Indeed: The Best Stargate SG-1 Episodes

Ten seasons, one ring, and a staggering number of trips through it, ranked by someone who will absolutely explain what a ZPM is if you stand still.

Entries
14
Category
TV
Updated
  1. A hospital bed beside a window with soft blinding light pouring through, a radiation badge on the sheet.

    14. Meridian

    S5E21, dir. William Waring, wr. Robert C. Cooper · 2002

    Daniel takes a lethal radiation dose stopping a weapons-lab disaster and Oma Desala offers him another way out. Michael Shanks's send-off, and the introduction of Corin Nemec's Jonas Quinn, in one heavy, beautifully acted hour.

  2. An empty small-town barbershop chair with a clipboard of sketched alien planets on the counter.

    13. Citizen Joe

    S8E15, dir. Andy Mikita · 2005

    Dan Castellaneta plays an Indiana barber who starts seeing SG-1's missions in his head and tells them to his customers until they stop coming. A clip-show episode disguised as a fan's whole life story, which is a very loving trick.

  3. An old brass diving helmet resting on the floor of a crumbling tower beside a floating glowing sphere of symbols.

    12. The Torment of Tantalus

    S1E11, dir. Jonathan Glassner, wr. Robert C. Cooper · 1997

    SG-1 finds a man who stepped through the gate in 1945 in a diving suit and never came back. A ruin of four great races, a love story fifty years delayed, and Daniel very tempted to stay. Paul McGillion, later Atlantis's Carson Beckett, plays young Ernest.

  4. A quiet roadside diner booth with two cups of coffee and a glowing window full of white light.

    11. Threads

    S8E18, dir. Andy Mikita, wr. Robert C. Cooper · 2005

    Daniel wakes in a diner in the afterlife-adjacent waiting room with Oma Desala while Anubis plots to wipe out the galaxy. Wikipedia lists its original airing at 63 minutes. It earns every one, mostly on character goodbyes and long-overdue conversations.

  5. A painted VW-style camper van parked in front of a chain-link military fence at dusk.

    10. 1969

    S2E21, dir. Charles Correll, wr. Brad Wright · 1999

    A solar flare sends SG-1 back to 1969, where they meet a young Lieutenant Hammond and hitch rides with hippies. Pure romp, plus a note-in-a-bottle payoff that explains why Hammond always trusted them.

  6. A snow-covered Antarctic plain with an ancient glowing chair half-buried in the ice.

    09. Lost City

    S7E21–22, dir. Martin Wood, wr. Brad Wright & Robert C. Cooper · 2004

    O'Neill downloads the Ancient database again, Anubis's fleet heads for Earth, and Elizabeth Weir shows up at the SGC. A season finale that clears the table for a spinoff and still lands as a giant, satisfying finale.

  7. A cheap TV set with a cardboard ring prop, folding chairs and a coffee urn under studio lights.

    08. Wormhole X-Treme!

    S5E12, dir. Peter DeLuise · 2001

    The 100th episode: the SGC finds a cheesy TV show copying its missions, fed by an alien (Willie Garson's Martin Lloyd). The Air Force decides the show is great cover. It's a franchise roasting itself years before that was a marketing strategy.

  8. A tall ornate standing mirror in a dusty alien lab, reflecting a burning sky that isn't in the room.

    07. There But for the Grace of God

    S1E20, dir. David Warry-Smith · 1998

    Daniel touches an alien mirror and lands in a reality where the Goa'uld are hitting Earth and everyone he knows is slightly off. Season 1 was finding its feet; this is the episode where it learned to run.

  9. An ornate gold sarcophagus in a dark stone chamber lit by a single torch.

    06. Abyss

    S6E6, dir. Martin Wood, wr. Brad Wright · 2002

    Ba'al keeps killing O'Neill and reviving him in a sarcophagus, and the only visitor is an ascended Daniel who isn't allowed to help. It's the show at its darkest, with Anderson finally getting to play the pain under all the sarcasm.

  10. A spaceship's empty mess hall with a chessboard mid-game and a window full of frozen streaks of light.

    05. Unending

    S10E20, wr. & dir. Robert C. Cooper · 2007

    The series finale traps the team in a time-dilation field aboard the Odyssey for fifty years, so a show about saving the galaxy ends as a quiet movie about people growing old together. Big sci-fi swing, small human finish. Its US airing came months after the UK one.

  11. A carved stone wall with a hollow alcove glowing from within, scattered handwritten symbols on paper at its base.

    04. The Fifth Race

    S2E15, dir. David Warry-Smith, wr. Robert C. Cooper · 1998

    An Ancient wall grabs O'Neill and downloads an alien library into his head, and Richard Dean Anderson plays a man slowly running out of English. It's the episode where the show's mythology goes from 'Egyptian aliens' to something properly vast.

  12. A video camera on a tripod pointed down an empty military-base corridor, a red tally light glowing.

    03. Heroes

    S7E17–18, dir. Andy Mikita, wr. Robert C. Cooper · 2004

    Saul Rubinek plays a documentary filmmaker poking around the SGC, and the show suddenly has to look at itself from the outside. Part 2 has one of the franchise's most devastating turns. Bring tissues. Then bring more tissues.

  13. Small wooden marionette soldiers with strings hanging in front of a toy-sized stone ring, a director's chair beside them.

    02. 200

    S10E6, dir. Martin Wood · 2006

    The 200th episode is a writers' room notes session for a Wormhole X-Treme! movie: zombies, a Wizard of Oz riff, a Farscape homage with made-up swearing, and the pilot redone with marionettes. Seven credited writers, all clearly having the time of their lives.

  14. A golf ball flying into a shimmering ring of light at the end of a ramp, a golf bag propped against the railing.

    01. Window of Opportunity

    S4E6, dir. Peter DeLuise, wr. Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie · 2000

    O'Neill and Teal'c get stuck in a ten-hour time loop and, once despair wears off, start golfing through the Stargate, juggling, taking up pottery and biking through the base. A 2007 Sci Fi Channel fan poll named it the best episode ever. The poll was right.

Honorable mentions

  • Desert pyramids at sunset with a small boxy ship parked in the sand and a fishbowl in the foreground.

    Moebius

    S8E19–20 · 2005

    A time-travel trip to ancient Egypt for a power source goes wrong and the team meets very different versions of itself. A two-part valentine to the show's own Egyptian roots.

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