Season 10, Episode 2: Morpheus
on July 14th, 2011 at 8:33 amOriginal Air Date – 21 July 2006
After a short recap, “Morpheus” begins. Teal’c arrives to the SGC reporting that the Ori led by Adria have thus far conquered six more worlds, two of which were Jaffa strongholds. Those who survived say that their leader, a young woman, possesses extraordinary powers. Daniel rushes to the rest of the team and says that he figured out the coordinates to the planet where the Holy Grail is hidden. After he explains to everyone in the briefing room how he discovered this, Landry gives them a go on the mission. He however, forbids Vala to go anywhere. Daniel faces Landry with a try to allow her to go and he actually succeeds, but expects Daniel to keep her in line. She also has to pass a personality evaluation test and after that she will be granted off-world traveling with SG-1. The team passes through the gate where they find a dead town with skeletons lying around and no life in sight.
Simply put, “Morpheus” was a great episode. I immediately have to point out the thing that I loved the most and that is the world where SG-1 went to search for the weapon. The town and its surroundings are most probably the grimmest and darkest piece of ambience we ever saw in “Stargate SG-1”. There is an amazing chunk of horror implanted into this show, as SG-1 investigates and they realize that everything around them is dead. Even the colors are of a grayish tone and those scenes are just full of depression and lifelessness. In addition to the ambience being heavy, the fact that the team needs to stay awake or fall into an eternal sleep state was just ultimately cool and eerie. Basically the search for the weapon extends into a tormenting ordeal to stay awake.
A great thing about this episode is also the fact that the grim mood from the planet is splashed with rather funny scenes featuring Vala and her test at the SGC. This spark of life is great, since it cheers you up in a quick fashion, but after that you are once again cast back into the evil SG-1 finds themselves in. In any case, this is an excellent episode with a superb mood which completely grasps your attention.
