"Small Victories"
is the first episode from
season four
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pola ...
of the
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
television series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...
''
Stargate SG-1''. Penned by
Robert C. Cooper
Robert C. Cooper is a Canadian writer and producer best known for his work in the ''Stargate'' franchise. He was formerly an executive producer of ''Stargate SG-1'', ''Stargate Atlantis'' and ''Stargate Universe''. He also co-created both ''Star ...
and directed by
Martin Wood, the episode first aired on the American subscription channel
Showtime
Showtime or Show Time may refer to:
Film
* ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film
* ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur
Television Networks and channels
* Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...
on June 30, 2000. "Small Victories" resumes the story of the season 3 finale, "
Nemesis
In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis, also called Rhamnousia or Rhamnusia ( grc, Ῥαμνουσία, Rhamnousía, the goddess of Rhamnous), was the goddess who personifies retribution, a central concept in the Greek world view.
Etymology
The n ...
", in which the
SG-1
''Stargate SG-1'' (often stylized in all caps, or abbreviated ''SG-1'') is a military science fiction adventure television series within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's ''Stargate'' franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is ...
team encountered the
Replicators for the first time. As the Replicators threaten Earth and the
Asgard home galaxy, the team must split to master their job.
"Small Victories" was another visual effects milestone for the series. The Replicators and the Asgard character
Thor
Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...
were computer-animated for parts of the episode. Some scenes were filmed in and outside of a Russian
Foxtrot class submarine
The Foxtrot class was the NATO reporting name of a class of diesel-electric patrol submarines that were built in the Soviet Union. The Soviet designation of this class was Project 641. The Foxtrot class was designed to replace the earlier Zulu-cla ...
. "Small Victories" was nominated for Best Special Effects in 2001 for an
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
, a
Gemini Award
The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in the United States ...
and a
Leo Award.
Plot
Confident that the destruction of
Thor's starship has ended the
Replicator threat to Earth ("
Nemesis
In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis, also called Rhamnousia or Rhamnusia ( grc, Ῥαμνουσία, Rhamnousía, the goddess of Rhamnous), was the goddess who personifies retribution, a central concept in the Greek world view.
Etymology
The n ...
"), the
SG-1
''Stargate SG-1'' (often stylized in all caps, or abbreviated ''SG-1'') is a military science fiction adventure television series within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's ''Stargate'' franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is ...
team returns home through the second
Stargate
''Stargate'' (often stylized in all caps) is a military science fiction media franchise based on the Stargate (film), film directed by Roland Emmerich, which he co-wrote with producer Dean Devlin. The franchise is based on the idea of an alien E ...
that has been put up at
Stargate Command. Shortly after they learn that a Russian
Foxtrot class submarine
The Foxtrot class was the NATO reporting name of a class of diesel-electric patrol submarines that were built in the Soviet Union. The Soviet designation of this class was Project 641. The Foxtrot class was designed to replace the earlier Zulu-cla ...
has been hijacked by creatures whose descriptions match the Replicators, Thor arrives at Stargate Command and asks SG-1 for help against the Replicators in the
Asgard galaxy. As
Colonel O'Neill (
Richard Dean Anderson
Richard Dean Anderson (born January 23, 1950) is a retired American actor and producer. He began his television career in 1976, playing Jeff Webber in the American soap opera series ''General Hospital'', and then rose to prominence as the lead a ...
),
Daniel Jackson (
Michael Shanks) and
Teal'c
Teal'c of Chulak is a fictional character in the 1997 military science fiction television series ''Stargate SG-1''. Portrayed by Christopher Judge, Teal'c is a Jaffa warrior from the planet Chulak. As a Jaffa, Teal'c is a genetically modified hu ...
(
Christopher Judge
Douglas Christopher Judge (born October 13, 1964) is an American actor best known for playing Teal'c in the Canadian-American military science fiction television series ''Stargate SG-1,'' and Kratos in the 2018 video game ''God of War'' and its ...
) go to deal with the hijacked submarine,
Major Carter (
Amanda Tapping
Amanda Tapping (born 28 August 1965) is a British-Canadian actress and director. She is best known for portraying Samantha Carter in the Canadian–American military science fiction television series ''Stargate SG-1,'' ''Stargate Atlantis,'' and ...
) goes with Thor.
O'Neill, Daniel, and Teal'c try to obtain intelligence on the little self-replicating robotic invaders in the submarine, but they are forced to fall back. With Daniel's new theory that the Replicators are made up of the same materials they consume, the Replicators may be eliminated through sinking the iron submarine as long as the surviving Replicator from Thor's advanced ship is destroyed beforehand. Meanwhile, Carter witnesses a short battle against the Replicators in the Asgard galaxy during which five Asgard ships are lost. Carter notices the Replicators' attraction to new technology and proposes to use the ''O'Neill'', an incomplete Asgard ship originally designed to fight the Replicators, as a lure to draw the Replicators into hyperspace and destroy them in the ''O'Neill''
's self-destruct. Thor eventually accepts the plan, the Replicators take the bait and are destroyed.
Back on Earth, O'Neill and Teal'c penetrate the submarine and find and destroy the original Replicator. When the other Replicators take full control of the submarine, O'Neill orders the forces outside to destroy the submarine and prepares for the end, but Thor beams the team onto his ship before the explosion occurs. With the imminent Replicator threat over, Thor promises that when the Asgard defeat the Replicators, he will come to assist Earth in the war against the
Goa'uld.
Production
Writing and pre-production
Visual effects supervisor James Tichenor approached producer
Robert C. Cooper
Robert C. Cooper is a Canadian writer and producer best known for his work in the ''Stargate'' franchise. He was formerly an executive producer of ''Stargate SG-1'', ''Stargate Atlantis'' and ''Stargate Universe''. He also co-created both ''Star ...
after the completion of the season 3 finale, "
Nemesis
In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis, also called Rhamnousia or Rhamnusia ( grc, Ῥαμνουσία, Rhamnousía, the goddess of Rhamnous), was the goddess who personifies retribution, a central concept in the Greek world view.
Etymology
The n ...
", and stated his confidence in his team's ability to create effects for a water-based episode. By that time, Cooper had already written the outline of "Small Victories" as the season 4 opener. "Small Victories" resumes the cliffhanger ending of "Nemesis" and alludes to events of that episode several times. The episode begins aboard a Russian submarine where one Russian says in his mother tongue that the noise in the torpedo tube might be caused by "one of the bugs from the other episode", an in-joke that the producers intentionally left without subtitles. Daniel Jackson's
appendicitis
Appendicitis is inflammation of the appendix. Symptoms commonly include right lower abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and decreased appetite. However, approximately 40% of people do not have these typical symptoms. Severe complications of a rup ...
attack from "Nemesis" is picked up, which was originally based on Michael Shanks' real-life appendicitis attack during the filming of the
penultimate season 3 episode. "Small Victories" also continues building the relationship of O'Neill and Carter in mirroring a similar scene from "Nemesis".
However, Christopher Judge, who in previous seasons sported a bald-shaven head as the alien Teal'c, returned to the set with a small blond chin beard after the hiatus, as the producers had not allowed his character to have scalp hair (until season 8). Judge shaved off the beard several episodes later after acknowledging its look as silly.
The official
Showtime
Showtime or Show Time may refer to:
Film
* ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film
* ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur
Television Networks and channels
* Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...
website initially caused some confusion by listing
Jay Acovone (
Kawalsky) as a guest-star in this episode, which later turned out to be untrue.
Filming
![Russian Foxtrot Class Submarine B-39 - panoramio](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Russian_Foxtrot_Class_Submarine_B-39_-_panoramio.jpg)
"Small Victories" was filmed over the course of seven days like most ''SG-1'' episodes. After the first three seasons of ''Stargate SG-1'' had been filmed on
16 mm film
16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...
(except for shots incorporating visual effects, where experience had shown
35 mm 35 mm may refer to:
* 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film
* 35 mm movie film, a type of motion picture film stock
* 35MM 35 mm may refer to:
* 135 film, a type of still photography format ...
to work better), "Nemesis" was filmed entirely on 35 mm film as a test run, and season 4 switched to the new gauge for all filming purposes.
Martin Wood directed "Small Victories" and made a short
cameo appearance
A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly eit ...
with
Sergeant Siler (stunt coordinator
Dan Shea) in an SGC corridor.
Andy Mikita served as the
second unit
Second unit is a discrete team of filmmakers tasked with filming shots or sequences of a production, separate from the main or "first" unit. The second unit will often shoot simultaneously with the other unit or units, allowing the filming stag ...
director and filmed the coverage of the practical Thor puppet after Amanda Tapping's coverage had been shot. Michael Shanks, who provided the voice of Thor in post-production
ADR, read some of Thor's lines for Tapping on-set. The top lip of the Thor puppet, which was visibly broken during the filming, proved a challenge.
One anecdotal blooper moment that Amanda Tapping often tells at conventions and which producer
Joseph Mallozzi named one of his favorites in the first five years of ''Stargate SG-1'', is that of the puppeteers raising Thor's hand to touch Tapping's behind during filming. Tapping instinctively slapped the expensive prop, then she kneeled down and apologized to the puppet in all seriousness before realizing the silliness of her reaction.
"Small Victories" is split into two parallel storylines, and several space shots of the B story onboard Thor's spaceship were cut at the script stage to allot more money to the A story submarine scenes.
"Small Victories" was originally written to set on a
fishing trawler until the producers got access to the decommissioned Russian
Foxtrot-class submarine B-39, which was brought from
Vladivostok
Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea ...
to
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...
in 1996. Several scenes were filmed in and outside of the submarine for two days.
A matching set with removable walls was built later on because only three film crew members could fit into the real 25-feet-wide submarine. To enhance the submarine's narrowness, Martin Wood lit the ship with the actors' helmet lights and chose an agitated shooting style, holding the shots tight and handholding some of the cameras himself.
The logistics of the submarine filming proved difficult and time-consuming, since the computer-generated Replicators needed to appear on Daniel's playback monitors in advance of filming.
One scripted scene in which a Replicator piece is removed from Teal'c's shoulder was trimmed on-set because the actors felt it to be redundant.
Effects
"Small Victories" surpassed "Nemesis" as the biggest visual-effects-heavy ''Stargate SG-1'' episode and remained one of biggest visual effects works of the season.
Nevertheless, the limited budget required the major
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...
(CGI) moments to be chosen well. The opening sequence of the Asgard ship flying over the ocean until its crash into the water was completely computer-generated, as was the Asgard homeworld at a later point in the episode. The finetuning of the lighting of the Asgard homeworld, which was blended with a
matte painting of Asgard space ships in the sky, was the most difficult job. To save costs, the moments before Thor's entry to the SGC were stockshots of the Stargate,
and the illusion of a Stargate event horizon behind Thor in the following scenes was created with an LCD projection.
Although a computer-generated version of Thor was built around the puppet for independent movements,
the CGI version's walking down the Stargate ramp was intercut with filmed shots of the puppet put on a trike.
Visual effects producer James Tichenor claimed that visual effects work better when not highlighted, and that a major part of effective visual effects are the actors' reactions to nonexistent things.
Replicator models were used to give the actors an idea at what they were looking and to match their eyelines. One model was mounted on a plexiglass rod and shown on-screen, giving the impression of an organic Replicator
hologram.
The computer-generated Replicators on board the submarine were tracked with small lights, some of which post-production left in for good looks. The reflections of the green screen on the floor aboard Thor's ship ("green spill", usually an undesired side effect) were used to key selective patches for the reflection of the big spaceship screen.
Reception
"Small Victories" was first broadcast on June 30, 2000 on Showtime. ''SG-1'' visual effects producer James Tichenor considered the few episodes with big visual effects budgets the most likely works to contain visual cues that impress
Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), also colloquially known as the Television Academy, is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the television industry in the United States. It is a 501(c)(6) non-prof ...
(Emmy Awards) voters,
but he feared that the 2000 submarine feature film ''
U-571'' might spoil expectations.
"Small Victories" and the ''SG-1'' season 4 finale "
Exodus
Exodus or the Exodus may refer to:
Religion
* Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible
* The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan
Historical events
* Ex ...
" were nominated for a 2001 Emmy in the category "Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series",
but they lost to ''
Star Trek: Voyager''
's "
Endgame
Endgame, Endgames, End Game, End Games, or similar variations may refer to:
Film
* ''The End of the Game'' (1919 film)
* ''The End of the Game'' (1975 film), short documentary U.S. film
* ''Endgame'' (1983 film), 1983 Italian post-apocalyptic f ...
". "Small Victories" was also nominated for a
Gemini Award
The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in the United States ...
and a
Leo Award in the respective "Best Visual Effects" categories, but failed to win either.
In his book ''Approaching the Possible'', Jo Storm considered "Small Victories" "one of the most enthralling episodes" that makes the audience forget that it used nearly the same premise that was used in "Nemesis". He thought the episode was "especially big on the Sam/Jack dynamic" as the characters "toe the line between fraternal teasing and downright chemistry". He saluted Amanda Tapping's comedic opportunities and called her character's reaction to Asgard food "priceless". He also noted the character development of Daniel Jackson in a military environment, contrasting it with the character's attitude in the season 1 episode "
Thor's Hammer
Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, and ...
" where his military mind was less developed.
References
External links
Small Victoriesat
mgm.com
*
Small Victoriesat
scifi.com
Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Launc ...
{{Good article
Stargate SG-1 episodes
2000 American television episodes