Episode of the Week: ‘Red Sky’

SG-1 discovers that their trip through the Stargate may have inadvertently doomed an entire civilization, and plead with the Asgard for assistance.

“Red Sky” Facts:

• This is the first episode written by Ron Wilkerson, who served as a story editor during Season Five and also wrote “Between Two Fires,” “Proving Ground,” “The Sentinel,” and contributed stories for later episodes.
• Why don’t SG teams get tossed out of the gate any more? It’s in this episode that we finally get an official explanation: “the margin of error in calculating planetary shift” (necessary to find a valid Stargate address on the millennia-old network) use to cause the rough ride through the wormhole, but the S.G.C. has since fixed it.
• SG-1 causes the entire problem in this episode because they don’t have a D.H.D. Sam’s work on the dialing computer involves a number of shortcuts, including overriding some safety protocols built into the Stargate system.
• Here the Protected Planets Treaty that saved Earth in “Fair Game” comes back to bite SG-1 in the ass: the Asgard are unable to save the K’Tau without violating the terms and nullifying the whole treaty.
• This is the first significant use of a featured Asgard character other than Thor. Freyr is voiced by Brian Jensen (who previously played a Chulak priest), and would return two more times this season.
• The red-shift effect in this episode wasn’t just done in post production. The team built the village on a sound stage in order to control every aspect of the lighting as it changed through the course of the episode. They also shot using some camera filters.
• “Little grey butts …”

“Red Sky” on GateWorld:

• Episode Guide
• Photo Gallery
• Screencap Gallery
• Discussion Thread
• Season Five Podcast

Download “Red Sky” now from Amazon or iTunes!

Rewatch “Red Sky” this week! Then post your comments below, or head over to the “Red Sky” discussion forum and see what people were saying back in the day. What are your favorite moments?

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