I hope everybody caught the premier of season 8 of Stargate SG-1 last Friday. After a break of several months, it was good to see the series pick up the threads it left hanging and begin weaving them into new braids.
Some of those braids almost ended up on actor Christopher Judge’s head!
It turns out that Judge, who plays stoic extraterrestrial teammember Teal’c, got tired after seven seasons of shaving his head every day and begged the producers to let him grow hair in the new season, which will probably be the last (sniff).
This is not the first time Teal’c has experimented with being hirsute–or at least minimally so. A number of seasons ago he came back through the gate (in a season premier) sporting a blond “soul patch” under his lower lip (in the picture). It was cool looking, but it didn’t last, and soon he was again as bald below his lip as he was above.
Now he’s growing hair up topside (no picture available)–as is made clear from the new opening credits of the show. Originally Judge tried a more dramatic look than the way he currently looks. In between seasons, he grew enough hair to braid cornrows, but the studio didn’t like the result, and so he shaved his hair back to the point that he now has basically a low-cut buzz.
The new hair–unlike the soul patch–also ain’t blond, which is a little disappointing. A black extraterrestrial* with blond hair has a nice, extraterrestrial-ly feel to it–appropriate for a sci-fi show–but keeping hair that short that blond would have required frequent bleachings, and Chris Judge probably would have found those just as unappealing as daily shavings.
So it seems that the character Teal’c’s hair is naturally black and, when he had the soul patch, he bleached it. (Either that or Teal’c, like some terran men, has a beard that is a different color than his hair–which would be cool.)
As with any actor whi dramatically changes his appearance during a series, Judge may not be able to keep his new hair if fans of the series don’t like it, so here’s wishing good luck to him in keeping it after all these years of having to shave his head daily! Let’s hope it’s as successful as . . . Riker’s beard.
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(* I can’t refer to Teal’c as an “African-American extraterrestrial” since–as an extraterrestrial–he is neither African nor American, though that didn’t stop TV Guide from once referring to Star Trek Voyager‘s Tuvok as an “African-American Vulcan” in a fit of political correctness.)
If I’m not mistaken, the J’ffa are descended from humans taken from Earth by the Goa’uld and then genetically-modified to be able to incubate Goa-uld larvae, and be dependant upon them to lessen the chance of revolt. As various Goa’uld took humans from various parts of Earth, presumbably, you’d have the races replicated (though after 30k-3k years, I’d have expected a lot more mixing)
Has Stargate ever tried to explain Judaism or Christianity in their scheme? I notice they treat all the pagan gods as system lords. Egyptian gods predominate but I think I’ve seen Greek and Norse gods as well.
No, they leave Judaism and Christianity alone. The goa’uld evacuated earth before Christianity arose, so it doesn’t interact with their system, though there is one episode where they found a few Christians on another planet who apparently had been taken offworld through the Antarctic gate sometime during the Middle Ages, but that’s the only time they’ve done it.
Technically, the show doesn’t require the falsity of pagan religions directly, because whenever they talk about the issue they say that the goa’uld *assumed the identities* of the gods worshipped by different people (thus precinding from the question of whether those gods exist independently of the goa’uld).
Still, it’s really cool to have someone tell Teal’c that he’s betrayed his god, Apophis, and having Teal’c interrupt to say: “FALSE god. . . . . DEAD false god.”
I can’t believe I missed the Season 8 premier!
I believe they’re showing it again though this Friday at 7/6c. I must see Judge with hair….
I’ll have to tape ’em both. =0
Jimmy,
You have to be the geekiest Apologist in all the land. How else could you have a command of Aramaic AND be a fan of some obscure sci-fi show?
We need to get you on Conan O’Brien. (See here if you don’t know what I’m talking about: http://ourstargate.com/osconan.shtml).
(ps, I’m just messing with you 🙂 )
In that episode, they started with Teal’c and Sam explaining how important it was to read the Bible, and Jack said “I’m listening to it on tape, don’t tell me how it ends.” When they find the villagers, it is asked by someone if a Goa’uld could pretend to be Jesus, and Teal’c says “no, no Goa’uld could imitate such kindness and benevolence.”
It turns out that the Goa’uld enslaving the planet was in an Unas, and pretending to be the adversary.
But the Catholics had some serious theological problems, such as trepanning for exorcism, no ordained priests, as near as I could tell, and no bishops. Maybe someone was sent through from Rome to help fix this situation afterwards. . .
“Egyptian gods predominate but I think I’ve seen Greek and Norse gods as well.”
Someone help me here. On the season premier, of the system lords who came to Earth to negotiate, one was an old Chinese man-god, and one was a Japanese woman-goddess. Did anyone catch the names?
Jason: Hey, the two are related. Being an apologist with an interest in religion and dead languages coheres well with a series involving religion and dead languages. My study of Middle Egyptian and other Semitic languages and ancient mythologies adds an extra layer to how I perceive the series. 😉
BrianD: The Chinese guy was Yu and the Japanese gal was Amaterasu. Hope this helps!
after the introduction of nerti (sp?) as an evil goa’uld, and the anger that this caused amongst hindu’s the producers/writers/studio apparantly decided to opt away from using gods in “living religions” opting to use only gods from dead religions (greek, roman, norse egyptian etc) oh and mayan so ppl wont be offended, or at least many ppl wont be offended.
after the introduction of nerti (sp?) as an evil goa’uld, and the anger that this caused amongst hindu’s the producers/writers/studio apparantly decided to opt away from using gods in “living religions” opting to use only gods from dead religions (greek, roman, norse egyptian etc) oh and mayan so ppl wont be offended, or at least many ppl wont be offended.