Stargate SG-1: Season 6 [DVD]

As Jonas Quinn, Corin Nemec had the literal and metaphorically thankless task of filling a dead man's shoes. Or possibly an ascended man's sandals, but we won't quibble...
And Like Marmite, you either loved him or hated him, poor lamb.

Having been an SG-1 fan since its beginning, I was sad the Daniel/Jonas debate seemed to eclipse what was for me, one of SG-1's stronger series'.

Throughout Season 6, the scriptwriters certainly hiked up the quality of the guest stars:-
David Hewlett's wondrous creation Rodney MacKay makes a welcome return in the opening two parter, 'Redemption'.
Happily for his fans, MacKay is now whingeing away on Atlantis - but at this juncture in Season 6, the scriptwriters were playing 'guess Daniel's replacement' and MacKay made a supremely entertaining red herring.

Meanwhile, Jonas drinks a lot of Tea and eats more fruit than is probably healthy, as lots of anxious boffins stare anxiously at PC screens and attempt (anxiously) to defeat Anubis. Booo!

Jonas is also equipped with a photographic memory. (Must be all that fruit) This makes him aware of all SG-1's past missions Therefore preventing cast members re-explaining storylines for the sake of the new guy. Hooray!

Fruit guzzling aside, there are some little gems contained in this season:

'The Changeling' is penned by Teal'c's alter ego Christopher Judge and niftily provides Michael Shanks a "surprise" cameo as - gasp! - a Doctor!
Teal'c ("T") gets to snog a human girl! Double gasp! And we get to see Apophis again. (Yay!)
This episode also sees the back of 'Junior'- Teal'c's symbiote. Thus allowing Teal'c thenceforth to take "Tritonin" and Christopher Judge to finally grow his hair.

'Cure' and 'Allegiance' are also strong episodes, due largely to the calibre of guest stars.

Carmen Argenziano as Tok'ra leader Jacob Carter and Tony Amendola as Jaffa head honcho Bratak, are always great value. In 'Allegiance' Bratak gets to go all Henry V about the nature of trust in battle, as the Tok'ra and Jaffa try not to kill eachother while stuck on a 'safe' planet.(Why don't they just play Sudoku like normal people?)
'Jeremiah' actor Peter Stebbings plays the commanding Tok'ra warrior Malek. Easily as charismatic as the late lamented Martouf and thankfully, turns up in the next episode.

In 'Cure' Jonas gets to flash his winning smile at a pretty laydee, but sadly she is terminally ill. Aww!
At least she has the good manners not to peg out before helping our intrepid team locate Tok'ra Queen Aegaea. Missing Presumed killed by those pesky Goa'uld.
Unfortunately the Tok'ra find their Queen pickled in brine in a large tank and somewhat unable to reclaim the Throne.
Anguished looks from Malek and brave acts of self-sacrifice ensue. Lovely.

'Paradise Lost' is another corker and finds O'Neill and his sort-of Nemesis, Maybourne trapped on the moon of a planet. Naturally, it's left to Super-Sam to crunch the exponentials, While Jack and Maybourne (the wonderful Tom McBeath) go fishing, then native, then mental, in that order. Great script, great one-liners, great chemistry. More please.

'The Other Guys' is an affectionate 'Geek-fest' in the vein of 'Wormhole X-treme!' Both fun and funny.

'Nightwalkers' invokes the 60's sci-fi of 'The Invaders'and is genuinely creepy.

In short, Season 6 has a bit of everything: Ba'al, Anubis, Apophis, Nerti and Yu (not You) all turn up to the party.
We make new Tok'ra friends. O'Neill rides a snow bike in Antartica and Jonas gets his DNA tampered with. Heck, Daniel even shows up 3 times! (More if you count his work as Asgard voiceover artist)

Which brings us - as the final episode title rightly predicts - 'Full Circle.' (Clever these scriptwriters aren't they?)
Neatly allowing Michael Shanks to un-ascend Daniel Jackson in time to discover the lost city of Atlantis, give Rodney MacKay a regular job on the spin-off series, take his tool set back from Jonas and set up season 7 by possibly defeating Anubis. Whattaguy!

Meantime, the much-maligned Jonas gets a one-way ticket to Planet P45. Bless him.

Who'd be an intergalactic space warrior, eh?