Actually I don't know if the great William B Davis (Cancerman from The X-Files) shows up in this, yes he does. Which was why I enjoyed this and rated it 10. Actually I rate the whole show 10 and each episode gets the same figure. Smallville for instance gets a 1 from me, and that is for the show itself and for each episode. I rate a show for one thing and one thing only, if I enjoyed it. If I enjoyed it, it gets a 10, if I didn't, it gets a 1. It's a simple as that. If i like a show it's generally all 10's, except for Season 1 "Emancipation" which I gave an 8, because I don't think Captain Carter was as attractive with short hair in fatigues as she is with long hair and wearing a dress. So I thought it was highly unlikely that the local natives would have gone Bugsputz over her while wearing combat fatigues. Now... Kari Wuhrer in combat fatigues worked... In Sliders. But she was acting across from the great Roger Daltrey of The Who.
Now there are a few things about Stargate that bother me, how all of the planets they visit always look like Canada. They did a lot of location shooting on SG-1. Sometimes a location was appropriate, sometimes it was not. It was, in this episode.
The choice of guest actors as well. In this episode, the also-great Tony Todd (Commander Kurn and Worf's Brother from Star Trek/Next Gen), as "Lord Haikon", the leader of a rare group of Jaffa, the "Sodan" that are very much like samurai- Jaffa that Teal'c respects. Also Jarvis and Jason George, I didn't know are actual brothers, and this was also appropriate. Colonel Mitchell becomes "The Last Samurai" much like Tom Cruise, basically he's trapped during the winter in a samurai village and he goes native over time. I think the Cameron Mitchell character would do this, but Astronaut John Criton would not. At least not until season 4 of Farscape, where he learned to curse in Klingonese.
The irony here is that Mitchell is being tutored for a fight to the death while not knowing who is tutoring him.
This group of Jaffa have been visited by an Ori Prior (William B Davis) and have even "done a few jobs for him", IE, killed off infidels. This is also irony, because the Jaffa are free, yet they keep choosing to go back to the same kinds of slavery they have always lived under. Because while this story elapses, Gerak, the leader of the Free Jaffa, is also being suckered by The Ori - They even give him a Prior Staff. After finally getting free from the rule of the Goa'Uld and even finding a drug that frees them from having a Symbiotic parasite living in their pouch, they go back just like a dog to it's vomit.
In reality, I don't know how realistic it is for a freed people to just willingly and en mass go back into a slave situation. But it happens, it happens on Earth.
But this culture of Jaffa are a unique culture and an honorable one, as Mitchell learns and begins to respect. But there are Ori Priors are everywhere, and they don't go away, unless they come back to kill you.
So there are all of these little drawn out dramas (like the ones that used to be drawn in the margins of Mad Magazine) going on, on earth, on Chulak, and if you don't pay attention to each one, you miss something. This episode introduces the Sodan Invisibility shield, and as I have said, nothing is ever wasted in Stargate SG1.
This episode also sets the stage for a confrontation with the William B Davis Prior character which happens in the next episode, while also setting up what ultimately happens with Gerak and the choices he makes. So it is a bit like Jidaigeki, but only the parts about Mitchell and the Sodan.
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