Stargate SG-1: The Complete First Season [5 Discs] [DVD]

Called back to active duty by Gen. George Hammond (Don S. Davis), Col. Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) emerges from the retirement he'd imposed on himself after vanquishing Ra, despotic leader of the hideous Goa'uld race, in the "alternate universe" planet Abydos. Word has reached Hammond, head of the top-secret Stargate project, that O'Neill's former associate Dr. David Jackson (Michael Shanks), who'd discovered that the universe is festooned with Stargate "portals" enabling alien civilizations to pass from one plane of reality to another and back again, and who'd evidently perished during the battle with Ra, may still be alive. Blasting off from Stargate Command's headquarters in the Air Force's Cheyenne Mountain Complex, where the Earth's Stargate is located and carefully guarded, O'Neill and his Stargate 1 team, including scientist Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) manage to cross over into Abydos and rescue Jackson from Ra's vicious successor Apophis (Peter Williams). Armed with a map drawn up by Jackson, the SG-1 personnel dedicate themselves to journeying to as many Stargates in the galaxy as possible, the better to protect a variety of alien races from hostile invasion. And thus begins the first season of the enormously popular cable sci-fi series Stargate SG-1. Before long, O'Neill et al. have taken on a new ally, Jaffa soldier Teal'c (Christopher Judge), who refuses to fall in line with his people and blindly accept the Goa'uld as gods. Though Teal'c seems to be trustworthy, the rest of the crew cannot forget that he, like all Jaffan males, carries a larval Goa'uld in his stomach. The SG-1's intergalactic perambulations brings the team in contact with the Shavadi warriors on the planet Simarka; with planet P3X797, where a strict caste system is determined by who lives on the "dark" and "light" side of the plane; and with Samantha Carter's former lover (played by William Russ), who rules Kurtzlike as a god on a faraway planet. In one startling episode the entire crew is actually killed by the predatory Apophis, only to be brought back to life by the invisible Fenri race. Elsewhere, O'Neill undergoes an accelerated aging process on the planet Argos; the crew uncovers disturbing evidence of Stargate activation as far back as 1945 -- but they may never live to tell about it; SG-1 takes the first of many trips to the Planet Cimmeria, ruled by Holographic Norse deities; Teal'c tries to save his son Rya'c (Neil Denis) from being inseminated with a Goa'uld larva; Samantha bonds with a little girl who may have to be killed before she can destroy all humankind, and later Sam and O'Neill are marooned on a frozen planet where she is forced to assume command; and Dr. Jackson is whisked into an alternate reality where all the familiar characters undergo radical changes of personality. Season one ends as all subsequent seasons will, with a cliffhanger that will remain unresolved until the beginning of the next season. In this case, Jackson must alert the team of his foreknowledge that Earth is due for an attack by the Goa'uld -- just as the Stargate Project's funding is slashed to the bone by an anti-military politician.~Hal Erickson