Stargate SG1-Season 10 (Complete) (2005) |
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Stargate SG1-Season 10 (Complete) (2005) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Science Fiction |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Filmographies-Crew-Profile On Brad Wright Featurette Audio Commentary Gallery-Photo-Production Design Trailer Featurette-Behind The Scenes-It Takes A Crew To Raise A Village Featurette Featurette-An Intruduction To Ben Browder Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Inside The Stargate Special Effects Department Featurette Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Inside The Prop Department Featurette Featurette-Directors Series "Ethon" Featring Ken Girotti |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2005 | ||
| Running Time | 836:06 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper |
Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (5) |
Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Ads Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By |
Mario Azzopardi Dennis Berry Duane Clark Bill Corcoran |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Richard Dean Anderson Michael Shanks Amanda Tapping Christopher Judge Corin Nemec Don S. Davis |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $79.95 | Music |
David Arnold Richard Band Peter Bernstein |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English Dutch Greek Hindi English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes, during the episode "200" | ||
So here it is – after 10 years in production, several cast member reshuffles, and over 200 hundred episodes, one of TV’s milestone sci-fi series finally comes to an end as a 44 minute episodic series (several TV movies have already been produced or are in production and Stargate: Atlantis is continuing). The question on the lips of many fans is, does Stargate SG-1 suffer from the recent spate of terrible endings to milestone series? Is this another Matrix: Revolutions? Another last 10 minutes of Star Wars III: Revenge Of The Sith? Another Brett Ratner travesty like X-Men 3: The Last Stand?
After the cliffhanger ending in Stargate SG-1: Season 9 (which shall not be spoilt here), the SG-1 team must regroup and start thinking outside the box – with the Ori on the loose in Earth’s galaxy and cutting their way through what is left of the defences of Earth and its allies, and several other residual nasties waiting to sink their claws into Earth’s last hope for survival, this truly is the darkest hour, and makes the respective wars with the Goa’uld and the Replikators look like a tea party. With the introduction to the team of Vala Dal Moren (Claudia Black, one time Goa’uld host turned privateer with a conscience, there may yet be some chance for survival.
A complete episode breakdown is beyond the scope of this review. If you want a full season rundown you can find one at TV.com amongst other places. The 20 episodes of the ninth season is split across its 6 discs as follows:
One of the early adaptations from the big screen to the small screen, Stargate SG-1 has been phenomenally successful. Pitching itself to an audience that is somewhat broader than that for other science fiction staples such as Star Trek and Babylon 5, Stargate SG-1 attracted much of the same type of audience drawn to The X-Files – whereas the latter employed science fiction as a backdrop to the crime and conspiracy of the FBI, the former uses science fiction as a backdrop to a military action-adventure story. Indeed, of all the shows, Stargate SG-1 is the one that most commonly throws down into a fire-fight with automatic weapons.
Was this a worthy conclusion – at least to this phase of the show? As a long term fan who has tuned in and out across the years, but caught the whole thing on DVD at least, I have to say I was not disappointed. I was hoping for more of an ending, but there is some form of conclusion here even if there is not a total sign-off on all the loose threads this series kicked up over the past 10 years; I guess there had to be something left open for the TV movies. If nothing else, at least I was highly entertained, and more than once also had a couple of great laughs.
Those who gave up on this show with Season 8 or earlier should spend the time to sit down and watch all 20 episodes of this season. With the exception of the very ordinary Family Ties, the majority of these episodes are excellent, and although 200 is definitely one of the fans only, it’s hilarious if you’ve seen all the prior seasons. Fans owe it to themselves to see this show out to its conclusion – it’s worth the time.
Presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, this is the original aspect ratio for the series. The transfer is outstanding, and has obviously been mastered from a high definition digital source.
Colour is well saturated and nicely balanced, contrast is rich and film-like, shadow detail is excellent.
The image can be a little soft at times, which tends to be a consequence of shooting on digital video, but there is still plenty of detail even in a soft image.
If you get very close to the screen, you may see some minor pixelation. But from an appropriate distance, the image resolves into a very satisfying picture.
There were no MPEG artefacts or film-to-video transfer artefacts using a PS3 and VPL-WV50 1080p projector. I spotted some very faint moire on a 42” Sony E-Series 720p rear projection screen.
There were no film artefacts.
Subtitles are available in the languages set out above. I watched the English for the Hearing Impaired ones. These subtitles were fairly clear, though not word perfect.
The dual-layer pauses occur in between the episodes. None were visible.
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Audio is available in an excellent English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround track (encoded at 448Kb/s).
Dialogue is clear, and although there is some minor faults resulting from ADR, these are not terrible. The minor sync faults were source faults.
The surrounds get plenty of use, with a great surround ambience. This is no DTS-HD or Dolby Digital HD track, but it’s very good for a TV series.
The subwoofer use here is also outstanding. I have the crossover set at 80Hz, but there is plenty of bass at that level and below with lots of flames, explosions and automatic weapons fire.
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All menus are in 1.78:1 Full Frame. The main menu has a sweeping CGI intro with a 2.0 Dolby Surround soundtrack of the show’s theme that is quite presentable. All other menus are static and silent, which is (at least in my opinion) far more efficient and user-friendly than having all menus with an animated intro.
Every episode except for Bad Guys has a commentary available, generally done by production crew, usually writers and directors, although the actors sometimes pop in an appearance:
The set contains the following featurettes, presented in a 1.33:1 Full Frame image, with 2.0 Dolby Surround audio:
Presented in 1.78:1, inset in a 1.33:1 frame, non-16x9 enhanced, with a 2.0 Dolby Digital soundtrack.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
From what I can tell, content wise, R1 and R4 are largely identical. Without an R1 copy, I cannot do a direct video-to-video comparison for you, so I have no way of knowing which has the better video transfer. I would suggest the audio is also largely the identical. Unless someone uncovers something I've missed because they have an R1 release, my advice is buy whichever is cheapest.
A worthy conclusion to a TV milestone, although there are still some TV movies to go, and Stargate: Atlantis still to play out its run to a worthy conclusion, so the fans don’t have to go into toxic shock from withdrawal just yet. And a worthy TV boxset that falls nothing short of what the fans have come to expect from DVD releases of this show over the years. I guess the question is, now that it’s all been put out in slimline DVD packs, will we see this show in one HD format or another in the next couple of years? We will see. In the meantime, I’m hanging out for the unofficial “Season 11” TV movies.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony Playstation 3 (HDMI 1.3) with Upscaling, using HDMI output |
| Display | Sony VPL-VW50 SXRD Projector with 100" Longhorn Pro-Series White Matt 16:9 screen. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Sony TA-DA9000ES |
| Speakers | Jensen QX70 Centre Front, Jensen QX45 Left Front & Right Front, Jensen QX20 Left Rear & Right Rear, Jensen QX-90 Dual 10" 250 Watt Subwoofer |