Stargate SG-1 (TV Series) Scorched Earth (2000) User Reviews

Entertaining but Incoherent Story

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 2 July 2016]

The SG-1 relocates the Enkarans in another planet and the human-like people thank the team with a celebration party. Out of the blue, a spaceship burns the ground and destroys a village close to the settlement. They succeed to contact the spaceship and are brought on board. Soon the bio-mechanical life form Lotan explains that they are settling a dead race on the planet since it is the only one with all the elements necessary for the survival of the race. They tell that the Enkarans must move to another planet. But the SG-1 team explains that this is the only planet where the Ankarans may exist; otherwise they would die. Further, it is impossible to share the planet with the other race. How will the SG-1 solve the problem?

"Scorched Earth" is an episode of Stagate SG-1 with an entertaining but incoherent story. The environment is perfect for a human-like race Enkaran. How could be the planet the only suitable to a sulfur-based race that needs to destroy the environment to survive? The solution is predictable but perfect for the conclusion. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Scorched Earth"

Gardening is a lot less fun when you're the weed

[owlaurence · 7/10 · 8 September 2010]

The first 38mn of the episode are really good, but some of the ending spoils it a bit. I rather like that it begins *in medias res*, when SG1 thinks they have successfully relocated the Enkerrans, a yellow-eyed people who needs very particular conditions to live on a planet. Unfortunately, those conditions are the same ones that another totally alien, but highly advanced life-form, also requires to resurrect their civilisation. So for once, SG1's generous habit of ferrying peoples across the galaxy on a whim backfires rather dramatically, as the Enkerrans find themselves in mortal danger.

Since the aliens are obviously too powerful to annihilate -anyone sees the irony here?- SG1 tries to negotiate a truce. Only the person conducting the negotiations is a robot, which makes it a bit difficult to think out of the box. Once again, Daniel and Jack end up arguing over whether to keep trying to find a compromise or take drastic measures to save the Enkerrans -destroying an entire civilisation in the process. The episode is clever in not taking sides, showing that both men are aware of the stakes and respect each other's opinion, but neither will back down.

The episode gets a lot weaker in the last part. I appreciate the last-minute twist that saves the day, but I really don't buy that after rejecting half a dozen logical arguments, the PR robot would suddenly go over to the Enkerrans because trees are beautiful and human-shaped ears are so inadequate to listen to alien music. That sounds too easy.

Intriguing Moral Dilemma

[dmshrmed · 9/10 · 23 April 2022]

SG-1, trying to save an entire people from the unfavorable conditions of their old home, bring them to the only planet in the Stargate system capable of supporting them. However, another species, far more ancient and advanced, began terraforming the planet before the people were resettled. The terraforming species also requires the unique conditions of the planet for the success of their terraforming process, and their civilization is otherwise completely lost outside of their terraforming ship. So what do you do in such a lose lose situation? Do you save the people that you promised a new home, and in the process destroy the last remnants of the advanced terraforming civilization, or do you condemn the people you brought to a fiery demise and allow the terraforming civilization to make its return?

Ultimately, at a surface level, the sequence of events is fairly predictable. The being on the terraforming ship (a messenger made by the terraforming civilization in the image of the people SG-1 brought) does not budge from his programming and refuses to compromise. O'Neill, forced to find a drastic solution, chooses to set up a bomb to destroy the terraforming ship. Carter and Jackson have difficulty choosing a side in the situation. Jackson reasons with the messenger and finds a compromise at the last moment. However, the incredible stakes and the fact that there is no remotely easy solution to this situation makes it extremely interesting to watch. It appears to be a choice between genocide and genocide. What a horrifying set of options. Ultimately the actual solution is very satisfying and does not result in the destruction of either group, and it was just unexpected enough that I honestly didn't know if the show was going to kill off one of the groups.

All in all, while I did know what was going to happen on a very basic level, I was engaged with the fact that I didn't know how the show was going to actually make that basic sequence of events occur. A story doesn't need a morally ambiguous question in order to be engaging and intriguing, but this episode uses a very gray situation to take the characters to the extremes of their beliefs. Great episode.

That is not contrary to my programming...

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 7 February 2023]

Brian Markenson is Lotan, a "wobot" that looks like an Enkaran.

He's also the computer on a huge spaceship that is gonna terraform the planet SG-1 deposited the Enkarans on. This planet was mentioned in "Watergate"...

But he's also an Enkaran, the computer did too good of a job creating this guy. So he's got feelings about the Enkarans.

But he's also got that pesky programming that requires him to melt the surface of the Enkarans new planet into Slag... What to do? What to do?

It's actually Jackson that figures a way out of the conundrum. With Lotan's help...

It's the ending of this that is great... the episode itself is rather depressing. I usually start watching this halfway through... the ending always lifts me up.

Look for Mr Gaeta from BSG, Allesandro Juliani. We had Chief Tyrol as one of Bratac's students in the episode where we met Oma, and he was very young as Gaeta is here.

When Jack wants to use Naqueda bombs, Daniel uses Diplomacy. Which works better. Sometimes, ya gotta use Naqueda bombs though...

Decent

[Calicodreamin · 6/10 · 17 February 2022]

A very interesting storyline that once again puts SG1 intellectually ahead of an alien race that is far more advanced. Like they're the only four people in the galaxy that can solve problems.

Very cliché

[frabii · 4/10 · 12 September 2014]

I really don't understand why this episode is so popular. The story is very predictable and shows the everyone except Jakson at their worst.

The relocated people are led by an inflexible and irrational person. Her sidekick is a whiny guy with an entitled attitude who does not know how to say "thank you". The SG team did their best to find them a home and guess what? Things got complicated. The Enkarans show no initiative or appreciation. Instead they have an attitude of "oh helpless me! please SG-1 come and fix it all while we sit on our high horse and reject any compromise".

The fact is that neither side is native to the planet. Actually none of the races including SG-1 have any claim to it. The Gadmeer had checked out the planet and found it to have no intelligent life forms. They had no reason to expect it get filled with people overnight. The Enkarans ignore this and refuse to consider any other option. SG-1 also misses two obvious solutions:

1) Give the Gadmeer the necessary resources to find another planet. 2) With the help of Gadmeer find Enkarans another planet.

Hammond wisely refuses to provide the weapons for SG-1 to commit genocide against the Gadmeer. O'Neill then decides on his own to blow up the Gadmeer ship and commit genocide. Carter follows suit. The only one with any degree of sense is Jackson.

The amazing thing is the claim that Gadmeer want to destroy the Enkarans. O'Neill seems to forget that Enkarans are not native to the planet and have no more right to it than the Gadmeer. Or that Gadmeer screened the planet and found no intelligent life forms before they chose it and had no reason to expect a whole race of people to suddenly appear there almost overnight.

It boils down to plain old xenophobia. The Gadmeer look different and therefore are somehow less important than humanoid Enkarans. It really shows SG-1 except Jakson at their absolute worst.