Stargate SG-1 (TV Series) Demons (1999) User Reviews

The Dark Ages

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 14 January 2016]

The SG-1 travels to a planet where the inhabitants are Catholic and live in the correspondent Middle Ages on Earth. They meet the woman Mary ready to be sacrificed because she has chicken pox and her husband explains that demons that come from the Stargate periodically collect human sacrifices to Satan. However, Jack realizes that the demons are Unas indeed and Satan is Sokar that needs new hosts. The SG-1 unsuccessfully try to convince the locals that they could fight and kill the Unas, but their leader tells that they are demons and subdue them using a powerful ring. Now the SG-1 joins Mary and they are chained for the sacrifice. How will they escape?

"Demons" is another good episode of Stargate that uses the Dark Ages to show a people that might have come from Earth but still live in this period of history. The film is highly entertaining and well resolved, despite the weapons and gears of the SG-1 be left behind what was absolutely forbidden in "Star Trek". My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Demons"

Mistake made at end of episode

[snd-59191 · 7/10 · 9 February 2023]

I noticed a mistake at the end of this episode. When Sam pushes the first symbol to dial back to earth, she pauses. After Jack kills Canon, he tells her to dial home again. The first symbol is still lit, so she pushes the next symbol. Counting the sounds from when the second symbol is pushed, I heard 7 symbols pushed after the pause. That means 8 symbols were pushed.

The episode was good in the sense of another story line of an Unas. They never really explained thoroughly how Christians populated the planet. Their explanation was a guess. They told the people to bury the stargate after they leave. They never mention revisiting the planet again after the Gould are gone.

Another episode ruined by a flawed premise

[search53-1 · 5/10 · 17 June 2016]

There are hints during the story that the people in the village could have come from Earth. This is unlikely to the point of being impossible. During the Dark Ages, both Stargates on Earth were buried (one in Egypt, the other in Antarctica) so the only way the Goa'uld could have arrived on Earth is by ship.

Whatever caused their departure during the Egyptian era was no longer relevant, therefore it is much more likely that they would have re-established themselves on Earth. If they had gone to this much trouble to get back here, surely they wouldn't merely have abducted a few hundred people and drop them on an otherwise abandoned planet; they would have used them as slave labor or Jaffa.

Even if they should, for whatever reason, select just to take victims, the ships large enough to accomplish this (most likely Al'Kesh) would surely have been noticed in the air by those in surrounding villages. As a result, there would have been historical mention of this fact (which does not exist).

This episode has an interesting premise, but to suggest that they had been taken from Earth 1000-1500 years ago defies continuity.

One of the worst episodes... right up there with Emancipation

[brdavid-429-96270 · 3/10 · 6 April 2023]

Demons has it all. A cliché plot, a trite villain, an inept attempt a folktale. Add all of it up and get what might be the worst episode yet since Emancipation.

The story centers around a medieval village that is terrorized by a Unas, the being they encountered when trying to recover Thor's Hammer. This being is playing Satan trying to get the villagers to sacrifice humans. What could have been done in a novel way is thrown out the window for pedestrian.

The village guardian is played in the most cliché way as possible, to showcase the worst possible character of Christian values. In fact nothing of the Christian religion is shown as positive in this episode. It insists on focusing on the worst parts, which the writer wants the viewer to believe this was all common place in the medieval era. Academia has shown medievalists to be more educated than this.

The episode could have played in a way where the main villain might be something more than just a guy with a fancy powerful ring. The main character we sympathize with could have been so much more than the scurrying type we receive. The ending could have been more thought provoking. SG1 has certainly done episodes where we think one thing only to have the episode go in a different direction: Learning Curve, Spirits, Touchstone. These episodes could have been terrible, but the writing was clever enough to spring something novel.

Demons isn't novel. It's just another anti Christianity episode that still thinks the dark ages were about Christian torture and superstition. The Dark Ages are called Dark because this was the period after the fall of the Roman Empire and when most of the world was in complete turmoil. Nothing was getting recorded, and no real singular empire in control. Lots of little factions vying for power. Spirits played to the Native American cliché in a more superior form than this. It's as if the writers for SG1 clearly have no idea how to write a Christian episode.

Skip this like you skip Emancipation. There is nothing here except that we learn Teal'c cannot drown. He will pass out then come back to life. That's it. That's all you get from the episode. Beyond that... skip it. Nothing to see here.