Orpheus (Stargate SG-1)

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"Orpheus"
Stargate SG-1 episode
Episode no.Season 7
Episode 4
Directed byPeter DeLuise
Written byPeter DeLuise
Produced byPeter DeLuise
Featured musicJoel Goldsmith
Kevin Kiner
Cinematography byPeter Woeste
Editing byBrad Rines
Production codeP268
Original air dateJune 27, 2003 (2003-06-27)
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
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"Revisions"
Stargate SG-1 (season 7)
List of episodes

"Orpheus" is the 4th episode from the

Sci-Fi Channel. The episode was written and directed by Peter DeLuise
.

In this episode, following one of SG-1's missions to another world through the

Bra'tac
are in trouble.

The episode deals with the repercussions of the

The Changeling
", which sees Teal'c lose his symbiote.

Plot

SG-1, who have been on a mission off-world, have dialed the

Jaffa
soldier manages to come through and before being killed is able to shoot Teal'c.

Teal'c wakes up in the infirmary where

spinal damage. After Daniel visits a taciturn Teal'c, who is reluctant to talk. As Daniel leaves the infirmary he hears mysterious voices. Some time later, Teal'c trains for his recovery while Daniel and Sam work out. They notice that Teal'c is rigorously training, perhaps too much, but he ignores their concerns. After making a full recovery, Teal’c begins to train more than ever, yet remains uncharacteristically taciturn. In the meantime, Sam and Daniel look over Stargate addresses because Daniel feels an inclination to recover a lost memory. He only knows it's connected with the wormhole generated by the Stargate. When he and Jack
visit Teal'c, he finally reveals that his reticent attitude is due to a weakness felt due to use of the Tretonin, and his teammates can offer no consolation.

To help himself remember, Daniel asks Teal'c to teach him Kelno'reem, a Jaffa meditation which aids in uncovering a memory regarding

Ba'al
where prisoners are forced to mine materials for the construction of Goa'uld Ha'tak motherships. Rak'nor also tells them that Erebus' Stargate is protected by an energy shield, which Daniel recalls how to penetrate in another visions.

SG-1 along with Rak'nor and other Stargate Command forces embark on a rescue mission to Erebus, securing a position on a hillside looking down into the labor camp. During the night, Teal'c and Rak'nor sneak into the camp but are betrayed, captured, and tortured. The rest of SG-1, unable to do anything, decide to create a diversion. Sam and Daniel use a Ring Transporter to gain access to the nearby Ha'tak, which is under construction to place C-4, but cannot get to the Ring Transporter, which is under heavy guard. In the meantime, Teal'c enlightens Bra'tac and Rya'c about their plans to flee and the word is spread among the fellow Jaffa held prisoner in the camp. Rya'c is caught spreading the word by the prison guards, and is scheduled for execution when Teal'c begs to take his place. However, before he is killed, the C-4 explodes, plunging the mothership to the ground. The Jaffa Commander swiftly orders his Jaffa to the ship when they are deftly ambushed by the SG teams. As the Jaffa slaves rebel against their captors, Teal'c is able to kill the Jaffa Commander, and SG-1 and their allies take control of the camp before returning to Stargate Command. As Teal'c and Daniel meditate together they agree that for the first time they feel that they are involved in something important and that they belong in the Stargate Command.

Production

Development and writing

Peter DeLuise wrote and directed the episode

In the

Meridian", he is ultimately "cast out" by the other ascended beings following his attempt to prevent Anubis from using his super-weapon in "Full Circle", and is stripped of his powers, memories and returned to flesh and blood.[2][3] Following Daniel's return to human form, it was the suggestion of writer and co-producer Paul Mullie that there should be some "residual memories" from Daniel's time as an ascended being.[4] Mullie felt that it was a "requirement of the season in that we had some issues to deal with, the first being Daniel's return and what does he remember", and wanted the season to answer "does he regret having been pretty much kicked out of the ranks of the Ascended?".[3] Executive producer Robert C. Cooper commented that "Daniel wasn't just going to get his memory back and be ready to go next episode; these things are going to reverberate throughout the season", as well stating "we don't like to wrap everything up neatly at the end of one episode".[5] This gave writer Peter DeLuise his inspiration for what would become "Orpheus".[4][3] DeLuise imagined Daniel as having what he described as a "tortuous fragment of a memory" from his time ascended, whilst Mullie felt the character would also be "trying to come to terms with being Human again and no longer having special abilities".[6][3] Shanks desire to see his character move away from a "passive observer" was also taken into account in writing "Orpheus", with Daniel Jackson becoming more "proactive" in pushing forward their cause in the episode and from this point onwards.[7] DeLuise described the unravelling of Daniel's memory as "our door into the adventure" that eventually leads to Bra'tac and Rya'c, who have been imprisoned.[6]

Although the Daniel Jackson character was the catalyst for DeLuise's story, it was Teal'c that he chose to focus his episode on.

Rules of Engagement", where only the strongest Jaffa survive.[4] Looking to expand upon this, DeLuise decided on the concept that Jaffa would use the same word for 'death' as they do for 'weakness', reasoning that "In Jaffa culture if one is weak, one might as well be dead", which would therefore see Teal'c fall into a state of "state of living death" following his injury.[6][4][12] DeLuise also wanted to give Teal'c actor Christopher Judge the opportunity "to show weakness, and do some acting other than just cocking his eyebrow".[6]

Cast

Bra'tac and Rak'nor for the first time in season seven whilst David Richmond-Peck
(right) portrays the Jaffa commander.

Siler was originally in the episode, but his scenes were ultimately cut out.[14]

Filming and post-production

Peter DeLuise directed the episode, with Peter Woeste serving as director of photography. Filming on "Orpheus" began in March 2003, overlapping slightly with work on the opening two-part episodes "Fallen" & "Homecoming", which was concluding filming.[15][16] As well as filming on the shows standing sets at The Bridge Studios, Jackson Pit; a disused gravel pit in Coquitlam, British Columbia was chosen for the location of the Goa'uld labor camp.[17] Due to heavy rainfall, filming at Jackson Pit was particularly challenging for the both crew and the actors, with production designer Bridget McGuire describing it as "the show that nearly killed us", whilst Christopher Judge later reflected that "the episode wasn't much fun due to the weather, which was absolutely horrible".[16][10] The mixture of 50 background actors and stunt performers were ferried between Jackson Pit and a location in Maple Ridge for the film of the episode "Homecoming".[16][18] The crew had to dig out trenches to direct water flow away from the set, whilst stunt co-ordinator Dan Shea highlighted that a number of the performers kept slipping over and falling down during scenes due to the wet surface.[17][19] In the pit itself, McGuire's production team designed and built a bucket-wheel excavator as the centre piece of the set, whilst smaller tents surrounded the mine itself. Set decorators also buried children's swimming pools into the pit to create what looked like bubbling tar pits.[16]

In constructing the cinematography for the episode, DeLuise and Woeste wanted scenes to be "more intimate", with DeLuise reasoning that he wanted to "look at how these people feel, rather than what they're doing", and so the subjects faces were often

Goa'uld Ha'tak was "at least 50% bigger than what was in previous episodes" according to Lead 3D animator Wes Sargent. Sargent liked Robbins scaled up version, and was allowed to entirely rebuild the CGI model of the mothership for the episode, basing it off of Robbins larger pyramid illustration.[20]

Cultural references

The

Signs, although not directly named, is reviewed by Carter, with the character heavily criticising the fact the aliens weakness is water.[21] Numerous references are made by Jack O'Neill and Teal'c to the Austin Powers film series, with O'Neill believing Teal'c has lost his "mojo".[22][6] DeLuise based his choice of shots of the Jaffa running up the hill towards the Goa'uld mothership whilst under mortar fire on a scene from The Thin Red Line (1998), whilst there are also visual references to The Pianist (2002) and The Three Musketeers (1993).[22][23] Nickolas Baric, who had appeared in numerous previous episodes as different background characters portrays a soldier named Penhall, a reference to DeLuise's 21 Jump Street character Doug Penhall.[4] The tale of Orpheus and Eurydice from Ancient Greek mythology informs parts of the story and title, with the Goa'uld world on which the labor camp is located named Erebus, which is a "place of darkness between earth and Hades", also from the mythology.[4]

Release

Broadcast and reception

The episode was first broadcast on June 27, 2003, on the

household rating.[24][25] In the United Kingdom, the episode was broadcast first on Sky One on October 20, 2003, and attracted 660,000 viewers.[26][27] It was later syndicated onto Channel 4 on September 19, 2004.[28] In Canada, the episode first aired on September 30, 2004, on Space.[29][30]

Jayne Dearsley at SFX awarded the episode 4 out of 5 stars, calling writer and director Peter DeLuise "the man who seems to know Stargate SG-1 better than anybody else". Dearsley felt as though the labor camp scenes in the middle of the episode lacked the urgency and danger needed, but believed this was made up for in the "huge battle at the climax" of the episode.[31] Jan Vincent-Rudzki at TV Zone bemoaned the trope of "warriors who lose their honour", and was of the opinion that "Teal'c just wallows too much in self pity", awarding the episode 6 out of 10.[32] The episode was recommended by Courtney Potter at Zap2it as one of their 'best bets'.[33] Chloe Richards at Dreamwatch called the episode "a standard Goa'uld drama and is served nicely by Judge and Shanks".[34]

Response from contributors on

Gateworld.net was largely positive, with reviewer Alli Snow praising Christopher Judge's performance as Teal'c as being amongst the highlights of the episode. Another contributor, Lex, applauded the episode as a "master class in character development" in regard to the arcs of both Teal'c and Daniel, and praised DeLuise for fitting "vast and powerful" themes "into such a short space of time without any feeling of it being rushed or crowded".[23] Darren Rea of Sci-Fi Online awarded the episode 7 out of 10, and whilst they enjoyed Judge's performance, they were of the opinion that Teal'c "seemed a little out of character" in the episode.[35]

Home media

"Orpheus" was first released as part of the "Volume 32"

Siler about the voices he's been hearing.[41][14]

References

  1. ^ "Shanks Returns To Stargate SG-1". Sci Fi Wire. 8 November 2002. Archived from the original on 8 December 2002. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
  2. ^ Mallozzi, Joseph (21 February 2021). "053: Joseph Mallozzi Part 5, Writer and Executive Producer, Stargate (Interview)". Dial the Gate (Interview). Gateworld.
  3. ^
    ISSN 0960-8230
    . In Orpheus, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c must face up to some changes in their lives. "This was a requirement of the season in that we had some issues to deal with, the first being Daniel's return and what does he remember," says Paul Mullie. "Does he regret having been pretty much kicked out of the ranks of the Ascended? Daniel had all this power to effect change but he was also cast out after he tried to do just that. So basically he's trying to come to terms with being Human again and no longer having special abilities. The other issue was Teal'c being without his symbiote, which we kind of left dangling at the end of Season Six. The drug tretonin keeps his immune system going, bur it doesn't give him the same strength and regenerative powers that his symbiote did. Teal'c is a warrior. His whole culture is based on strength and charging into battle without really worrying about being injured because your symbiote will heal you. That's no longer the case with him. So we wanted ro do a story in which Teal'c is seriously injured and has to go through physiotherapy and the same type of painful recovery process that an ordinary Human being has to. He's still very much a more powerful physical presence than ordinary Humans bur he's nor the 'superman' he used to be, and he must learn to accept that." Adds Joe Mallozzi, "While Teal'c is trying to deal with that, Daniel is struggling with some unfinished business. He feels as though there's something very important that he has to remember and his and Teal'c's stories dovetail right in the middle of an off-world mission. Orpheus was written as well as directed by Peter Deluise and it turned our great."
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q DeLuise, Peter; Woeste, Peter (2 February 2004). Stargate SG-1 "Orpheus" (DVD commentary). Vol. 32. MGM Home Entertainment.
  5. ISSN 1356-482X
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 1840239344
    .
  7. ISSN 0145-6032
    .
  8. ISSN 0960-8230
    . for Orpheus in which our two characters share a strong spiritual bond. Daniel and Teal'c help one another reassert who they are and where their strengths lie. So that was a blast to do
  9. ^ Judge, Christopher (24 July 2003). "A NEW DIRECTION". rdanderson.com (Interview). Interviewed by Kate Ritter.
  10. ^
    ISSN 0960-8230
    . Orpheus deals with how the loss of his symbiote has affected Teal'c psychologically. "The actual filming of the episode wasn't much fun due to the weather, which was absolutely horrible. We did a couple of night shoots and those were pretty rough. That said, it was all worth it. I've watched a director's cut of the story and it looks amazing.
  11. ISSN 0957-3844
    . Deluise took a page out of Greek mythology when he wrote Orpheus, which he also directed. "Usually stories with the word 'orpheus' in their titles are about characters going through their own personal hell," he explains. "In this episode Teal'c's [Christopher Judge] hell is that he no longer has his symbiote. In the past, he sort of took it for granted and came to depend on the strength that it gave him. This included being able to incur severe injuries during battle and later heal rather quickly. However, no_~ that he's on [the drug] tretonin, his ability to do this is severely curtailed. Teal'c isn't as strong as he used to be and of course in the Jaffa culture weakness is a major taboo. It's akin to death. So Teal'c kind of loses his mojo, if you will."Meanwhile, Daniel Jackson [Michael Shanks] is having flashbacks to when he was ascended and realizes that at one point he witnessed the capture of Bra'tac [Tony Amendola] and Ry'ac [Neil Denis] on an enemy planet. They're being worked to death at a labour camp and now Daniel 1s feeling guilty because he chose not to interfere. So he convinces SG-1 to mount a rescue mission and Teal'c has to rise to the occasion. The Jaffa warrior has no choice considering it's his son's life that's at stake, So they both have to experience these cathartic life-changing events. It's a pretty powerful story and one I'm really proud of."
  12. ^ Mallozzi, Joseph (5 April 2003). "Chat with Writer/Producer Joseph Mallozzi". Our Stargate. Archived from the original on 21 June 2003.
  13. ^ "Orpheus". scifi.com. Archived from the original on 19 July 2003.
  14. ^ a b "'Orpheus' deleted scene available". Gateworld. 9 July 2003. Archived from the original on 1 August 2003.
  15. ^ Mallozzi, Joseph (14 March 2003). "Joseph Mallozzi Live Chat". Gateworld.
  16. ^
    ISSN 0960-8230
    . McGuire chuckles when talking about the next episode, Orpheus. "That was the show that nearly killed us". Every single department - effects, costumes, props, set decoration, etc. We were on location out in Maple Ridge, which is a long drive for some of our people. However, at the same rime we were shooting Orphe11s we were finishing up work on the two-parter. All these Jaffa were being used in this story as well as Homecoming. Actors that needed robe our in Maple Ridge were also needed back here at the studios. It took a bit of creative juggling of the schedules to make that all happen. "Orpheus is set in a naquadah mine on a Goa'uld planet. We built a big grinding machine that was supposedly used to process the naquadah that was being mined. The labourers lived in a tent camp that we set up in a big round pit. There was a 'death pit' filled with skeletons and mannequins dressed in rags and covered with dirt and [fake] blood. We also brought in some kiddie pools that our set decoration guys, Robert and Mark [Davidson, who are brothers], surrounded with rocks and filled with coloured water and all sorts of nasty stuff to create what looked like bubbling tar pits. It was pretty neat."
  17. ^
    ISSN 0960-8230
    . For Orpheus, we spent quite some time at Jackson Pit. It was pouring so we dug trenches in order to keep the rain away from the sets.
  18. ISSN 0960-8230
    . In Orpheus, we had 60 costumed extras playing ragtag rebel Jaffa, all of whom had to be dressed and made to look scruffy," says director Peter Deluise. "It was a challenge to make sure they were all ready and in front of the camera at the same time. As if I hadn't already learnt my lesson. I did the same thing to myself again in Enemy Mine.
  19. ISSN 0960-8230
    . We rehearsed some great fight choreography for Orpheus. These guys really worked their butts off. It was raining and they'd keep falling down in the mud and then have to get up and do it all over again. At one point, Brad Kelly had to jump over a mortar. His timing was slightly off, though, and the thing exploded just as he jumped over it. Fortunately, it wasn't one of our standard gas mortars, so all he got was a butt-full of sparks. We made sure to razz him for doing that
  20. ^ Sargent, Wes (26 October 2006). "Wes Sargent interview - 3D Lead Animator at Rainmaker studios". The Scifi World (Interview). Interviewed by Gilles Nuytens.
  21. ^ Mallozzi, Joseph (19 May 2011). "May 19, 2011: Strange messages! Stargate: SG-1 Season 7 memories!". josephmallozzi.com.
  22. ^ a b DeLuise, Peter (25 July 2003). "IN A WORD: PASSION". rdanderson.com (Interview). Interviewed by Kate Ritter.
  23. ^ a b Alli Snow; Lex (2003). ""Orpheus" Review". Gateworld.
  24. ^ "Season Seven kicks off with 3-hour event". Gateworld. 23 April 2003. Archived from the original on 25 June 2003.
  25. ^ "RATINGS: 'Orpheus'". Gateworld. 21 July 2003. Archived from the original on 16 April 2004.
  26. Broadcasters' Audience Research Board
    . 20 October 2003.
  27. ^ "STARGATE SG-1 RATINGS: SEASON SEVEN". Stargate SG-1 Solutions. 24 April 2004.
  28. ISSN 0957-3844
    .
  29. ^ "Listings for Thursday, September 30, 2004". Spacecast. 30 September 2004. Archived from the original on 15 December 2004.
  30. ^ "Canada's SPACE will air new SG-1". Gateworld. 17 August 2004. Archived from the original on 13 October 2004. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  31. ^ Dearsley, Jayne (September 2003). "The Spoiler Zone - Stargate SG-1 ORPHEUS". SFX. No. 108. Future plc. p. 104.
  32. ISSN 0957-3844
    .
  33. ^ Potter, Courtney (27 June 2003). "Friday Best Bets". Zap2it. Archived from the original on 24 June 2003.
  34. ISSN 1356-482X
    .
  35. ^ a b c Rea, Darren. "DVD Stargate SG-1 Volume 32". sci-fi-online.com. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  36. ^ "TV On Video Chart Top 50 - 08 February 2004 - 14 February 2004". Official Charts Company. 8 February 2004.
  37. ^ "Season Seven gates to DVD!". Gateworld. 19 October 2004. Archived from the original on 9 December 2004. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  38. ^ "Stargate expands iTunes, Amazon presence". Gateworld. 11 January 2008. Archived from the original on 15 January 2008. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  39. ^ "Entire Stargate television library now streaming on Netflix". Gateworld. 16 August 2010. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  40. ^ "Stargate's HD Blu-ray Picture: Better Than The DVDs?". GateWorld. 1 March 2021. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  41. ^ "June 30, 2003: Deleted scenes posted for "Orpheus"". scifi.com. 30 June 2003. Archived from the original on 14 July 2003.

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