Stargate SG-1: Cold Lazarus Rewatch
September 4, 2024 9:21 AM - Season 1, Episode 6 - Subscribe
While searching a yellow desert planet, the SG-1 team finds a pit filled with broken blue crystals. When Colonel Jack O'Neill wanders off alone and touches one, he is blasted backward and knocked unconscious. A duplicate of himself is created to examine the Tau'ri, and it returns to Earth with the rest of the SG-1 team, who believe it is the real O'Neill. The duplicate O'Neill explores O'Neill's past life outside of the Stargate Command complex, and it soon becomes an unwitting threat to society.
And there's a surprising number of episodes where members of the SG1 team are replaces by dopplegangers. Which come back to be a thing a few times, too, which is nice.
posted by Kyol at 9:56 AM on September 4 [1 favorite]
posted by Kyol at 9:56 AM on September 4 [1 favorite]
fun fact - the blue fizzly energy that runs over o'niel when he is glitching out is actually burning steel wool - it's an old-school way to get an interesting light texture. You sculpt the steel wool into the shape of the thing you want to burn, then touch a 9 volt battery to it and film as the burning crawls over the strands.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 2:23 AM on September 5 [2 favorites]
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 2:23 AM on September 5 [2 favorites]
important thing to note however: it burns hot, makes nasty fumes and shoots off little sparks, so though it sounds like a fun thing to do, use caution - do it outdoors, somewhere ventilated and non-burny!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:26 AM on September 5 [1 favorite]
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:26 AM on September 5 [1 favorite]
It says something about how withdrawn you are that when an alien entity accidentally makes a doppelganger of you...no one really notices.
In the film, Jack's son's death is played in a way as a character motivation that he's ready to die. In fact, I think you meet him (Kurt Russell) as he's contemplating suicide. I really appreciate that they chose to stick with this (for what turned out to be a different O'Niell) and I can't remember now how it might play later down the road. Here, I can say as a parent, if I lost my child to a horrible accident and spent a year or more grieving, I don't know if I would be so cool with an alien suddenly turning into them to "heal my pain." That said, I liked how RDA played it relatively somber, almost as if the alien were another child trying to learn by doing like many kids do.
SG-1 is also fun when they explore more abstract ideas of what life is or how the universe works. As Carillon pointed out, it also denotes in a great way how awful the Goa'uld are. "It wasn't a ceremonial space, but a killing field" or something like Daniel shares. The episode also still kept things a bit light with Daniel's and Carter's enthusiasm for solving a mystery. Teal'c's "You did get permission for me to fire my staff weapon, didn't you?" "Uh....sure...?"
Going back to Alien Jack, it was a clever way to show us what Jack is feeling inside. The pain that leaves him grieving in his son's bedroom.
Something that I didn't know for the longest time while watching this how was that Richard Dean Anderson is very much anti-guns. He admittedly loves shooting blanks on set, but has strong beliefs about gun control. I've always wondered if that background lead him to sign on to a character where the lack of gun safety resulted in the death of the character's child.
posted by Atreides at 8:51 AM on September 5 [3 favorites]
In the film, Jack's son's death is played in a way as a character motivation that he's ready to die. In fact, I think you meet him (Kurt Russell) as he's contemplating suicide. I really appreciate that they chose to stick with this (for what turned out to be a different O'Niell) and I can't remember now how it might play later down the road. Here, I can say as a parent, if I lost my child to a horrible accident and spent a year or more grieving, I don't know if I would be so cool with an alien suddenly turning into them to "heal my pain." That said, I liked how RDA played it relatively somber, almost as if the alien were another child trying to learn by doing like many kids do.
SG-1 is also fun when they explore more abstract ideas of what life is or how the universe works. As Carillon pointed out, it also denotes in a great way how awful the Goa'uld are. "It wasn't a ceremonial space, but a killing field" or something like Daniel shares. The episode also still kept things a bit light with Daniel's and Carter's enthusiasm for solving a mystery. Teal'c's "You did get permission for me to fire my staff weapon, didn't you?" "Uh....sure...?"
Going back to Alien Jack, it was a clever way to show us what Jack is feeling inside. The pain that leaves him grieving in his son's bedroom.
Something that I didn't know for the longest time while watching this how was that Richard Dean Anderson is very much anti-guns. He admittedly loves shooting blanks on set, but has strong beliefs about gun control. I've always wondered if that background lead him to sign on to a character where the lack of gun safety resulted in the death of the character's child.
posted by Atreides at 8:51 AM on September 5 [3 favorites]
I didn't realize that RDA was so anti-gun, I'm sure it is knowable, but I wonder if that came from his time on MacGyver or if his own views were what shaped the character.
posted by Carillon at 5:21 PM on September 5 [1 favorite]
posted by Carillon at 5:21 PM on September 5 [1 favorite]
Okay, this may be my favorite episode so far! Well done, guys!
For a couple reasons. One, they managed to get a planet that doesn't look like Stanley Park. I'm not entirely convinced by whatever they've done to the sand dunes to make them yellow, but at least it looks properly alien. Of course the planet itself is a pretty minor part of the episode - easier to come up with something that's just one relatively contained place. But that's okay. They avoid what I've been calling out as TOS stories so far where we pop into a planet and there's a human culture there with a big problem and we're going to fix it for them in the next 40 minutes.
But the main thing I liked about this was the character work. That's what they need to be doing at this point, getting us to really know and understand these people so they can move on to more complicated stories about them. I realize they inherited the bit about Jack's son dying, but they did a fine job of running with it. I particularly liked the way this alien Jack was able to open up and give his (ex?) wife what she needed from him in a way that Jack never could. (I'm reminded oddly enough of a part in Face/Off where Cage's character is pretending to be Travolta's character with his family and is able to be a more useful father in the particular situation he finds himself in than Travolta's real dad would have been.)
I do think they veered too far into sentimentality by the time they physically bring Charlie back for catharsis. A little too on the nose there. (And I guess they had to create some kind of climactic crisis, but I could have done without the whole, I'm going to explode! Oh, no! Panic and Tumult! part at the end.) But overall very good. More episodes like this please!
(What the hell are they going to tell Sara about all this? And if we never see that character again, I am going to be cross.)
posted by Naberius at 8:36 AM on September 6 [1 favorite]
For a couple reasons. One, they managed to get a planet that doesn't look like Stanley Park. I'm not entirely convinced by whatever they've done to the sand dunes to make them yellow, but at least it looks properly alien. Of course the planet itself is a pretty minor part of the episode - easier to come up with something that's just one relatively contained place. But that's okay. They avoid what I've been calling out as TOS stories so far where we pop into a planet and there's a human culture there with a big problem and we're going to fix it for them in the next 40 minutes.
But the main thing I liked about this was the character work. That's what they need to be doing at this point, getting us to really know and understand these people so they can move on to more complicated stories about them. I realize they inherited the bit about Jack's son dying, but they did a fine job of running with it. I particularly liked the way this alien Jack was able to open up and give his (ex?) wife what she needed from him in a way that Jack never could. (I'm reminded oddly enough of a part in Face/Off where Cage's character is pretending to be Travolta's character with his family and is able to be a more useful father in the particular situation he finds himself in than Travolta's real dad would have been.)
I do think they veered too far into sentimentality by the time they physically bring Charlie back for catharsis. A little too on the nose there. (And I guess they had to create some kind of climactic crisis, but I could have done without the whole, I'm going to explode! Oh, no! Panic and Tumult! part at the end.) But overall very good. More episodes like this please!
(What the hell are they going to tell Sara about all this? And if we never see that character again, I am going to be cross.)
posted by Naberius at 8:36 AM on September 6 [1 favorite]
(What the hell are they going to tell Sara about all this? And if we never see that character again, I am going to be cross.)
Ah. Well. You're going to be cross.
Carter is actually the only character we routinely see engage with people outside of SGC on Earth. She gets a boyfriend and her father enters the picture. I honestly don't remember Daniel having any type of connection other than Shar'i and Skura (sp?). Teal'c's family does come up, a little annoyingly so - strong Worf/Alexander vibes. There's a running tension through much of the series that were Jack and Carter not working together on SG-1, they would otherwise be together romantically.
posted by Atreides at 11:33 AM on September 6 [1 favorite]
Ah. Well. You're going to be cross.
Carter is actually the only character we routinely see engage with people outside of SGC on Earth. She gets a boyfriend and her father enters the picture. I honestly don't remember Daniel having any type of connection other than Shar'i and Skura (sp?). Teal'c's family does come up, a little annoyingly so - strong Worf/Alexander vibes. There's a running tension through much of the series that were Jack and Carter not working together on SG-1, they would otherwise be together romantically.
posted by Atreides at 11:33 AM on September 6 [1 favorite]
One, they managed to get a planet that doesn't look like Stanley Park. I'm not entirely convinced by whatever they've done to the sand dunes to make them yellow
would you believe that there are big piles of sulfur right by vancouver?
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:40 PM on September 6 [1 favorite]
would you believe that there are big piles of sulfur right by vancouver?
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:40 PM on September 6 [1 favorite]
That's so neat! I thought it was some sort of surprisingly clever colour grading technique to keep the actors looking normal.
posted by lucidium at 6:51 AM on September 10 [1 favorite]
posted by lucidium at 6:51 AM on September 10 [1 favorite]
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posted by Carillon at 9:48 AM on September 4