Stargate: SG-1 Re-Watch: The First Commandment (Season 1 Episode 6)

In case you aren’t picking up on the fact that Stargate: SG-1’s big bad is an alien race that posted as the Ancient Egyptian gods, here’s a whole episode where a human proclaims himself to be a god.

Stargate: SG-1 Season 1 Episode 6 “The First Commandment” follows SG-1 as they go on a mission to retrieve SG-9 from a planet with a very strong sun and deadly radiation where the people of the planet live in caves.

This episode was written by Robert C. Cooper and is the first of two episodes directed by Dennis Berry.

“The First Commandment” opens at night with a very creepy setting, with Lieutenants Connor (Roger R. Cross) and Frakes  (D. Neil Mark) running through the woods trying to get to the stargate. One of them eventually falls and is surrounded by guards.

There’s another hooded figure that comes from the back of the group, says how disappointed he is in him and then shoots him. This is Captain Jonas Hanson, played by William Russ, and it’s quite an entrance. I expected the thing in the woods that Frakes and Connor were running from would be a Goa’uld.

After killing Frakes he goes after Connor, but the stargate shuts down and he believes that Connor got through.

SG-1 shows up the next morning to retrieve SG-9.  They find Lt. Connor camouflaged in the leaves and he gets them up to speed on what’s been going on. SG-9 has been on this particular planet for about six weeks, and Hanson has positioned himself as the peoples’ god.

The story that Connor lays out is similar to what happens to SG-1 in “The Broca Divide” but instead of correcting the peoples’ belief that SG-9 were gods, Hanson embraced it believing that the people needed gods to follow.  As time went on, however, he actually started to believe it.

“The First Commandment” really touches on some themes that have only been caressed in the dialogue of other episodes. The Goa’uld positioned themselves as the Ancient Egyptian gods of Earth, but they are really just beings with advanced technology.

Here we have a human being who believes he is helping these people and deserves to be worshipped. There is no alien force, there’s no virus, there’s no external influence to blame for what Hanson is doing.  It is awful, but this episode really chews on his motivations and gives us a human context for what it means to be a false god.

During one of these scenes where SG-1 tries to figure out exactly how far off the deep end Hanson has gone, we also find out that Sam and Hanson were engaged and that Sam broke their engagement off. O’Neill wants her to go back through the stargate with Connor and sit this one out. Sam isn’t having it.

I don’t think this episode would have worked if that layer of history between Carter and Hanson wasn’t there. While you can read between the lines and see that their relationship wasn’t a healthy one, it gives Hanson a stronger motivation and also serves to strengthen Carter’s character.

One of my biggest pet peeves in television series is when they take a strong and capable woman and give her absolutely no romantic arcs or history because they’re worried it will make her look weak.  While Sam is clearly over the relationship by the time she goes on this mission, the fact that she has a romantic past is human and shows more strength than anything in “Emancipation” did, because it gives her a past.

With both Sam and Lt. Connor refusing to go back through the gate, they make camp for the night. They try to parse out what happened to Hanson to send him over the edge. Connor says it wasn’t any one thing and if it was, he and Frakes, the anthropologist, could have seen it coming.

That night Hanson captures Connor and takes him back to camp where he ties Connor to a stake in the hot sun while the cave dwellers work on building a temple. After seeing Hanson berate and start to beat one of the cave dwellers Carter decides to confront him.

If “Emancipation” set up anything, it’s that Carter can take care of herself and doesn’t like seeing other people suffer. (We see a little of this in “The Broca Divide” too.) So it isn’t surprising that she clocks Baker and gets herself captured.

Unlike when she was captured in “Emancipation,” however, she is on equal footing with Hanson. She knows how he thinks. The scenes that follow with Amanda Tapping and William Russ in the caves as Hanson attempts to justify his actions and Carter tries to keep him in check are some of the most riveting of the episode.

CARTER:  Well, how does posing as a god and slowly working these people to death help them?
HANSON: I hate that word. Stop using it. I am not posing.

But there is, of course, more going on than just Carter’s ex-fiancé making trouble because for this episode to have a satisfying ending, we need a way to prove that he is a false god.

To accomplish this, O’Neill, Daniel, and Teal’c meet Jamala (Zahf Halee), one of the cave dwellers, who tells them that if they do what Hanson says he’ll “make the sky orange.” An orange sky is good, it means no sun sickness, and the cave dwellers can leave the caves.

This is where Teal’c comes into play because what Jamala is talking about is achieved by activating two Goa’uld devices that create an energy shield high in the air.  Jamala is able to lead Daniel, and Teal’c to one device, while Hanson has the other.

The problem is, Hanson can’t figure out how to make it work so he needs Carter’s help. The thing about this moment is that Hanson, in theory, could have gotten any SGC scientist to help with this, and I can’t imagine his team didn’t include someone with rudimentary knowledge. But then he starts talking about wanting Sam to agree to be his goddess, and that adds another level of creepy.

Carter is able to turn on the device, and it seems to work in the cave. Once she fulfills her purpose Hanson has everyone gather at the stargate.  To demonstrate his benevolence, Hanson plans to kill Connor and O’Neill by sending them through the stargate back to “where they came from” but without the iris code.

Just in time to stop the doomed trip back to earth, are Jamala and Daniel, who begin to proclaim that Hanson is not a god. This is confirmed when Hanson attempts to turn on the device and nothing happens. Jamala fires a staff blast as a signal to Teal’c and the shield activates.

Hanson is about to make a break for the stargate, but the cave dwellers intercept him and throw him in. If we assume that Earth was dialed that means Hanson is dead since matter can’t reintegrate after hitting the iris, and we never see him again.

Overall, “The First Commandment” isn’t an episode that relies heavily on action until the very end and is much more of an anthropological and sociological episode than one that deals directly with the mythology.

This episode really hinges on the performance of William Russ. Russ is terrifying as Captain Hanson. His performance balances brute force with quieter more calculated moments. While the only way this episode could end was with Hanson’s death it is a compelling story and does contribute to the overall themes of Stargate: SG-1.

This episode is really a nuanced examination of the major themes of Stargate: SG-1. We’re going to see the theme of false gods play out time and time again in upcoming seasons, what “The First Commandment” does is take that idea and put a truly human face on it.

While it’s still early in the series and we don’t understand everything there is to know about the Goa’uld, we do know that they have culture and technology that rivals our own, and while they take human hosts, they are still a different species.

Hanson wasn’t. He was just a man, who was trying to save other humans. What he did wasn’t right, but we can see his reasoning.  We haven’t had the same chance with the Goa’uld yet.

What do you think of this episode of Stargate SG-1? Let us know in the comments below.

All ten seasons of Stargate: SG-1 are currently available on Hulu.

Follow us on Twitter @telltaleTV_

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!

21 Most Underrated TV Characters of 2017

SaveSave