For this review, I am working off the version of CotG released in the 2007 SG-1 Complete Series Collection.

Ah, pilot episodes. A good pilot has to lay a lot of groundwork to establish the canon that will later be ignored to varying degrees (like the fact that Kawalsky didn't know Jack had a son, okay Brad). "Children of the Gods" has a lot of weight to carry, needing to first catch up anyone who missed the movie, and then establish the larger world that the series is jumping into. There are two key scenes that take care of this: the initial briefing with Hammond when Jack lies his ass off and the cartouche room with three-fourths of SG-1. Both of these scenes do an excellent job of grounding huge info dumps in character moments—that's essentially why these scenes work.

The briefing sets Hammond as the viewer surrogate, letting Jack explain to him what he missed. By itself that could be pretty dull, but the whole conversation is sparking with tension because Jack is lying (and everyone knows it). Anyone watching Richard Dean Anderson's performance, or the way Jack keeps cutting glances to his nervously shifting teammates, is going to pick up on Jack's lies pretty quickly. So the scene is constructed around the truth, Jack's lies, and the moment when Jack's lies are going to come out, which keeps the viewer interested while still swallowing this enormous info dump. All the interest is rooted in character.

The cartouche room is similar in structure—in this case Daniel has the info that he's explaining to Jack and Sam. What works in this scene (aside from the fact that Daniel Jackson is the perfect human) is that Sam picks up on his enthusiasm and the two of them start bouncing off each other in utter glee. Their excitement supports the entire scene and it's not just a wall of Star Chart Doppler's Shift Computer Programs, but is their genuine excitement for the hook underpinning the whole damn show. And if you got lost in all the techno babble, Jack sums up: "So, the Stargate can go other places?"

There's a LOT of set-up to get through in a pilot, and I think "Children of the Gods" handles it rather expertly.


A few last notes of significance:

• In the opening sequence, the first person to approach the active Stargate is the unnamed female officer who was initially wary of the mysterious device. When the first image of a series is a woman being braver than the men, certain expectations must be met.


• If you too are a crazy person who keeps obsessing over Daniel's time on Abydos, he states in this episode that he found the cartouche room after a month. (Excuse me, I need to go change the timeline on a fic I wrote in 2006.)

Quote of the Week:

Samuels: What if the aliens get it?
Jack: Well they could be blowing their noses right now.

( Episode Stats )

Next up: 1.03 The Enemy Within