Stargate SG-1--"Forsaken"

“Forsaken” is your standard looks can be deceiving, do not be a prejudiced jerk story. The SG-1 team discovers a crashed ship of humans on a remote planet and offers to help repair their ship so they can go home. But they are being hunted by a group of reptillan aliens. So the humans are the good guys and the hostile aliens the bad, right? Not exactly, and that should have been obviously from the beginning.

The truth is the ship is a prison transport. the aliens were carrying the dangerous human criminals when it was damaged and forced to make an emergency landing. The humans overpowered their jailers. They have been in conflict ever since. The indication that something is not right about the situation is made obvious to the audience before ou heroes are aware. The humans vicouslyu defend themselves against an alien ambush so as to avoid any communication between the aliens and the SG-1 team. Corso, the leader of the humans, has a charm that that screams sociopath, particularly in his interactions with Sam. Jonas takes one of the wounded humans, Tanis, to Sgc for treatment, and she immediately sneaks around attempting to access the computer.

It is tough to find such plots engaging. I become an armchair quarterback absolutely certain I would see through the humans’ ruse immediately. Therefore, it is difficult accept that SG-1 falls for it so easily. Even though I would, too, of course. It also does not help that the SG-1 team has been duped before by villains pretending to be on the up and up and paid the price. We are not treading new ground here by any means. Jonas turns the tables on the bad guys in the end with a con job himself. He allows himself to be taken hostage and offers his captors a stargate address which turns out to be Earth. They are arrested, and all is well that ends well. ,/p> Speaking of Jonas, the artifact by by his right arms in the following photograph looks very familiar:

It is the Treasure of the Manco. Apparently, MacGyver gave it to him at some point.

“Forsaken” is frivolous, predictable filler. There is really nothing fundamentally wrong with the episode. It is just anemic. One thing I will say for it is it lack of preachiness about judging others by appearances. Any given Star Trek episode with a similar plot would have beaten the audience over the head with the moral lesson. When it comes down to it, “Forsaken” would have been a better fit early in the show’s run. That way, it would have been established that not all humans are angels, nor are all non-human aliens evil. The episode might have been more highly regard that way.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

UPDATE: I was going to skip this, but then I remembered I have no shame:

If you are into gratuitous shots of Amanda Tapping's rear end, "Forsaken" is the episode for you.