergate what do you say we head out and visit the watergate hotel, Let's watch this episode. There you go.

[5:33] Chevron 7 locked.

[5:47] Hey, guy. Chevron 7 won't engage. Fix it. I don't understand it. The diagnostic shows no problems. He's fairly decorated there, isn't he? He really is. And he's got some sort of like... big rank probably an E8.

[6:03] It looks like there was an energy spike in our power log about eight minutes before we first tried dialing up. Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that something we've seen before when another gate is being used on Earth? Like when Mayborn's NID guys had the other gate. There is no longer a second stargate on Earth. Ours was destroyed along with Thor's ship. But if it was another gate and its use was responsible for the energy spike, there might be a corresponding seismic tremor. Like when the gate was found in Antarctica. I've got something. Did you see where it was, Jeff? I did not. Oh, it was in a... Power log, exactly. Was it China? Russia is that siberia yes sir there's only one explanation i can think of the russians have a stargate okay jeff i believe this is the spot where i get to say you're a good guesser yeah pretty darn close this yeah yeah you you actually you hit it until you started going they're gonna bug them and find out about stuff or whatever yeah it's a little more than just bugging them buddy a little more a little more yeah wow but the question is i'm gonna i'm gonna throw the right questions out why do they have a second stargate where they get the gate from because that's the question we got rid of the other stargate do i know we got rid of the other stargate so right where to come from yeah how are they using it what are they doing off world what in the world's happening over here with and also can you imagine the odds that like they just happen to be using their gate at the exact moment that our guys are going out there like yeah a little bit aren't exactly open for long periods of time no so not at all anyway hey.

[7:32] Now we're gonna get answers to those questions there you go the russians recovered the stargate from the bottom of the ocean i thought we swept that entire area we're talking about hundreds of miles carl how they got it open isn't the issue right now either the problem is it won't close.

[7:49] Well, that doesn't make any sense. I mean, shouldn't it eventually shut down on its own? The Goa will themselves have not been able to sustain a wormhole for longer than 38 minutes. What about another black hole planet? We would detect the gravitational anomaly, sir. The Russian government is divided on how to deal with the situation. Seems the Russian president didn't support setting up a Stargate program in the first place until we called. They were planning on bombing the facility and covering the whole thing up. And now very Russian. One of the Russian scientists involved in starting the program convinced them, send in a team to assess the situation and determine if it can be resolved in another way. Who's the scientist? Dr. Svetlana Markov. That'll be our Star Trek person. She's brilliant. She knows about you too, Major. To that end, she's convinced Moscow to let SG-1 be the team that goes to Siberia. General, we'd be walking into an unknown situation to save their rosy butts. We can't use our gate until we get there shut down. Yeah, Jack. Potential danger of having an open wormhole between Earth and who knows where. Yeah, just wide open. Rendezvous with Dr. Markov in Russia and proceed to the base from there. First of all, this would be a fun one for Daniel, who speaks Russian.

[8:57] All right. So let's play the game. Who is it? That's she. This is 2000. So it could be any of them. I'll give you I'm going to give you three. Give your give me your top three people. It could be. All right. So it's one of the women. OK. Russian. So someone who can do an accent. OK. And so I'm going to say I'm going to give you all three in order of my likelihood. And not visitor this is marina surtees terry farrell and not visitor so marina sura yeah uh troy and dax jadzia dax i could see any of them doing doing the russian thing okay let's find out.

[9:36] It's kind of cool how it's not all covered in snow like that's the stereotype for a site yeah stargate sg1 demolishing stereotypes i mean there's gotta be a lot of crops out there sorry i'm late oh look at that i've read your work and i your counselor markoff frankly no one can do the accent besides her like i'm not i'm not knocking the nah i'm not knocking terror terry ferrell marina sirtis is the person with her normal natural exotic accent to come in and run this deal she's so great for this because she's good at accents but also she has an ethnically ambiguous look like she can land into a lot of just like on this and it totally makes sense yeah yeah and I just and I want to be clear I'm not knocking Nana or Terry or any of their acting skills it just, Marine is just this role like all the way around I can't I can't use named those other tones like I couldn't see them doing this role really I really couldn't so all right here we go shortly after Russian satellites picked up what we believe was an alien spaceship entering the atmosphere, Because why not? Why wouldn't it be there?

[10:52] Days, albeit against the wishes of certain very powerful people in the government. What did they want to do? They threatened to expose the existence of your program. To get the U.S. To share the technology you have attained. So it stopped it. We activated our gate. I convinced the military that we could benefit from our own program more than we could trust you. Also makes How did you activate it? We have a dialing device.

[11:26] The dhd you found the one from giza it was confiscated from the germans after the second world war now i understand how you can send your people through and get them it's been holding on to it this whole time that makes one of us so i just want to make sure i've got everything straight back in the end of world war ii yeah russians confiscated the dhd that the russians got from the germans got from giza so they've just been holding on to this thing since like the mid-40s like i don't know what this thing is but we're gonna hold on to it because it's clearly something yep fast forward they catch the uh the ship coming in crashing down into the ocean we saw the whole thing with their submarine and the replicators yep and they dumped the stargate right so okay we're done we only have the one stargate now because the other one's gone they find it scoop it up because turns out it wasn't destroyed yeah which i have yeah that's weird to me but well given the metal and the destructive power of the metal that the stargate made out of if it actually got destroyed there'd be a pretty big hole even in the ocean that's true i guess and we saw too back in uh what was it 90 days or 100 days that you only need a little bit of it to get something going so yeah but so then they hook up the dhd to the stargate this is where i get a little fuzzy somehow they decide hey remember that thing over there yeah i wonder if it works for this that's question number one for me is like how do they connect those two things And then question number two.

[12:50] She said they only kept it plugged. They knew that when they had it plugged in, it superseded ESGC. So it almost sounds like it's primary or has more power or something because it supersedes.

[13:01] Only when the DHD is plugged into it, how do they know that? And then there's still a lot of questions I'm sure it'll answer, but I just wanted to make sure I had that straight. DHD from Germany, Stargate from bottom of the ocean, and somehow they broke. Match the two up so i will tell you this i do not know and i don't know if they say it maybe i just don't remember it i do not know how the russians figured out hey go get the dialing device let's hook it up and as long as we have it connected it will supersede the other gate and so let's disconnect it so we can be real sneaky about this whole thing i do not know how they found that out i don't remember i doubt they're actually going to tell us that i think it's just here it is but it is good gate physics that you should know a dialing device a dhd connected to a gate makes that the primary gate on earth i believe we learned that back in that episode of solitudes where we first discovered the gate in antarctica because remember they had a dhd there yeah it was just in gate right in in ice and uh so when sam finally got it like unthawed out and they were trying to trying to get it dialed out they couldn't just didn't have enough power but it was still like Like things went there. It made it the primary gate because there was a DHD there. So, yeah, if a DHD is connected to a gate, it does turn it into the primary one. So as long as their DHD was connected to the gate, anybody dialing into Earth would have gone to Russia instead of to us.

[14:27] So I did Braytac just showing up like, hey, oh, shoot. It'd be an interesting story of how they found that out. Yeah.

[14:34] You know, so but I will say this to Marina's point there.

[14:39] If the shoe was on the other foot and we found out that the Russians were operating a Stargate program unbeknownst to us, and we found a Stargate and a controlling device, we would benefit more from operating our own program, particularly in secret, than from exposing them and getting anything that that. Yeah. I mean, like that makes all the sense in the world. Yeah. We would do an exact same thing. Exactly. Absolutely. There are 47 people down there. Ah! I love that they had her say it.

[15:15] You know, he says that with such snark in his voice as if they haven't done similar stuff in their four years of operating this thing. Or they intentionally did this to them. We're going to stop you from getting your people back. Great job. Jack does have a little bit of that, or a lot of that superiority. I don't understand. I feel like we're watching some strong second unit work right now. I'm picking up trace amounts of chlorine. Yeah. Nothing dangerous at these levels, sir. All right. What is this? All right, Jeff. Pop quiz. This facility that services the Russian Stargate facility. We have seen it before. It's the it's the warehouse where they had all the area 51 stuff and everything. No, no, no. I'm gonna let you think about it and have it just bug you for the rest of the episode. Okay. Or is it just where the Stargate was last time? Stargate. program. It was an experimental power station. Are there light? The power seems to have been diverted from all non-essential base functions. This way to the main control center. Because that's what we do in sci-fi. We re-root power. It fixes everything. Or reverse the polarity. Those are the options. An inverse tachyon field. Daniel, let's work too. Is that you? I don't know. I'm heading down a long corridor. Which one?

[16:37] This one. It's so easy to tell it's him with Actually you might want to see this first.

[16:47] Ah, those are bullet holes. Yeah, as I say, that's not natural causes. These three were shot. I am unaware of how these others died. These doors lead to the Stargate. There it is. Wide open. Yep. And everybody's dead. Bullet holes, not staff weapons. That's good. Who shot them? They're all dead. Well, looks like you don't have 47 people down there anymore. Down to 42. Yep. Classic SG-1 darkness. I need this solution. It's your favorite way to watch the show. It is. At least they think it is.

[17:40] Sometimes the SGC control panels and stuff very much reminds me of early TOS. Panels are right. It's safe. Buttons and knobs and levers and stuff. I like how they let Teal go first. The air is indeed clean. Well, he's got Junior. He'll filter anything out for him.

[17:59] Uh-oh. She's such a good actress. You okay? I know. I knew these men and women, Major. Some of them quite well. The Stargate room is sealed and Substance 35 is released throughout the base. Nerve gas. It's a non-persistent gas. It evaporates after three hours. After it kills everybody. According to the computer, the protocol was enacted yesterday. For what reason? The computer log doesn't say. Alright, people were shooting each other around here before they got gassed. I want to know why. Um, so they didn't have to die by the gas? This is a list of all... You've ever been gassed before? You don't want that. They should all be wearing ID tags. There's gonna be somebody who doesn't have an ID tag. Someone who came through the gate. It's an outgoing wormhole, but that doesn't make sense. The EM protocol cuts off the dialing device. The protocol was enacted yesterday. Where has the outgoing wormhole been drawing its power from since then? By the way, she has a much better Russian accent than Walter Cunningham does. Dramatically. Is there anything you don't know? What were they doing?

[19:15] You got to think Carter's dying to work with her. You know what I mean? Like, she knows everything. If I ask what and you say it's classified, I'm going to shoot you. The seventh address we successfully dialed led to a start gate entirely submerged underwater. We sent a reconnaissance drone and found a dialing device. So it was decided that the manned mini submarine would go next. A sample of the water was retrieved. It seemed to have unbelievable properties. Like what? It was spontaneously emitting energy in the form of heat. If this liquid turned out to be an abundant, clean energy source... That doesn't seem possible. I was called away to Moscow before I could perform any significant analysis. So now you're saying the water sample is gone? Yes. The drone is malfunctioning. I can only pan and tilt. Oh.

[20:13] Mm-mm. Hello. How would those men proceed through the stargate, knowing they will drown on the other side? If they didn't know they were going to. Or the mini-southern spading. Can you shut off the drone's transmitter from here? You think the drone's radio transmitter is what's keeping the gate open? If this works. It's not responding to my command. I can't shut it down. How long before its batteries die? The drone is nuclear-powered. A nuclear-powered drone? We built several of them. We thought we might want to leave them on other planets for long-term observation. To how long-term? Ten years. It will be simple to deactivate the drone from the other side. Once it stops transmitting its signal, the wormhole should close. Proceeding through the gate. I like that she can control the crane from inside the cell. Very self-sufficient, the whole thing. I'm curious how it's going to go in without the cables getting all... Oh, yeah. Probably don't address it. That's just me being ridiculous. But good luck. Thank you. The sub has arms that come out and reach on the other side of the gate. Right? Pull it through. Pull it through.

[21:28] It's always a cool effect. Yeah. But it just disappears into nothing there. Pretty simple television thing, for sure, but still. Works. Yeah. I hope they have a finger poker on the outside of that thing to dial. Just kind of, yeah. So they can come home. Maybe just bring it back with you. Hey, there you go. She was right. So simple. So simple. That's one of those, of course Sam would think about that. Well, did you try turning off the thing? It's still on? What? Did you turn it off and on? No, it's just been on. Come on. You and your backward Stargate program, come on. Right? I'm glad you were right, Major. Well, it still doesn't explain why your soldiers started shooting the scientists who were experimenting on the water. Or why those men were either forced through the gate and felt compelled to go through on their own, knowing they would die. Well, the existence of the ruins suggests the planet wasn't always completely submerged. Maybe there's some clues down there. What's that smell? The engine burning out. Fire extinguisher.

[22:41] Something goes wrong and something on the bridge blows up. That's... Every time. I wonder if Marina's like, hey guys, I gotta have this. I know how this works. Just do this. You gotta shake. She give them shaking lessons? If air becomes a thing fire consumes oxygen so do fire extinguishers so like, that was a big thing that just happened no we're completely stationary it's like we're stuck in the mud the density of water on this planet is way higher in that area it's high energy water wonder if this is where the energy drink industry took off from what's that smell.

[23:26] He's got his blue neck. Holy frozen bad guys. Hey! I know that guy. You do? Oh, you didn't recognize him? Mm-mm. Okay. This may be my foreknowledge having seen the episode several times. Okay. Activating one. Of course I know exactly who that is. I don't understand why this happened. The outside pressure is increasing. What? The gauge must be malfunctioning. Yeah, that makes sense. Our depth is constant. And pressure should be relative to depth. And if it keeps increasing. The sub will implode. Tin can. I don't know how the Russians acquired the information.

[24:09] How? I like how they got him under a heat lamp. Solid. We came through the stargate just as we did this time. We took the sub straight to the dialing device and redialed Earth. The gate opened and we headed through. That's it. So simple. We collected the water sample just before heading back through the event horizon. No trouble. We had to push the engines a little harder to get through the gate, but I suspected it was... I've never realized this before, Jeff. We may have to retitle this particular episode, Stargate for the first time. Maybe actually a Star Trek podcast. I don't know that the writers are doing this on purpose because Marina's here. Maybe Marina's here because they did this episode the way they're doing it. I just remembered how this episode ends and I'm like, oh no, I've seen this episode before. All right, let's go. Sorry. Okay. Some kind of intuitive countermeasure intended to keep the water from flowing through the gate. It's possible.

[25:09] Hey, Warren. Oh, now we know where they were getting there for me. Okay. His heart is beating. He did not look like Mayborn. He's getting warmer. Yeah. But when he was just sitting there like this in the freezer, it didn't look like him at all. Mayborn. You hear me? He's like, please don't hear me. Oh, dang it. We're not going anywhere, are we? It's like the water is just tightening up around it. I wonder if it's mad that they stole its water. What are you doing? Took a piece of it. Pushing the engines harder will only burn them out again. Wait, say that one more time. I wonder if it's like mad that they took its water. Like it took a piece, like the water is actually like a living thing or whatever. And it took a piece of it. And it's like, no, I want me back. That would be very Star Trek. Very Star Trek. And if we stay here, we'll run out of air.

[26:14] Damn. Not the best throw-up effect. No. The freezer. What? Move if you want to live. Shoot me if you want to. We're dead if we don't move now. It's got the water in it. Uh-oh. It's too late for him. Jack, you opened that door and we're both dead, I swear. You can't help him. Get out of my way. Maybe Junior can help him.

[26:51] What the hell is going on here? You said it's like we're being held here. Like something is squeezing the sun. Christopher Judge as zombie. There's only water. What if it's not water? That works. How did you know it was giving off energy? The container maintained a temperature seven degrees above room temperature. Colonel Sokolov was under a lot of pressure to prove that the money being spent was going to be worth it. So we don't know that's actually water out there.

[27:20] If we can just find a way to communicate with it, it'll let us go home. We got to return its missing body piece. Yeah. Just have Tilk throw up in there and you're good. The water. Into the gate. Turn the gate back on. When they exposed it to the air, it started chemical analysis. It just evaporated. We inhaled it. Didn't give us a choice. It was us. Scientists in the lab. I knew what was going on, but I couldn't control myself. They wanted to go back through the stargate. Who's they? Life forms. In the water. The sea monkeys? Countless numbers of microscopic organisms. Intelligent life forms. What are you trying to tell me this water thinks? We were killing them. They forced us to try and take them back through the gate. The soldiers tried to stop us. They were shooting. If an infected man was killed, the fluid came out of them and more were infected. It was chaos. How do we get it out? Come on, Mayborn, it came out of you. They needed to go back. You wouldn't let me go. I guess they thought Till could get him home. He's about to walk into the gate, straight into the water. Oh, that explains why those guys are just floating in the water. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[28:26] That's not good. You'd have bust out the EB Green. Duct tape that bad boy. Fight it! Fight it! God. At least those organisms don't give him, like, superhuman strength.

[28:43] Pressure alone. Yeah. Yeah. Like the abyss and just kind of come out as a person. You are trespassing on our land. Daniel? This is a we come in peace moment. What's he doing? I feel like you need to get consent before you do that, doctor. I don't understand. What? He's going to grab his arm and jank him in there. Yeah, there it goes. Yep. I didn't even remember that happened. I've just seen this episode of Star Trek before. Look on his face. It's like, there's home. I just got to get through there. He doesn't want to hurt anybody. So as soon as they hit the air, they vaporize. That's kind of neat. I have to save you.

[29:51] They had no wish to kill you neil they only wanted to travel home that's good, okay i think we should duck, they don't have their stargate up on a big ramp exactly literal hit the deck, like it threw them through the gate keeping the sub you're out of here didn't you guys leave here in a submarine? We, uh... Last thing I remember, we were being pulled into the... Not really sure what happened, sir. Here's a thought. We just exchanged hostages. Oh, yeah. It's just a thought, jack figured it out he wasn't even over there and he figured it out listen to mayborn oh my gosh.

[30:49] All right jeff we have just watched watergate you for the first time me for the 47th time um i will say personally this is not an episode i tend to revisit very often it's not one that i tend to like a lot i think watching this with you has made my appreciation for this episode.

[31:06] Skyrocket i'll talk about that a little bit later but this is not about brent's first viewing it's about just first viewing jeff take us through it your first viewing of the episode watergate i'm very biased on this one because i nailed pretty darn close my prediction yeah and part way through the episode i nailed what the episode was about yeah you did and that's that's not a negative on this at all it's uh i don't know watergate can only now it's interesting because by watergate they meant a very different thing they meant a literal water gate right like go to the gate into the water but it was still similar right because the basically they picked up some information and went and snagged some stuff and i don't know this is a fun this is what i liked about this episode i like this episode because it was really two episodes the first episode was kind of boring, but was also important. It was full of gate physics. Like we learned and reaffirmed a lot of things. We reaffirmed the 38 minutes for being open. We learned about radio signals can go back and forth, even though like matter can only go one way. And that back and forth signal holds the gate open. We learned about having a DHD plugged in. We learned about it reaffirmed. Having the DHD plugged in kind of makes the gate the primary on there. So good, this is important stuff about the gate so that's cool but it was kind of boring going through that but it was kind of.

[32:29] Boring it just kind of was going through the paces here's some stuff honestly if marina certes wasn't the guest star in this i probably would have lost interest 20 some odd minutes in i would have been like okay whatever here we go then stuff picked up and we got the second episode which was lifted directly from burman era star trek even original series star trek what is this mysterious life form that we've never encountered before and is it really life or is it a threat or We ended up in just this big, huge, massive sea monkeys. A huge thing of sea monkeys that were intelligent and just wanted to go home yeah just wanted to go home we saw mayborn show up right and mayborn's been feeding information to the russians we know he's got his own agenda he's not loyal to any flag and i mean he went rogue ish and now he's dealing with russians so guy's a bad dude and had another jack got another chance to kill him and probably would have been good. Two thoughts on this one that really stand out. One was a question. I wonder if the submarine and just the doing stuff underwater in this one was an early seed for Stargate Atlantis.

[33:44] Probably never know, but I wanted to say, hey, we did this once before, way back. We can do it now with the better technology we have. You said a thing while we were watching the episode, and that got me thinking about Star Trek, even though this is not a Star Trek podcast, except for this episode but you said that marina does a better russian accent than kanig walter kanig did yeah yeah 100 yeah i i feel like i mean i'm not russian at all but i feel like if i was i'd be a little offended by check off like it's kind of a here's the thing i think you would you would probably be offended now and you know what that's fair i'm not russian I don't know. My guess is, and if anyone out there, if you're Russian and you're from the 60s and 70s, perhaps even the 80s, that's the caveat. I wonder if they would have been offended by a really bad accent or if they would have been glad to have some representation. Yeah, that's me. It's not a great me, but it's a me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[34:50] Whereas Marina, I mean, I would believe that she is Russian after watching this with a really great English language. Accent like she speaks into really well but i i learned it when she was six it was so easy yeah we during the episode we talked about that how just marina certes as an actor as a person has that i called it ethnic ambiguity where she can drop into different she has great mastery of so many accents and she just has a visual that blends in she sounded and looked to my eyes as just I completely bought her as being Russian and that's a gift that she has. But on top of that, I started thinking about the the characters of Chekhov and Counselor Troy and how they got nothing to do.

[35:39] Chekhov was in two seasons and then the movies and was just kind of on the side and said a couple of things. It didn't have a lot of meat to anything he did. Counselor Troy was in all seven seasons of Next Generation and the films and in Voyager and in Picard and it wasn't until Picard that we got much of her personality really like there's just kind of like oh here's this person it struck me how Babylon 5 gave Walter Koenig his science fiction platform from here I'm Bester and this is who I am I get to actually act I'm doing things this is great Stargate in one single episode gave Marina Surtees more in her character Dr.

[36:19] Markov And then Counselor Troi got in most of those seven seasons of Star Trek. It just strikes me how... Yes, Star Trek is an ensemble show. It's one of the things that makes it great. There's a lot of characters, a lot in it. But there's definitely real varying depths in the character development. Whereas in Stargate, also an ensemble show. But they even have time to connect us with their guest stars. Yeah. We've had so many that we have connections to. I think about, shoot, it's been three seasons since we saw Quark as one of the Nox, right? And he was great. And then the lady Knox, we've seen a couple of times, like I forget her name, but like I see her and I'm like, oh, sweet. There she is. Naya. Yeah. There's just, it's a gift in the writing. I'm talking about the gift of Marina Sertiz is just how she shows up. But then the gift of the skill in the writing in Stargate is really apparent.

[37:13] And the way they can connect us to even a character we'll probably never see again we have a tracking can i can i well can if i can add to what you're saying there yeah um something that really stood out to me really in this episode more than i think any other time i've seen it at least in this viewing i mean they brought marina sort of son as a as a russian she's playing a russian the russians have a gate the right now take this back this is this is the year 2000 so we're about a decade or so removed from the from the soviet union falling maybe a little less at this point a little less with 91 yeah um i think so you know they're they're friends but tentative friends i think probably at best but when we went in you could feel the tension certainly there but she wasn't cast as a bad guy yeah you know what i mean she wasn't cast as the opposition even though jack tried to make her the opposition at at least one specific point I can think of, but she, she wasn't, she was there as a, as a full partner, but also still very Russian. She wasn't, she wasn't the defector and saying that country's bad or whatever. Like she's there for her country. She is Russian. She's here, but she's not the bad guy at the same time. And I, I thought that was rather remarkable of, I mean, very similar to what happened when TOS put Chekhov on screen, very similar to what happened. And because I called this out when we were watching it with Babylon 5, when Ivanova came in. Exactly. That's where I was going. She is Stargate's Ivanova. She's just there.

[38:42] She's just there. And it's positive. And there's no qualms with what it is. And this may be reaching over into my section about the messages. But I mean, when you can just have people working together. Without having to say oh that's bad and this is good but just we're just here working together like that's really phenomenal you know it is let's just keep riding that brent tell us about the sci-fi messages yeah because all of our tracking board stuff doesn't matter for this episode yeah we didn't have any so so yeah i mean jeff i said this in the middle of the episode and i kind of hinted at it and it i had i had forgotten where this episode went like what the shtick was and as soon as it hit me and i knew like once the thing started crushing that i was It's like, oh, yeah, that's a life form. And they've got some of it over there, and it's just trying to get home. That's all it's trying to – and I said to you in the middle of the recording, for those that are listening on the audio side, they didn't watch this part. I stopped and I said –, This is the most Star Trek episode ever that we've had in Stargate. It how many Star Trek episodes go through this idea of, hey, there's a thing out there that we don't know as a life form, a gas cloud, a crystalline entity, a robot, a name. Oh, the the the lava stuff in in Voyager when they went to that planet. The demon class plant. Demon plant. Yeah, yeah.

[40:09] How many, and something happens where it gets taken home or it gets, you know, gas gets caught and all it's trying to do is get out and get home. It just wants to get back. It's not, it's not maleficent. Malevolent. Malevolent. That's it. In my head, I had Maleficent, the Disney character.

[40:27] It's not malevolent. It's not trying to hurt us, but it is forceful and it's trying to get out of here. You know, that's all this was. and what's the Star Trek message we get every single time when you see that episode of Star Trek all life matters all life matters we have to identify what life is and you realize you're not actually fighting each other start working with each other and get through it and you know what Jeff that was the same message that was in this episode I don't know if they got Marina Sirtis to come play in the Star Trek episode on purpose I don't know that they wrote a Star Trek episode because Marina searches was going to be the guest actress in this one.

[41:04] I don't know that one had anything to do with each other, but I kind of like to think that they are. Yeah, this is like that. This is a Star Trek episode through and through. And I know we say this is not a Star Trek podcast. Jeff, we really try despite what some people say you and I have tried since our very first episode of Babylon five here at this show. When you and I got together to not actively compare our episodes to Star Trek. Correct. We try. We do the analysis piece, but we're really we the comparisons. We try to make them ubiquitous to all sci fi out there. But this one is literally a Star Trek episode. And and not just one Star Trek episode, but many across all of the series, multiple of the series lifted. I mean, lifted straight from it. And yeah, what's the message? Identify life. get to know it work together don't go poking your head in something that you don't know what it is.

[42:03] You know like uh but also i think it's a great metaphor for watching what happened between sg1 as a team and uh marina serratis's character and dr markov yeah dr markov uh it's a great metaphor for that when they started kind of at least working together and trusting each other and communicating and not just sniping at each other the way jack had been they could work together and solve a problem you know it of course it took the american girl turning around and going well of course it's just the radio saying just turn that off fine americans they connected with science it's great you know it's like a universal language right i think it you know if i could rewrite the episode with a little bit more of today's awareness um What I would rather see is I would rather see Sam and Dr. Markov talking it out together and coming to the solution together. That makes rather than just Sam turning around going, well, duh.

[43:03] Isn't it this? Of course you not think about it. Right, right. I think I would rather see that. But still, they got they got to where they needed to be. And that's the message here, Jeff. this is when you talk about what did robert c cooper sit down and intend to write this as a full-on message yeah he did yep pulling it out i mean and even if he didn't i'm gonna retroactively say that he did jeff this comes down this is seven chevron episode to me man like all the way through all the way through absolutely i think also this episode is another example though something we're going to see ongoing i think we've seen it through here and we'll see more jack has his preconceived notions and it takes a lot to move him away from those yeah it's going to get him in trouble it's gotten him in trouble and i think it will continue to well folks uh that is my rating here's what i'd like to know from you guys out there that i missed any messages email us in let us know um drop it in the comments or on our twitter account or anything like that now i do the rating jeff you my friend get to do the ranking we're putting together our 100 completely accurate definitive immutable Notable until we say it's not ranking of SG one season for Jeff, our current top five. You've got window of opportunity all the way there at the top. Number two is small victories. Number three is upgrades. Number four is crossroads. Number five is the other side. Hey.

[44:30] Number six is divide and conquer. Jeff, where do you place this episode? Watergate. These are all good episodes on this list. And when I'm ranking this one, I get I really enjoyed the second half.

[44:43] Of this. The first half was kind of dry and kind of boring, and it wasn't that exciting. So I'm going to just ask myself, of these six that are on here and adding the seventh, which one would I rather watch on this?

[44:57] Honestly, I would want to watch any of these six before this one. This is going to be our number seven of the season. And that's not that it's a bad episode. I want to be really clear. I'm not saying it's a bad episode, just compared to the other six. this one is at the at the bottom of the list listen when we came out of the episode the first thing i said to you was is this is not an episode i rewatch a whole lot i don't revisit this one and there's and i get it i get it yeah all right well jeff that's gonna do it for watergate we have a new episode coming up next time wow would you i know go figure uh jeff i'm gonna give you the name of this one and let me see you struggle with uh with trying to figure out what it's all about the name of this one is called pull put put on your babble on five hat here jeff okay the name of this one is the first ones the first ones now i will tell you i'm just gonna leave i'm a you have enough stargate lore that if you piece this one together you should be able to pretty much get it i think i do i think it's gonna be one of two things okay because there's really two branches that we can go down or two i don't know levels for first ones there's like the way back the big macro of the first ones, which would be from what I understand, the ancients, right? The building of the Stargates, all that kind of stuff that happened back in the day. So either it's going to be that some level, we're going to get fifth race-ish kind of stuff here, diving and touching with the ancients in some way telling that story, or the other piece is doing more of a.

[46:26] Microcosm into the Goa Uld, and their first ones were James Earl Jones. The Unas. Unas the unas that's literally unas one the first one the the uno unas.

[46:42] So either we're going to get a dive into the the first one or the the ancient ones or we're going to get something with the unas and dive into the go out old can i pick two or do i need to pick one of those here's the thing jeff one of those two is exactly correct you have to wait till next week to find out which one that you are. I will. You are spot on with one of them. Oh, man. OK. Yeah. If you want to go ahead and press play on the next episode, we could do that right now. We could. Absolutely.

[47:12] Although I think we both have people around us that would not be OK with. Probably not. Probably not. So it may have to wait for next time. Hey, guys, we will see exactly which one it is. Well, Jeff will. I know you guys out there probably know as well. Jeff will find out right here next time on Stargate SG one for the first time. I'm still not a Star Trek podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. You guys are amazing. We love it that you guys get to come and hang out with us, or we love it that we get to hang out with you guys through the show. Hey, listen, don't forget to subscribe wherever you get this show, whether it's on YouTube or a podcasting app or Spotify or Audible or I don't know, wherever you get this show. Maybe you're buying the DVD of it later because we're going to sell DVDs of this because DVD is still a medium for some reason. Leave us a rating and review wherever you get your shows and please the best thing you can do to help this show grow is to share this podcast with somebody that you know who loves stargate sg1 or needs to get into it for the very first time just like my buddy jeff on that side over there, so until next time my name's brent that's jeff we're gonna get out of here well yes jeff what's up we're not even close to where we're going we're gonna have to jump jump yeah what you've never done this before of crying out loud.

[48:32] We'll be right back.