This is the second go around for an episode focused on the hapless Jay Felger, a researcher at the Stargate program. The first episode with the character, 'The Other Guys', was a decent comedic relief episode about two of the scientists always doing stuff in the background on the show. Jay is a socially awkward nerd who idolizes the SG1 team and daydreams about being the hero in one of their adventures. After some unexpected events, Jay makes a couple of rash decisions that put him and his coworker in harms way but also allow them to face their fears and become heroes for real. It was a little one note, but had enough humor and heart to be fun. Unfortunately, the shows attempt to revisit the concept falls short in a lot of ways.
First, they ditch the coworker and introduce an attractive lab assistant who constantly throws Jay signals that he ignores because he's focused on an infatuation with Carter. I hate this. It's totally cliched, even 20 years ago. Also, the lab assistant who's in love with Jay is completely age inappropriate; she's nearly two decades younger than him. She also works as his subordinate, which even before Me Too wouldn't have been ok with their HR department. And, although I know this probably wouldn't have been something people thought about back when this aired, but the assistant has very little to do other than support her man and be there as a prize when he returns victorious at the end, which just isn't a great message. Watching old shows you have to remind yourself that social norms were different back then, but even so it's hard not to notice how dated these concepts feel today.
Second, the plot revolves around how Jay is actually a smart, nice guy who just lacks belief in himself. To drive the idea that people won't respect you if you don't respect yourself home they have just about everybody react to Jay as though he was something unpleasant they stepped in. But since he is both a highly educated professional at the top of his field and a guy who won a presidential medal of freedom for putting his life on the line to save an SG team, it makes the Stargate program seem like the most hostile place to work in the world. Also, the bumbling, stuttering act gets old pretty quick and should probably have been toned down; a little lack of confidence can be endearing, but an over the top performance pushes the character towards pathetic instead.
Finally, the idea driving the plot, a virus for the Stargate devices, is a little hard to swallow. If you accept the premise then there is essentially no security on the gates; anyone can write their own changes and push them to every device in the galaxy in hours. This seems like an absolutely glaring security problem. There are thousands of these gates, many on worlds with advanced cultures who would prefer not to have backdoors to their planets. And the gates have been around for millions of years. Nobody, not one alien civilization, has had the idea of messing with the logic controlling the gates in all that time? It's a little hard to swallow is all.
So those are my complaints about the episode. I think a lot of the concepts just didn't age very well and overall the premise doesn't entertain as much as the first time around.
First, they ditch the coworker and introduce an attractive lab assistant who constantly throws Jay signals that he ignores because he's focused on an infatuation with Carter. I hate this. It's totally cliched, even 20 years ago. Also, the lab assistant who's in love with Jay is completely age inappropriate; she's nearly two decades younger than him. She also works as his subordinate, which even before Me Too wouldn't have been ok with their HR department. And, although I know this probably wouldn't have been something people thought about back when this aired, but the assistant has very little to do other than support her man and be there as a prize when he returns victorious at the end, which just isn't a great message. Watching old shows you have to remind yourself that social norms were different back then, but even so it's hard not to notice how dated these concepts feel today.
Second, the plot revolves around how Jay is actually a smart, nice guy who just lacks belief in himself. To drive the idea that people won't respect you if you don't respect yourself home they have just about everybody react to Jay as though he was something unpleasant they stepped in. But since he is both a highly educated professional at the top of his field and a guy who won a presidential medal of freedom for putting his life on the line to save an SG team, it makes the Stargate program seem like the most hostile place to work in the world. Also, the bumbling, stuttering act gets old pretty quick and should probably have been toned down; a little lack of confidence can be endearing, but an over the top performance pushes the character towards pathetic instead.
Finally, the idea driving the plot, a virus for the Stargate devices, is a little hard to swallow. If you accept the premise then there is essentially no security on the gates; anyone can write their own changes and push them to every device in the galaxy in hours. This seems like an absolutely glaring security problem. There are thousands of these gates, many on worlds with advanced cultures who would prefer not to have backdoors to their planets. And the gates have been around for millions of years. Nobody, not one alien civilization, has had the idea of messing with the logic controlling the gates in all that time? It's a little hard to swallow is all.
So those are my complaints about the episode. I think a lot of the concepts just didn't age very well and overall the premise doesn't entertain as much as the first time around.