Episode Redux Written For the Save Daniel Jackson Campaign Website, 2001


Prodigy, Season 4
Written by: Joseph Mallozzi, Paul Mullie, Brad Wright

Review of Prodigy (or “SG1 does Darkness Falls”) by elfin


So we start off with the (not so) surprising news that Daniel is off-world with SG11.  Makes me wonder why they went to all the bother of writing ‘Meridian’ at all and didn’t just say he was “off-world with SG11” if anyone asked.

Sam, too, is out of the SGC.  But she’s at the academy being brilliant in front of a class full of potential SGC cadets (the new breed).  Enter Cadet ‘Mary-Sue’ Hailey who points out an error in Sam’s calculations.  Uh-ho.

So, we’re down to two members of SG-1 actually off-world with the cameras.  Jack and Teal’c are on duty commanding a research post on an alien world.  Wouldn’t Daniel have loved that?  And why isn’t Teal’c ever ‘off-world with SG11’?

Meanwhile, after thirty seconds of off-world anti-action with Jack and micro-scope concerns, Sam’s asking all about Cadet Hailey, being told that she’s brilliant but just doesn’t mix well with authority (sounds oddly familiar).

Back off-world, a scientist is giving Jack hell about not being allowed to explore the caves, and suddenly I’m hearing Daniel’s voice in my head….

In the labs at the academy, the same argument that goes on between the ‘Wormhole X-treme’ crew about one-way wormholes is going on between Hailey and Sam.  Later Sam gets into a complex discussion about wormhole physics (there’s a pattern developing here…) only to be told that Hailey’s gotten into a fight and is about to be thrown out of the Airforce.

Sam argues in her defence (great, thanks Sam – Ed) and takes her under her wing, or at least drags her off to the SGC for a sample of what her future could hold.  Lots of off-world adventures with “the great Samantha Carter”.  And all of a sudden I struggle to remember who the genius was who translated the cover stone of the gate and worked out how to activate it….

On the alien planet, the little bugs from the X-Files episode, ‘Darkness Falls’, have appeared to Jack and Teal’c.  The scientists want to study them as well as the cave network, and Jack has more trying to get these poor professors to follow his orders.  Of course, they don’t (no one does, do they?) and capture of one the little bugs of light.

Enter Sam and Hailey.  So now we have a potential new member of the SGC joining Sam, Jack and Teal’c….  Thought provoking, is it not?  Jack’s making all nice with the cadet and when she questions the morality of holding a bug captive, he makes the scientists let it go.  Would he have been so quick to listen to Daniel, I wonder?

So, true to form, the little bugs start attacking (did no one watch The X-Files?) and it’s up to Sam and Hailey to save the day while Teal’c and Jack play the All-American heros.  

Guess what?!  No one’s filled the generator….  (Where is that X-Files tape?)  Sam and Hailey start arguing about who’s right regarding the ‘why did the bugs attack’ question (who cares?!) and Jack of course goes by Sam’s theory.  This is okay, because Sam’s a member of his team and Hailey’s a little spoilt brat.  This is what we’d expect.

Teal’c really does have a thing for shooting SG1 members with his zat!  How long until the ‘second shot’ rule wears off anyway, just out of interest?  

Jack makes a run for the gate, is attacked, saved by Teal’c and everyone goes home.

I am so bored now.

There’s no Daniel in it, therefore the writers didn’t have to tackle that obviously difficult character, just get some nameless scientist to say his lines and have his disagreements with Jack.

This is a Sam-worship episode, but it least most of it is off-world.  Hailey’s presence just made me realise how much I miss Daniel being around.  The plot’s okay (but I’m serious about the X-Files episode), the dialogue’s cliché and vomit-inducing in places.  

There’s no SG-1 stuff at all.  Everyone’s too busy drooling over Cadet Hailey, who I couldn’t stand then and hated in ‘Proving Ground’ with a passion.

In my mind this episode is everything that is wrong with Stargate SG-1 now.  No Daniel, no team or family feeling at all.  Sam having the sun shining out of her ass is not what we want for the first woman of sci-fi!


Scoring:
1 out of 10 for at least being set off-world.  But minus ten points for not having Daniel on the screen for a single second.  So that’s… -11 out of 10.  Not a great result.