"Stargate SG-1" Review Season 01, Episode 10, The Torment of Tantalus

"Stargate SG-1" Review Season 01, Episode 10, The Torment of Tantalus

9/10

3rd October 1997
Written By: Robert C. Cooper
Directed By: Jonathan Glassner

While reviewing recently declassified files on the Stargate experiments during the War, Doctor Jackson discovers that unlike what they have been told the Stargate had been activated before he deciphered the symbols on the cover-stone. Doctor Ernest Littlefield went through it and was lost. Now they have a chance to recover him.

The episode introduces the concept of an alliance between four highly advanced races of aliens, who met on a remote planet to exchange ideas, notions and information. To paraphrase the episode; "A United Nations of the stars."

It also introduces the concept that the Goa'uld did not construct the Stargate system with the proof that the planet visited in this episode does not exist on the chart found on Abydos.

The story is fairly simple, though they gloss over the sustenance which the Doctor used to remain alive for so many years, and focus instead on the mental coping mechanism used. The main theme of the episode is that when something amazing is within sight, then one tends to get tunnel vision and ignores all other things in order to focus on it.

The effects are understated. The acting talent is good.

Link to Series Review:
Stargate SG-1