Episode of the Week: Teal’c Against The Machine

AUGUST IS VIRTUAL REALITY MONTH!

Teal’c is trapped in a virtual reality simulation, in which he must defend the base from a Goa’uld super-soldier incursion — but his inability to defeat the scenario eventually takes its toll.

Our rewatch of favorite moments in Stargate history continues! Each month we’ll pick a theme, and feature a key episode every week. Join us by watching the episode this week, and then head to GateWorld Forum (or posting below) to talk about it!

In Another Life …

• The Stargate series often made use of a mainstay of modern science fiction storytelling: technology-based virtual reality.
• One way into a VR universe is with the virtual reality unit devised by the residents of P7J-989, in order to ride out an apocalyptic event on their world.
• Or, you could test-drive the Earth-modified version of the tech. But watch out for Kull warriors!
• The Ancients also developed VR technology …
• … and the deep-space vessel Destiny has a VR system built into the heart of the ship, including a chair interface that will put a user into a virtual Destiny environment.

“Avatar” Facts:

• Before Stargate Command spent two years developing the game chair from the tech recovered from P7J-989 the virtual reality chairs sat in storage deep inside Area 51. They can be spotted as the camera pans across the storage room in the opening moments of Season Three’s “Point of View.”
• Andrew Airlie guest stars as Dr. Carmichael, his second role on the series. You might recognize him as Kalan, the Orbanian leader from the third season episode “Learning Curve.”
• Dr. Carmichael was one of a number of new doctor characters tried out after Janet Fraiser was killed off the previous year, before producers eventually settled on Lexa Doig’s Dr. Carolyn Lam. This is his only episode.
• The computer-generated video game footage you can see in the episode was created by Perception, the Australia-based studio that was developing the video game Stargate SG-1: The Alliance at the time. (The game itself was scrapped late in production.)
• By the time “Avatar” was filming actor Christopher Judge had also started his career of providing voice-over work for the video game industry. For the video game-themed episode Judge made a late dialogue addition, plugging Teal’c’s love of Def Jam Vendetta — in which Judge voices the character D-Mob. (More recently he’s been cast as the lead in the next God of War game.)

“Avatar” on GateWorld:

• Episode Guide
• Episode Review
• “In the Making” (by Joseph Mallozzi)
• Episode Transcript
• Photo Gallery
• Screencap Gallery

• Discussion Forum
• Season Eight Podcast
• Interview with Christopher Judge (2004)

Download “Avatar” now from Amazon or iTunes!

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

Every month we’re featuring a new theme from Stargate’s 17 seasons. Watch the weekly episode with us join in the fun!