Stargate SG-1 turned a gimmicky episode into one of the show’s strongest

According to Jonathan Klotz
| Published 1 hour ago

Stargate SG-1 was underrated when it aired, and today, 17 years after it aired, it remains a niche series even compared to its sci-fi contemporaries. Planted firmly between the fantasy adventure of Star Wars and the futuristic ideals of Star Trek, the series managed to combine the best of both worlds and come up with its own winning formula. Few episodes exemplify this as much as “Heroes,” a two-parter that begins as a quirky documentary-focused episode and then becomes a tribute to a fallen hero that defies audience expectations at every turn.

Part 1 Is Fun And Games

In “Heroes, Part I” by Emmett Bergman (Warehouse 13 Saul Rubinek) is a documentary filmmaker hired by the US government to capture the inner workings of the Stargate program. The result is fun Stargate SG-1 episode of characters we’ve come to know and love reacting very differently to the presence of the camera, from Dr. of Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) running and hiding from Teal’c (God of War Christopher Judge), who we know as a noble warrior and shrewd diplomat, producing monosyllabic grunts while the camera rolls. On the other hand, Samantha Carter (Sanctuary Amanda Tapping) excitedly goes into detail about the science behind stargates before becoming horrified at Emmett’s desire to watch them spin.

In fact, the only member of the Stargate SG-1 team who reacts well to Emmett’s camera is Dr. Janet Fraiser (Teryl Rothery), who even agrees to have lunch with the documentarian after the interview. It’s a cute character moment for someone who might have been a fan favorite but was too often a supporting character for someone else’s story, never really part of the main cast (Rothery worked without a contract for the first three seasons) and, in retrospect, her increased screen time was a clue that this episode would be different.

Part 2 shows The Tragedy of War

“Heroes, Part 2” picks up the aftermath of the Gao’uld ambush at the end of the first episode, which cut Frasier and Emmett’s lunch because the good doctor had to respond to a medical emergency. We see a body driven into the base, covered by a sheet, so it’s unclear who died, a mystery that isn’t resolved until the end of the episode when Emmett’s tape is shown and we see that Dr. Frasier was killed in action after saving another life. Manufacturers Stargate SG-1 they thought season 7 would be the last and wanted to kill off the main character but in the process created one of the best science fiction episodes ever, and ended up breathing new life into the franchise as a whole.

Robert Picardo, Doctor of Star Trek: Voyagerthe first of many appearances as Woolsey, a character I, like most of the fandom, hated at first but would eventually come to love, even though he never changed, we just changed how we perceived him. Woolsey is brought in to find out who is responsible for Dr. Frasier’s death, but as Emmett’s tape shows, it was she who put her own life on the line to save another, which ultimately resulted in her death. Stargate SG-1 was a series about war, and in war there are casualties, and the decision to make the moment not a cinematic casualty, but simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time due to the desire to do good, gave the moment more weight than anyone expected from a SyFy Original.

Stargate SG-1 captured this moment

When Carter stands up at Frasier’s funeral and eulogizes the good doctor by listing everyone she’s saved in her lifetime, it’s one of the most powerful moments in the entire series. Stargate SG-1 has dealt with the trauma and emotional toll of war on his characters before, but this was a raw moment that moved the home audience to tears. It’s one thing to see the Doctor constantly saving lives every episode, but it’s quite another to acknowledge that this sense of nobility cost Frasier his life and all the lives that would have been extinguished without her.

Stargate SG-1 earned the one-two punch of “Heroes” with some of the most underrated writing in science fiction at the time. It would be so easy for the show to lean on stupid cheese period adventure showsespecially with the MacGuyver himself, Richard Dean Anderson, as part of the cast, and while the show embraces the fun side of the genre, each individual character develops, fleshes out and feels like a whole person by the time the series finale rolls around. Other shows did documentary style; for example the later Amanda Tapping series, Sanctuaryshot an entire episode from the point of view of a film crew as if it were found footage, but no other series has used this to create an emotional punch. “Heroes, Part 1 and Part 2” is a well-earned, near-perfect 90 minutes of everything great about science fiction.