Stargate SG1-Volume 9 (Season 3) (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Profile On Captain Carter (5:34) Featurette-Producing Stargate (4:51)
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	169:40 (Case: 168)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Martin Wood Peter DeLuise
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Richard Dean Anderson Michael Shanks Amanda Tapping Christopher Judge Don S. Davis
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	Joel Goldsmith David Arnold Richard Band

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.75:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired Spanish Swedish Finnish Norwegian Danish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Stargate SG-1 Volume 9 sees us continuing the voyages of the SG-1 team through the galaxy, meeting human descendants of many varied ages. Whilst it does occasionally beg the question as to why the Asgard seem to be the only genuinely alien race in the galaxy (well, excluding the Unas which is debatably a race), the voyage is an interesting one nonetheless. It also offers a chance to make us look at the ways we sometimes do things.

    So without further ado, let's check out the offerings on Volume 9:

• Learning Curve (Episode 305) - Wherein we question the way in which people learn. Seems that on the planet Orban, the SG-1 team have discovered a technologically advanced society where concepts such as fun and school have sort of disappeared. Sort of a good news, bad news scenario for the younger population. This society has plenty to offer Earth and one such device is the subject of an intellectual exchange: Teal'c goes to Orban to let them have all his knowledge about the Goa'uld and their tactics, whilst Merrin heads to Earth with a naquadah detection device that Sam wants to investigate. Trouble is, Sam has to learn how the machine works but Merrin, as a result of the unusual teaching methods of her people, has no idea how to teach. She can demonstrate but beyond that the concept of teaching is foreign to her. Even when asked to draw she has no idea what drawing means. Once told though, she learns at a phenomenal rate. Everything looks really hunky dory until the SG-1 team discover the meaning of the nanites in Merrin's brain and what the "ovarium" entails. The down-to-earth Jack is as usual disturbed to all hell and is determined that Merrin, despite the knowledge that she has that is vital to her people, should not be denied a childhood. What havoc will he wreak on intergalactic diplomacy (as usual)?
• Point Of View (Episode 306) - Way back in Season One, an interesting artefact was discovered. We would not know that of course since we have not seen the episode on DVD to my knowledge, so you will just have to take my word for it. This interesting device is a portal of sorts to an infinite number of realities. Now one of the interesting postulates of physics is that for every choice that is made, an alternate reality is created. This means that every time we make a decision, an alternate universe springs up on the basis of the choice that we did not make. Lots of universes out there then, aren't there? Well, it would seem so as stuck away in storage in Area 51 is that interesting device and one night through it comes Doctor Samantha Carter and Major Kawalsky. Seems that there is a slight problem in their reality and they need to escape it. Now that they are in our reality they want to stay and help in any way they can. Mind you, Doctor Samantha Carter has a good reason other than altruism - seems she was married to a certain person in her reality and he is now dead. That person is obviously alive in our reality. Trouble is, two beings from different realities cannot exist in a single reality- some sort of entropic mumbo-jumbo issue. Left with little other choice than to return to her own reality, Doctor Samantha Carter and Major Samantha Carter work together to make a plan come together so that Doctor Samantha Carter can return with the aid of half of SG-1 and Major Kawalsky to her own reality and undo what has happened there. Might I suggest a couple of Panadol and a lie down whilst you digest this complicated little delving into the intricacies of time and reality travel?
• Deadman Switch (Episode 307) - Another of Stargate Command's UAV's has suffered an accident on a planet somewhere and the SG-1 team are sent to retrieve it. When they eventually find it they are snared in a trap set by the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter, Aris Boch. Well, aside from the fact that I thought either Boba Fett or Mara Jade was the galaxy's greatest bounty hunter, nothing too worrisome so far, right? Well, it turns out that the SG-1 team are not well-liked amongst the Goa'uld System Lords and most have a fair bounty on their heads. Presumably these bounties are bigger than those for Han Solo and Chewbacca, and Aris Boch is tickled pink with his little trap and its results. Still, it turns out that even he has bigger fish to catch and fry and is willing to give up the bounties on SG-1 if they help him catch one renegade Goa'uld named Kel'tar. Seemingly choiceless at this moment in time, Jack agrees and off they head. After some slight hitches, they locate the renegade and it turns out that the matter is not as simple as the SG-1 team were lead to believe. So now they not only have to somehow outwit Aris Boch and take his Goa'uld transport ship, but they have to get their new companion well away from him and any Goa'uld that might come a-looking for the bounty hunter.
• Demons (Episode 308) - Arriving on a distant planet, SG-1 make an unusual discovery - this planet is not one where the ancient Egyptian cultures have been the basis of the enslavement of the transported population. This one happens to be a Christian world - albeit one stuck in the middle of the Dark Ages. This is a place where disease is taken to mean possession by the devil and anyone infected by disease is shunned - the only avenue of escape is to be taken by the devil that wanders into the village regularly or to suffer the fate of trepanning. For those not up-to-date with Medieval English customs, this little ritual involves drilling a circular hole in the skull with a trepan, thereby allowing the demon within to be let loose. It of course generally involves the death of the poor subject. Obviously, the arrival of the SG-1 team through the Circle of Darkness is seen by the local canon as tantamount to being the Devil himself and thus the SG-1 team are to be tested to prove that they are clean souls in communion with God, not the Devil. This involves one of the team being subjected to the usual tests of demonic possession: heat applied to the mark of the devil and being tossed into water whilst bound and weighted by rocks. The latter test is a nice one - if you get back to the surface, you are obviously a devil and therefore burned at the stake. If you don't get back to the surface, you naturally die and go to meet your maker. Interesting how SG-1 get out of this one - especially as the Devil turns out to an Unas.

Video

    Those improvements that we thankfully saw on Volume 8 continue here, with just a little bit more variation. On the plus side, sharpness and definition generally seems a little better, whilst on the minus side there seems to be just a little more grain on occasions. Still, this remains a good transfer in most respects and one that should see few complaints from most viewers. As usual for the DVDs in this series, the transfers are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and are 16x9 enhanced. To accommodate those that have not yet seen the light with respect to widescreen presentation, the DVD is also Auto Pan and Scan encoded.

    In general, this is a nice, sharp transfer with above average definition for a television series. There really is not much hidden by the transfer and apart from slight lapses in shadow detail at times, this is a nice looking transfer. The only downer is that there seemed to be a bit more grain present during Point Of View than the rest of the episodes, but not anything approaching the levels previously experienced in Season Two. A good example of this relatively mild issue is at 4:47. Obviously with the reduced levels of grain and the resultant generally better looking transfer, clarity is very good. Low level noise is not an issue here.

    The colours are again just a little underdone in my view, and this seems to be prevalent during any scenes involving high levels of greenery. For some reason, green seems to lack the sort of vibrancy that I would expect and at times gets a little "digital" in its look. Other than that, I have no real problem with the colours - they are quite vibrant and nicely rendered. There is no issue with saturation nor with colour bleed.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There is some indication of pixelization of the background around 37:57 in Demons but this is only for a brief moment and does not really detract from the transfer. Aliasing and other film-to-video artefacts are again pretty much absent from the equation. There are no problems with film artefacts.

    This is a Dual Layer formatted DVD, with no layer change during the episodes. It is therefore presumed that the first two episodes are mastered on one layer with the other two mastered on the other.

    There are seven subtitle options on the DVD. I restricted myself to only the English for the Hearing Impaired effort. Very much in the same mold as the earlier DVDs in the series, they are missing just a little here and there as far as dialogue is concerned, sometimes annoyingly so.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Continuing the audio improvements from Volume 8, we have just a little unusually some consistency in the soundtracks on Volume 9 - three soundtracks are available, being an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, a German Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and a Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. I of course restricted myself to the English option.

    The dialogue comes up well and is clear and generally easy to understand throughout the episodes. There did not seem to be any issue with audio sync here at all.

    The original music comes from Joel Goldsmith, with David Arnold (composer of the original Stargate theme tune) and Richard Band helping out on Learning Curve. Nothing much than what we have heard before and doing the job well enough to contribute to the overall success of the television series.

    Just occasionally the LFE channel exhibits some extraneous contribution that does jar just a tad with the overall soundtrack, but then again as my biography indicates, I am very bass sensitive. For most people therefore there is not likely to be much complaint. Even more so than on Volume 8 there seems to be much more added presence from the surround channels, especially the rear channels. Whilst it is never going to be confused with a superbly mastered, modern film effort (is that an oxymoron?), for a television series it is a real nice change of pace. The sound is given plenty of air and the overall result is much more natural than is generally the case with television-intended material.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    In line with the improvements seen on Volume 8, a similar size package is available on Volume 9. Nothing really and truly exciting but still a nice enough inclusion.

Menu

    The same vibrant menu style introduced on Volume 8 continues here with the better audio and animation enhancement. The menus themselves are also 16x9 enhanced.

Featurette - Profile On Captain Carter (5:34)

    Well, apart from the fact that she is actually now a Major, indicating that this was prepared prior to Season Three, this is a nice look at the character. Featuring some interview material with Amanda Tapping and others, with a bit of behind the scenes footage mixed with episode footage, it really does its job of providing an EPK-style introduction to the character and the actress playing it. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, it is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Featurette - Producing Stargate (4:51)

    Another EPK-style presentation that delves in rather shallow terms into the production of Stargate SG-1, how it came about and so on. Not as interesting as the other featurette but at least gives a small insight into the gestation of the series - and even a clue as to how long the producers think it could last. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, it is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

    As far as we are aware, this has not been slated for release in Region 1 yet. When it eventually gets released in Region 1 it will most likely be in a season box set, which is by far the preferred presentation for television series. Still, if you cannot wait, the Region 4 version is of a sufficient quality to recommend now.

    Whilst Volume 9 is slightly grainier than the previous instalment, it by no means approaches the extent of graininess we suffered in Season Two and the bits of Season One that we have seen. Whilst the usual caveat emptor exists for large screen owners, this continues the improvements from Volume 8 and makes this an eminently watchable DVD.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall