“You wanna know what the best world is? The next one”
- Release Date: 14th September 2002
- Season 1
- Episode 1
- Director: Will Meugniot
- Writers: Mark Edward Edens and Michael Edens
So, Stargate Infinity, a children’s cartoon loosely based on the Stargate franchise. Due to the speed of production, the people behind the show (who churned out a lot of animation) were pretty much left to their own devices, coming up with their own rules and designs. While the first episode doesn’t explain it, the show is set sometime between 2025-2030, after the Gou’ald have been defeated and seemingly making no reference to the show itself. There’s not much time to explain stuff in 20 minutes, and major characters aren’t properly established. It does have a cheesy but fun theme song, though.
The first episode opens up with two trainees (Harrison and Stacey) in the middle of a vehicle chase. They encounter a split in the road, and Harrison can’t decide which one, resulting in him sitting around and getting shot, failing the exam. On the way to Stargate Command, they’re joined by two more characters: Seattle and Ec’co, the latter being some kind of alien or android, but they don’t explain anything about him at all in this episode.
Stacey attends the court martial of her uncle, Major Bonner. There’s video footage of him giving a command to his troops that led them to being ambushed by the Tlak’kahn – some kind of hairy space goblin species. Bonner denies that this is real. He’s deemed to be guilty, but the punishment isn’t decided (due to all the good he’s done previously). A mad scientist in the audience smiles at the camera and sarcastically says it’s a shame, letting us know he’s behind it.
He joins Dr Masion, Seattle and Ec’co in studying an Egyptian sarcophagus made out of naquadah, and they detect an alien lifeform inside. The alien is alive and they manage to contain it, thinking it might be an ancient (very different from the human-like ones in the show). It’s revealed that Seattle is an empath (like Deanna Troi in Star Trek) and the ancient seems to be going rapidly. The evil scientist scurries off and we see that he’s a shapeshifter.
He poses as Bonner and enters the control room. The only two people are Harrison and a Stargate operative he’s failing to flirt with. The fake Bonner says he’s getting revenge for the court martial and stuns them both, turning into the stargate operative to access the controls. Meanwhile, the real Bonner is looking at the Stargate one last time, saying that the best planet is the next one.
The stargate activates and the Iris opens, letting a few Tlak’kahn enter, with pretty much no security at all. They aliens manage to get past the gate room, meeting up with their shapeshifter friends with no resistance. The shapeshifter explains how he framed Bonner and that his identity is protected so he can carry on spring.
Harrison accuses Bonner of being a traitor when Seattle detects that the creature is being moved. They decide to trust Bonner for now as saving the ancient is more important. They head back to the stargate and get the ancient back, but are cornered, as the Tlak’kahn control the only way back. With no way back, Bonner, RJ, Stacey, Seattle and Ec’co gear up in their vehicles and head through the stargate to the Tlak’kahn base.
They manage to deal with the couple of Tlak’kahn guards, and Bonner dials another planet, one he says is safe. They all head through, setting a bomb behind them to destroy the DHD. Everyone agrees and they head through, ending the episode.
While this feels very far from Stargate, it’s not quite as atrocious as I was expecting. It’s still not good and it feels like none of the characters have been properly introduced.
