Following on from Stargate SG-1 – Volume 12, Volume 13 includes the final two episodes of series three. Now your first thought might be “why do we only get two episodes?”, but to balance that out there is a documentary that runs for over one hour, plus the fact that the featured episodes are two of the better ones. Besides, how can you end a series with two episodes to go?
For a further breakdown of what this series is all about, please refer to the review for previous releases listed in the links section to the bottom right of this review. One small piece of trivia I discovered by the way, Michael Shanks, who plays Dr Daniel Jackson, also provides the voice of the alien Thor, nothing too spectacular about that but I though it was interesting and I do like to share.
Now onto the episodes, and the latest adventures of our travelling heroes...
Crystal Skull
Upon discovering a gigantic pyramid, standing over 1000 metres high, the SG-1 team ventures in to investigate. They discover that within the giant Mayan pyramid is a crystal skull, which bears a remarkable resemblance to one that Daniel Jackson’s grandfather, Nick Ballard, had discovered many years earlier. His grandfather had spent the majority of his life in a mental hospital after claims that the crystal skull had teleported him to an alien world, occupied by giants.
Daniel, being the ever-inquisitive one, stares into the eyes of the skull and vanishes, at least as far as the team is concerned. Due to high levels of radiation, the team is forced to evacuate the pyramid and return to Earth. Teal’c returns to the planet to collect the skull for further analysis, his symbiote giving him the extra tolerance needed to avoid radiation overload. This time though, the invisible Daniel follows him through the Stargate,
Daniel’s grandfather is called in to help the search for Daniel, finally gaining acceptance for his theory. The team needs to firstly find Daniel and then discover what the skull is and, more importantly, what it does.
| "We are travellers - we come in search of friendship.
We’d like to exchange our knowledge and culture." |
Nemesis
The SG-1 team are given a week of leave and after failing to find someone to accompany him, O’Neill decides to go fishing on his own. While on his way out of the building, he disappears in what appears to be an Asgard transporter beam. It transpires that Thor’s ship is orbiting the Earth, but he is in fact close to death, needing help from O’Neill for an unusual predicament.
Thor’s illness is not the only problem - his ship has been infested by what appear to be metal bugs. They are in fact replicators, an artificial organism that has taken control of the ship and has navigated it towards Earth. Should they land there the effects would be devastating.
The SG-1 team, minus Daniel Jackson who is recovering from the removal of his appendix, beam up to join O’Neill on the ship in an effort to stop the bugs. It seems the only way to stop them is to destroy the ship, along with its cargo. Will they get out in time or will they burn up in the Earth's atmosphere?
As was the case with Stargate SG-1 – Volume 12, this is also presented in 1.78:1 and 16x9 enhanced. The quality is again there to be seen and contains the standard amount of grain found with television series. The detail is reasonable and colours are generally true. In the last episode, Nemesis, there are a lot more special effects with the mechanical bugs and this is really done well. They are obviously not real, but the graphics used make them more than convincing. Both of these episodes are amongst the best in the series and really do look good.
There is a large choice of subtitles again available and all are very accurate to what is transpiring on screen. They are in fact very useful in some areas, such as when strange languages or names are used.
