Well, this amuses me greatly:
gateway to heaven, spacenoise
Why? Because in the post I wrote that was found via this search, I was quoting from this book, which Google links to after mine. How does Google line up its findings? You’d think the original work would come first, wouldn’t you? Or does it have to do with popularity, or most recent entry or what?
I kind of hope it’s popularity.
/end smug mode
Actually, I was going to use the search as a jump to my current obsession, which I’ve mentioned probably – Stargate SG1. I am loving this show. So far, I’ve watched the first six seasons and am working on purchasing them all, which is probably something of a waste of money, but fuck it. It’s way good with high entertainment value and fits my interests better than any show currently on the air (not counting the spin-off).
Here’s part of what I like about it – Teal’c is the ultimate atheist. He’s grown up in a world that worships another, more advanced, alien species as its god but while in the service of Apophis (played with zeal by Peter Williams), he begins to doubt the divinity of the goa’uld parasite with delusions of grandeur. He winds up turning his back on all the beliefs he grew up with, now knowing they are all a lie, and helps rescue our intrepid team of explorers, the members of SG1, from certain doom. Then he joins their team and devotes his life to saving worlds from other false gods.
The show winds up having science-fictional situations mix with real world parallel experiences. It’s easily done since the show happens here in the present rather than in some distant time elsewhere, of course. The later seasons have commentary and I was listening to one from season 5, episode 18, entitled “The Warrior.”
Teal’c (Christopher Judge) has found out about a group of rebel Jaffa (beings like Teal’c whose lives are given to the service of incubating infant goa’ulds), who no longer follow any of the system lords. SG1 offers them an alliance and brings along some Earth weapons to sweeten the deal. There are some amusing “What good are those?” moments between Colonel Jack O’Neill (played by Richard Dean Anderson) and the rebel leader (whoever he was), and Jack enlists Major Carter (Amanda Tapping) to demonstrate just how much better Earth guns are compared to the electric zapper staff weapons the Jaffas are used to handling. Jack says something to the effect that staff weapons are used to rule by fear and terrorize, but guns are used to fight wars and kill people and they work pretty damned well. But, the head Jaffa dude still strapped bombs on his boys and sent them through the gate to do as much damage to their enemies as possible.
Now, back to the commentary. That particular episode was written prior to the events surrounding September 11, 2001 and, looking back, the writers and director couldn’t help but be stunned at how that particular episode became so accidentally relevant.
There’s another “look back and shiver” thing that twigged for me when watching the end of season 1 recently. Dr. Daniel Jackson (my favourite character, played by fellow Canadian Michael Shanks) has just returned from an alternate reality where Earth is about to be destroyed by Apophis’ army. He gets back to his reality with time enough to warn Stargate Command of the attack, but he’s stymied by the fact that a) nobody believes him, and b) Senator Kinsey is trying to shut the SGC down for good. Daniel tries to get Kinsey to understand the danger they’re all in and Kinsey (played by Ronny Cox, of Deliverance fame) lays down the biggest line of shit known to humankind: the United States is One Nation Under God, and God would not let that happen.
Fortunately, SG1 has no intention of letting blind belief in a god set the world up for serious disappointment. They’ve been battling beliefs all season, for crying out loud — false gods, memory alterations, assumptions of superiority, what makes people human, how women should be treated, and how valuable and precious life is and ought to be. They will not go down without a fight for the right to exist and be free of alien influence.
You see why I like it? Nearly every episode has something of mental or emotional value to it. Quality of life, freedom, justice, love. All good things. Definitely worth watching.
One Minion's Opinion 