Stargate SG-1: The Torment of Tantalus Rewatch
October 2, 2024 9:20 AM - Season 1, Episode 10 - Subscribe
While looking through documentaries made in the period after the Second World War, Daniel made a discovery. According to the records, a young scientist managed to pass through the Stargate.
Dr. Daniel Jackson sees a video documenting classified experiments from 1945 in which the Stargate was actually activated and Ernest Littlefield, Catherine Langford's love was stranded alone on a planet for more than 50 years. SG-1, and Langford gate to the planet and are surprised to find Littlefield still alive. The reunion for Littlefield and Catherine is bittersweet, and things are further complicated when they discover the Dial Home Device has been destroyed, forcing the team to resort to drastic measures in order to return to Earth.
Dr. Daniel Jackson sees a video documenting classified experiments from 1945 in which the Stargate was actually activated and Ernest Littlefield, Catherine Langford's love was stranded alone on a planet for more than 50 years. SG-1, and Langford gate to the planet and are surprised to find Littlefield still alive. The reunion for Littlefield and Catherine is bittersweet, and things are further complicated when they discover the Dial Home Device has been destroyed, forcing the team to resort to drastic measures in order to return to Earth.
I like this one too, aside from some very silly squeamishness about nudity.
posted by janell at 2:19 PM on October 2
posted by janell at 2:19 PM on October 2
1.21 gigawatts
I like this episode too. Introducing a real sense of tension/ stakes so early in the season and pulling it off is impressive.
posted by porpoise at 6:17 PM on October 2
I like this episode too. Introducing a real sense of tension/ stakes so early in the season and pulling it off is impressive.
posted by porpoise at 6:17 PM on October 2
shoot the pedestal so hopefully we can get a battery out if the wreckage? not the smartest idea. Plus, it makes you think "huh, lucky that even worked last week"
gate travel rules as well as SG team procedures don't seem to be fully established, but we know radio signals are 2 way but physical object travel is one way (right?). Surely the arriving team should immediately dial home; on failing to do so, Earth could dial through and say "hey what do you need / did you all get dead already". In this case, they could send through an adequate power source, problem solved. With all that extra time you could also send in a team with jackhammers to pry out the alien library computer and bring it back.
And after this, of course, the team should always bring a one-time gate power source in case of a broken DHD.. Will they? Probably not.
(and sInce they're nominally on the search for alien tech to put them on equal footing with the bad guys, can someone get Daniel better equipment than a $299 camcorder??)
With that complaint out of the way... I liked this episode! I like spending time with the characters, and I liked that it wasn't just shooting at people.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:43 AM on October 3
gate travel rules as well as SG team procedures don't seem to be fully established, but we know radio signals are 2 way but physical object travel is one way (right?). Surely the arriving team should immediately dial home; on failing to do so, Earth could dial through and say "hey what do you need / did you all get dead already". In this case, they could send through an adequate power source, problem solved. With all that extra time you could also send in a team with jackhammers to pry out the alien library computer and bring it back.
And after this, of course, the team should always bring a one-time gate power source in case of a broken DHD.. Will they? Probably not.
(and sInce they're nominally on the search for alien tech to put them on equal footing with the bad guys, can someone get Daniel better equipment than a $299 camcorder??)
With that complaint out of the way... I liked this episode! I like spending time with the characters, and I liked that it wasn't just shooting at people.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:43 AM on October 3
Following up on my own snark about that video camera, I think Daniel's camera is the 1995 GR-DV1 from JVC. Flickr picture set -- you can briefly see the JVC logo at about 34:10, and the styling matches closely.
Its MSRP was $3k so my snark was off by a factor of 10. I don't know how "old & busted" a '95 model would have seemed in '97. But this thing was aimed at spendy home users, not professionals, as far as I know.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:55 AM on October 3
Its MSRP was $3k so my snark was off by a factor of 10. I don't know how "old & busted" a '95 model would have seemed in '97. But this thing was aimed at spendy home users, not professionals, as far as I know.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:55 AM on October 3
No, no, I think they do kind of get a little ahead of themselves and show them scouting and laying a bit of a base camp for a little bit (unless they have been, already? I've haven't actually been rewatching this time because eh), but eventually it gets dropped - it's one of those things that makes sense and the writers want to show that they're sensible, but it's also kind of a drama killer if you go in all Duane Dibbley on every trip. On the other hand, they played on that a few times, too. But eventually the power escalation means that they're facing challenges other than getting home.
posted by Kyol at 6:59 AM on October 3
posted by Kyol at 6:59 AM on October 3
At this point they don’t -have- a suitable power source. But one has to wonder how many hypothetical SG teams were unrecoverable as they slowly built up their ‘missionreturnability’ checklist from ‘is there a DHD in frame’ to ‘is the DHD functional-looking from the business end’.
posted by janell at 10:50 AM on October 3
posted by janell at 10:50 AM on October 3
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I think this might be my favorite S1 episode, though there are a few other solid ones coming up, but this does set the table for a lot of what comes later.
posted by Carillon at 9:23 AM on October 2 [4 favorites]