The forthcoming re-arrival of Battlestar Galactica got me craving science fiction, and so I’ve returned to playing (major) catch-up with Stargate SG-1. If you remember my posts about it before, you’ll know that I was just getting started with the series, having never watched it at all on television. On that first “run”, I got through all of season 1 and watched the first, and maybe the second, episode of season 2.
On returning to the series this time, I went ahead and started over with season 2, as I couldn’t remember much about the first episode, and the second episode was even hazier in my memory, despite the fact that I recognized the opening scene. Maybe I had started watching it and never finished it; who knows. I’ve now watched the first 7 episodes of season 2, and something peculiar has struck me: on the planets that have inhabitants… well, where is everyone? Whenever SG-1 goes to a planet that has humanoid inhabitants, generally, those inhabitants seem to number in the dozens or perhaps hundreds. The Nox had a huge ship hovering over their planet, which could have held thousands of inhabitants, but overall, it seems that most of the planets that SG-1 finds are relatively sparsely populated. In talking to my friend Joshua about it, I remarked, don’t these people ever reproduce? Shouldn’t their population increase, especially if they’ve been on the planet for a thousand years, which one would assume about, say, the Viking population on Cimmeria?
He said that perhaps the Goa’uld preferred to keep the people spread out on a planet in small village units to make controlling them easier. I suppose that could make sense with some of planets, but what about the Viking descendants in particular? Until SG-1 broke the protection device, the planet of Cimmeria was protected from Goa’uld by Thor’s Hammer. The Asgard seemed to obviously care about the people on the planet, and so I can’t see them controlling the population growth in any way. So, why is the population level still so low?
When you get down to it, I’d guess it’s simply a matter of money: they can only hire so many actors and actresses, and so the population depicted in each episode is rather small. However, what’s stopping them from using CGI to throw in some cities or large towns here and there? People are expensive, CGI is (relatively) cheap. 
Even just having a single panning shot of a CGI town or city would gift some realism to the episodes.
Somewhat related to the population issue: do the civilizations that SG-1 finds ever do any of the things that civilizations have to do to keep going? I don’t think I’ve seen any farms on any of the planets, for example. What are these people eating1? I’ve seen setups where there was essentially a king or similar figure with his royal helpers, and then the slave population, but the slaves have, as far as I can recall, never been producing food. The planet P3R-636 and associated civilization, from the “Need” episode, is an example of what I’m talking about. Shyla the princess and her father control a slave population that seems to be largely used for mining naquadah, while Shyla, her father, and the other high class folks live “in the lap of luxury.” Okay, but who’s making all of that stuff? Who’s growing the food, raising the cows, sewing all of the flashy clothing, etc.?
Yes, yes, I know. I’m picky! I do wish the civilizations seemed a bit more realistic. Despite all of my nitpicks, however, it’s still a great show. I don’t think it’s as good as Battlestar Galactica, story-wise, but it’s still a lot of fun to watch. It also gives me geeky things to write about, as this post bears witness to. 
- If you recall my posts about Battlestar Galactica, you might think I’ve got some weird obsession about food in television shows. Not really. Food is just one of those essential things (duh), and so if, in a show, seemingly no one in a civilization is producing it, the civilization just seems flat and fake. [↩]
It gets more “realisitic” (though please note I use that term loosely, considering the subject matter!) – farming communities make their appearance in later seasons. The cast-lists all stay small, but you do start to get mention of “other villages”.
But it’s something I’ve noticed and griped about too to Jo. Really, the populations you see just aren’t viable! Then again, all that inbreeding might account for their sheer stupidity and gullability. And how do SG1 ALWAYS end up talking to the one member of the community who is secretly harbouring revolutionary thoughts?!
You know what other show doesn’t show farms very often? Most of them.
Cas: Hah at the inbreeding comment.
I’m glad it becomes at least a little more realistic later on. Regarding the revolutionary thoughts – maybe Daniel attracts such types.
Joshua: True, but the farm bit was just an example. It seems the civilizations that are shown in SG1 often don’t do much beyond have their elites walk around in peculiar dress and have feasts, and their slaves wander around looking exhausted and dirty. A little more day-to-day stuff – even if it is a 4 second shot of some guy milking an intergalactic cow – would make the whole thing, implausible as it all is, a little more plausible.
And by the way – Battlestar Galactica showed a farm, sort of, when they were sucking all of that algae! So nyah!
You know, they’re running Stargate over here (in tandem with Atlantis) and though I regularly watch it, I’ve always had the feeling I was looking at something that is “detached” somehow.
So I think you nailed it here.
Good to see you have that historian’s eye, even while watching scifi.
Nils: Detached is a good way to describe it. Despite my enjoying the episodes, most of the civilizations never have any feeling of realness to them (in my opinion, anyway).
Historian’s eye while watching scifi; a rhyme which is perhaps too kind to me, but thanks nevertheless.
Well, Stargate has always been fun to watch as a bit of a sci-fi romp across the universe, but nothing more than that. I think the population issue is pretty much just in the same boat as how all the people on these planets happen to speak English. It’s to keep the show flowing.
Having to do translations for each new race would waste heaps of time in an episode. Having to add more people or additional CGI would add plenty more money to each episode.
I know BSG does it too. After watching everything up to the Season 3 finale, a few weeks ago I went back and watched the mini-series. The bigger budget was obvious – the inside of Galactica “felt” bigger, simply because there were more scenes with big windows in the background looking out into a CGI space, or just larger rooms altogether. Once the funding was cut later on, it’s back to cramped corridors and the CIC. That said, in BSG it sorta works, because I’d imagine one would feel quite cramped when spending years in the same dull ship in space.
Cyrris: Argh! Don’t get me started on the all-English bit!
When I got started on BSG, I watched the mini-series, and then jumped right into season 1. I didn’t notice much difference, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. In both the mini-series and season 1, a large part of the action took place in the CIC, the hangar, the President’s quarters, etc. But, I was in a bit of a BSG obsession mode then, and so I very well could have missed it. I suppose this is good enough reason to go back and watch the mini-series again.
And yeah, even if they did cut the budget a lot, I think it works better with BSG – it’s a bunch of cramped spaces on ships. Also, even if they did cut the BSG budget (which wouldn’t surprise me in the least), you still end up seeing a lot of civilians wandering around, as well as just everyday stuff – the food episode, the journalists pestering the President, etc. For me, such little things makes it a lot more “real” to me.
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