While Sam is doing an experiment in phasing technology as derived from the technology Merlin left behind and unexpected event occurs and she wakes in an empty lab only to find that things are not as they were, Major Lorne is the leader of SG1 and General Hammond is back in command of the SGC. After interrogation she convinces the General she is there by mistake and while their Sam has been lost they agree to help our Sam return if she in turn helps to prevent an imminent attack on Earth by the ORI by solving the energy generation problem they were working on. Alas that proved impossible so Sam expanded the phasing device to blanket the entire planet and fed with the energy output of the entire United States the planet vanishes and survives the ORI attack but now as a media darling and political pawn Sam is going nowhere.

The Road Not Taken is another example of the alternate timeline/reality plot often used in Stargate and it has to be said it’s used a lot because it tends to work very well given the technology and characters we know and love in the series. It’s no surprise that the ORI like the System Lords are front and center for a divergent story line and in this one the Earth has pulled back from the galaxy as a whole and stands alone having missed the opportunities for exploring Pegasus and other revelations that came from ongoing galaxy wide exploration. Of course the reveal of the Stargate during their conflict with Anubis certainly shook things up and that perhaps shows while the disclosure has to be done sooner or later it also has to be handled in a controlled and delicate matter to avoid the panic and civil unrest. Of course the twisting of democracy to give the US president almost limitless power has corrupted things and the use of alien derived tech to crush opposition only shows how broken this Earth is. On the upside we did find out that McKay married Sam and he does seem to be a far more balanced and straight forward individual and of course Hammond remains the military man with his feet firmly in the camp of serving the people not controlling them. Overall a good solid episode if you can ignore how some of the events came to pass, the explanation for the transfer of Sam to the other Earth is a little sketchy and they totally gloss over how she returned but hey still fun and Amanda got to play dress up and boy did she look good.

Thanks to Brad for joining us for the show and this weeks promo is for Nutty Bites, next week we are going to be looking at the Stargate Atlantis episode Irresponsible which sees the return of two fan favourite (or maybe not) characters for their final appearances in the franchise, hope you join us for that. In the meantime we would love to hear what you think about the show and maybe if you have the time a review/rating over on itunes or stitcher would be very welcome, Stargate Forever.

Promo…

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• Nutty Bites
  

Links…

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• The Road Not Taken IMDB
  
• The Road Not Taken Wiki
  
• David Hewlett
  
• Don S. Davis
  
• Kavan Smith
  
• Kendall Cross
  
• Bill Dow
  
• Michael Chase
  
• Andy Mikita
  

The post Gatecast 255 SG1 The Road Not Taken appeared first on Gatecast.