Season 7, Episode 10 - Birthright
Air Date: August 15, 2003

The team finds a fugitive colony of Jaffa women, who must prey on other Jaffa to acquire symbiotes.

Guest starring Star Trek Enterprise's Jolene Blalock as Ishta.

Credits | Spoilers | Teaser

Hey I'm the first post probably since the fall, anyway it looks a good episode from wot I saw on he directors thing on the last dvd, wots the episode like

so lots of stuff were trashed due to the non-back-up of the former server?
i was just wondering if anyone on this message board still has that screen cap of t'pol, i mean jolene blalock, as a jaffa woman, ishta, i'd like to post that on a trek message board, alot of guys on dat trek message board cant seem to fathom t'pol with long blond hair and a tatoo on her forehead, though i did reassure them that she is as low pitched voice on sg1 as she is on ent, thanks and cheerio

this episode was ok, i think the whole jaffa requireing symbiots tretonin thing as been covered enough, i was looking foward 2 seeing moloc & more of his imperial guard that sort of stuff.

It just was funny to see Teal'C in an other situation!! He is just amazing when he plays/seduces this woman!! Funny, very funny!! And a ship moment when Carter said: you know, we don't, we haven't...

I'll repost some comments that I originally posted regarding this episode.

IMHO this was the worst episode of season 7 so far. This episode just didn't go anywhere compelling. The Jaffa women, sure a story might have been there. However, in this form the episode didn't work. Morever it was a vehicle for Teal'c to get some nooky.

Randoms thoughts why this was a massive dud:

1) Jolene Blalock - ick, get her off Stargate and send her back to altar of Roddenberry.
2) Preachiness - subcurrent taking on issues of sexism and abuse of women - This isn't Star Trek - Stargate has never gotten preachy to us like this before. Uncharcteristic for Stargate.
3) Predictable *yawn* Flat storyline no excitement, no hook. Caught myself channel surfing during it. I *NEVER* do that.
4) Do we need to see Teal'c making out at the SGC in front of the gate with Jolene and *EVERYONE* standing there? Tacky T. General Hammond should have a talk with you as to appropriate conduct.


Random positive:

1) Daniel and the younger girl who was of age for a symbiote. They saved the episode from complete oblivion. Good chemistry between them, leave it Dr. Jackson to save the episode.


Those are my thoughts. I'm sure many others will disagree. My two cents though.

Chris Judge always writes the best epps.

Chris Judge writes CRAP eps. The only good one was the Warrior! The only reason he wrote Birthrigt was so he could get one off with jolene Blalock! And the Changeling was crap too. Hey u didn't know where u were with that ep until the end and even then it was crap. I think Teal'c should have kept his symbiote because he would have been more powerful.

I thought the ep was quite good, although Jolene Blaylock's acting reminded me of T'Pol too much at times.......
On the whole tho, it was good- although I'm sure that type of story, women colony, has been used soooo many times...

I completely agree- that was one of the best bits!

Raz, I think he was joking.

Are the writers running out of ideas? I mean Revisions was basically a cross between Gamekeeper and Below the surface and then they make this. I don't see them making it to a 9th season.

Overall, I think it was a reasonable episode, but as with "Disclosure" I thought the storyline was ver thin.

At least Jolenel was better in Stargate than Star Trek...

Greetz, King Hans

OK, all the people who have Stargate:The Illustrated Companion Will know that in the first two series, specificly the first series, the writers were experimenting with ways Stargate could go, Remember the ep 'Emancipation'? Sexism all over! In the book the writers comment on how they didnt like preaching but they have!

One thing is for sure.. I hate Chris Judge's scripts and personally would like to see how Tapping and Shanks do at writing an ep. Also I would like to see RDA write something cos I bet that episode would be immense! somtehing to do with Asgard!

Being in England we don't get to see this episode till Monday 1st can anyone tell me what i should be looking out for?

OK-I seem to be feeling a general level of apathy for most of the episodes in this series and I'm starting to get worried. This is what?.. the 10th episode and I can't honestly say that any of them have stood out as being excellent. In all of the series, I have never felt like this about Stargate. Do I expect too much?Has the seventh series been hyped up beyond what it can deliver? are the plots and stories deteriorating? I'm starting to feel less enthusiastic about series 8

anyhoo, back to topic...the epiosde was moderate-I was surprised at how T'Pol-like Ishtar was, same mannerisms etc. As has been mentioned, the redeeming part of this episode was Daniel interacting with the young girl..."who are you talking to?" "No-one".

Here are my thoughts on this episode:

I thought overall it was a pretty average episode, but personally I think that Christopher Judge could have come up with a better storyline... can he actually write an episode that isn't centered around Teal'c so much? It seems like he just wanted to write something so that his character could get with a Jaffa woman. The rest of the plot just seemed to fit aronud that to me.

Did anyone else notice that the fight scene between Teal'c and Ishta seemed a little weird... kind of fake? Some parts where they obviously used body doubles just seemed really disjointed and poorly joined to the parts with the proper actors. Other parts almost seemed matrixy (by that I mean, slowed down or very unrealistic movements). Maybe it was just me...

Also, why are they promoting Jaffa to use the tretonin? I realise it would be a good temporary solution, but as far as I know they have no supply of it anymore as the Pangarans aren't producing it as they don't have a Goa'uld Queen anymore... what happens when it runs out? Teal'c and Bra'tac didn't have a choice... these Jaffa kind of did in a way. Maybe the Pangarans had a huge stockpile of it I guess, and maybe it goes a long way. I just found it odd that they would suggest it like they have a permanent supply or something.

This post has been edited by Aesir: Dec 1st 2003, 4:42 PM

Nope not just you. I got The Matrix vibe when I was watching that too.

It was a fairly average episode. Good to see Teal'c actually doing something for a change instead of raising an eyebrow, saying "indeed", firing his staff weapon and turning a blind eye to Sam and Jacks little lurvefest thing that goes on from time to time.

Hey Teal'c got laid! Any ep where one of the main cast gets some is gotta be a good thing right? Hmm, well you'd think so wouldn't you. This episode, however, was let down by being slow, talky and suffering from overt use of clunky jaffa-speak dialogue. Jeez now I know why Teal'c says so little!
Jolene Blalock put in a fine performance though but the blonde hair freaked me out. It was so not natural. Well those Amazon...oops sorry Jaffa Jungle Girls certainly have their priorities right eh. First secure the Clairol Nice'n'Easy shade no. 7 'Golden Sun' then hit the leeches. The other actress though was terrible. She didn't die of symboite removal, she died of woodworm.
Even Jack annoyed me in this ep. His little quips seemed somewhat forced and crude compared to normal. Actually he only opened his mouth to add a little comedy value. I miss the old days when he could actually be serious from time to time.

As for Daniel and the little girl. Well yeah we need to do "befriending a child" again because....hey that plot line is original. Seriously though it felt a little dirty to me. I know it wasn't supposed to but he just seemed creepy. I think there may have been a plot line there that didn't get a chance to be explored in more detail, like it was added in as filler.
Actually quite a few little bits felt tacked on for good measure here. The whole business with Jack's little "penis" comment, Sam's little misunderstanding in the infirmary (WTF was that all about then? Nowt to do with this plot line so I can only guess it's a set up for something else.) Did they need to fill time or did they have to cut stuff out to shorten it? If it's the latter then I reckon they could have cut a lot of the talky stuff and had more blowing people up stuff instead.

Anyhoo, I didn't hate it but I wasn't too sorry when it was over and I won't be going out my way to re-watch any time soon.

like Aesir i thought this was an average ep and not my fav ep in the season so far but hey

However on the positive side i like the way they brought the whole tretonan thing back into the story because sometimes in a tv show they bring something in then never talk about it again. I, like some other people here liked the friendship between Daniel and the little girl, i thought Michael's acting was great with the whole "who you talking to?" thing

A good ep for a new writer but not as good as it could have been..........

Looking forward to next monday!

This post has been edited by Jon The UK SG-1 Fan: Dec 2nd 2003, 6:34 AM

Really enjoyed the ep. Better than Avenger 2.0 . Didnt Teal'c seem a bit more hard ass in this ep though? When the female jaffa first appeared and spoke to SG1 he looked as if he was going to do some damage.

my points

+ jb as ishta, nice casting decision
+ tealc being more involved, his story
+ o'neill was around a bit more, and his jokes were alright
+ daniels talk with the girl
+ another relation to 22 episodes back

- the fakey fight scene, i hated the camera movemens
- i cant stand those cheap matrix style events, broke the flow

overall

**1/2

mmmmm yip - Chris Judge certainly had his own interests at heart when writing this episode eh?....aaah the beauty of writing your own programme, the wee chancer that he is.

Not a bad episode actually but I think they have turned Jack into the blonde bimbo of the show (minus the blonde hair ofcourse) has he forgotten how to string consecutive sentences together?? Its just snappy, sarky, one liners he comes up with all the time - hey I know he has a reduced filming schedlue but GEEZ make more use of him when he IS there will ye guys?

I am glad i ant the only one that saw it! she had to much vulcan logic to the way she spoke that what i thought anyway!

But i enjoyed the ep! but i also thing they been going down hill a bit they need to get back in to the whole anubis plot thing! I just hope the next 2 weeks with the 2 parter will bring the season back up!

It sucked major ass. Get well soon please Stargate.