Watching this in its full two-hour format might have cheated me a bit on the "Time Spent" metrics here at Trakt, since at present the two parts have 44+41=85 minutes if watched separately but the full-length version on Netflix runs 97 minutes… Worth it, though. That's a big difference in runtime, even accounting for doubling up on the opening/ending credits. A quick comparison, just clicking around on Hulu, showed that the two-part rerun cut out some sizable chunks of footage—probably to make room for more commercials, though at least one scene was later removed because it went against the producers' original intent.*
In its original format, certainly, this is a fairly compelling first episode. I hear there's also a Director's Cut version of this episode floating around, which might be worth watching at some point for comparison purposes. While I do have some questions about little changes, the overall feel of this opener is at least as entertaining as the original film. Don't understand why the solution to Michael Shanks' incorrect pronunciation of Sha'uri's name was a retcon instead of helping him out with a dialogue coach, but whatever.
For episodes with no "uncut" version, I'll have to see if I prefer Netflix or Hulu in the long run. I found the image on Netflix to be better quality overall than Hulu (which had quite a bit of aliasing and pixelization), but NF seems to have set the image brightness very low. Details get completely lost in dark areas—crushed to black—on Netflix, whereas on Hulu I can see (for example) the texture of O'Neill's shirt early in part 2, when he walks into the infirmary and talks to Kawalsky.
* — When Apophis examines Sha're, the original intent was never to show her fully nude. Showtime allegedly requested those shots be added to draw more viewers, which answers my unasked question about how this show could have gotten away with those scenes on broadcast television in 1997. It didn't have to!
Review by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2021-04-05T02:32:29Z
Loved that MacGyver reference! :grin:
Watching this in its full two-hour format might have cheated me a bit on the "Time Spent" metrics here at Trakt, since at present the two parts have 44+41=85 minutes if watched separately but the full-length version on Netflix runs 97 minutes… Worth it, though. That's a big difference in runtime, even accounting for doubling up on the opening/ending credits. A quick comparison, just clicking around on Hulu, showed that the two-part rerun cut out some sizable chunks of footage—probably to make room for more commercials, though at least one scene was later removed because it went against the producers' original intent.*
In its original format, certainly, this is a fairly compelling first episode. I hear there's also a Director's Cut version of this episode floating around, which might be worth watching at some point for comparison purposes. While I do have some questions about little changes, the overall feel of this opener is at least as entertaining as the original film. Don't understand why the solution to Michael Shanks' incorrect pronunciation of Sha'uri's name was a retcon instead of helping him out with a dialogue coach, but whatever.
For episodes with no "uncut" version, I'll have to see if I prefer Netflix or Hulu in the long run. I found the image on Netflix to be better quality overall than Hulu (which had quite a bit of aliasing and pixelization), but NF seems to have set the image brightness very low. Details get completely lost in dark areas—crushed to black—on Netflix, whereas on Hulu I can see (for example) the texture of O'Neill's shirt early in part 2, when he walks into the infirmary and talks to Kawalsky.
* — When Apophis examines Sha're, the original intent was never to show her fully nude. Showtime allegedly requested those shots be added to draw more viewers, which answers my unasked question about how this show could have gotten away with those scenes on broadcast television in 1997. It didn't have to!