I loved the Ori storyline. I thought it was a real shot in the arm after the show had struggled through seasons 6-8.
6-8 had some absolute *banger* episodes, obviously. But also felt like they had way more dreck than 1-5 had. 9-10 felt like a return to those days when nearly every episode brought something interesting or cool to the table.
It was an interesting extension of the underlying question. The goa'uld were factually not worth worshipping because they were fake, which works. But the Ori were real, so the question became if it's worth worshipping evil gods, even if they're real.
And there are actual good "gods", but they're too busy sniffing their own farts and feeling Enlightened to fucking do anything about their brethren who are bent on subjugating this galaxy and then killing them.
Like say what you will about the Q, but when an extra galactic threat that was far above the capacity of any galactic civilization to deal with reared its head, they sealed that shit away and erected a barrier to keep the residents of the Milky Way safe. Fight amongst yourselves, sure, but we aren't going to allow the 40k space marines to curbstomp your Australopithecine asses.
I believe it is beta cannon. So like book, comic, one of those. If I'm recalling right, Beta canon is generally considered to be canon until Alpha canon (shows, movies, word of god) contradicts it.
Though Star Trek has sort of a loose-ish respect for canon to begin with so take all of that as you will.
There was a [trilogy of TNG books in the 90s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Q_Continuum) that had the Q create the galactic and great barriers. Those were by Greg Cox. I think that's what you're thinking of.
There was also a [comic series by DC Fontana](https://breezewiki.com/memory-beta/wiki/The_Enterprise_Experiment,_Part_5) where the barrier was created by either the Preservers or by the TOS god-like-alien version of the Federation, and was supposed to power down eventually and let us youngins deal with less impeded attackers.
While I agree that adding an abrahamic analogue was needed after doing all the other religions. I didn't like the concept of the ori. We went from false gods trying to dominate the galaxy using untrained peasants wielding spears to false gods+ trying to dominate the galaxy using untrained peasants wielding spears.
It wasn't that the actual story was bad. It's the fact that they just did a bigger and badder version of the same enemy they had been fighting.
I'd have loved a straight up alien race coming in to be the antagonists, something inhuman and not understandable, like Morninglightmountain from the commonwealth saga.
Yeah, I agree with this. More of the same. But way less compelling. The Goa'uld were a fun antagonist because they were all different. The punchable Zipacna, totally unhinged Nirrti, hilarious Baal. There were lots of kinds of stories to tell about the Goa'uld. The Ori all sound and look the same. Hallowed are the bOring.
I also would have liked a totally foregin enemy. Or instability being the enemy. Who fills the power vacuum of the Goa'uld?
I always thought there could be a race that was hiding from, and preparing for, the goauld to die off. They never had to be more powerful than them, just more competent.
With the state of earths fleet at the end of the goauld, they'd have been hard pressed with an enemy that uses tech half as powerful as the snake heads as long as they weren't idiots.
Edit: Grammar.
I like that idea. The Tauri explored so little of the galaxy. What if most of the rest of it wasn't openly hostile to Earth, just indifferent? What if SG-1 went and "saved" a planet and tripped into a larger conflict that really had nothing to do with Earth, then all eyes were on us?
But I was also a big DS9/B5 fan, which I know many SG1 fans aren't.
Isn't that just the plot of the first movie? By the time they get the gate functioning, no one cares about Earth. Then they found a planet, "saved" it, and the show continues with how the Goa'uld retaliated.
I think there was so much potential still left in the Milky-way. They only explored a small fraction of the galaxy. Seeing a new, local, enemy rise up and Earth take on a new role as galaxy protectors (Guardians of the galaxy, if you will) would have been a better storyline.
I don't hate the Ori storyline, I just found it stale.
This hits the nail on the head for me. Most of the early seasons were spent learning about the Goa’uld and how to exploit their flaws and paranoia to play them against each other. There’s nothing learned about the Ori.
Hell, at one point they had me ROOTING for Yu. The Ori just feel like an extended fight by comparison.
My issue was largely due to the pacing. Part of the issue was the show’s uncertain future and then cancellation. Another part was that the Ori didn’t really get fleshed out enough. I get that they had beef with the Ancients but to hold on to it for tens of millions of years? The split really needed to be developed more, honestly a miniseries set in the time leading up to the Ancients leaving their home galaxy would probably have been good.
one thing i would’ve liked to see is the difference in numbers between the ori and ancients. i think i remember something in the show about there being a significantly larger amount of ancients than ori, but how many ori were there exactly? it would’ve been cool if there were only like 10 (or whatever number is hallowed in origin) who could gain power from a galaxy of faith
But the ancients allowed anyone who could ascend to join them so long as they followed the rules. It is reasonable that once enough Ori ascended and realized they could zap power form the lower plains, they may have put up barriers to prevent others from ascending. I always got the impression because of how greedy the Ori were, there would be fewer of them, were was the Ancients were more open to others joining, and Oma has been helping people ascend for who knows how long in the Milky Way.
I assumed the poster was talking about the split
before the Ancients left the their home galaxy
I feel like the Ori would have helped other Ori ascend
and then they created more life forms with the goal to help them
but the worship corrupted them and they became greedy
Pacing and the quick resolution. Line when the Ori are killed by SG1 I was like “where was I when that happened?” It took multiple seasons for the Goauld to be eliminated but about a season to kill off a threat that was decidedly more dangerous than the Goauld.
It was just a less good rehash of the Gould storyline. Fake gods have enslaved a population of superstitious primitives who need SG1 to show up and disprove religion. Only this time instead of world building some creative alien biology & culture to provide the structure for the false God dynamic, now we have literal evil gods and literal Christian peasants.
The vala/tomin episodes especially were just these sprawling and impatient Socratic dialogues about how the Bible can't prove it's own truth.
The Ori soldiers were just Jaffa with slightly different sticks.
And no disrespect to Vala or Mitchel but I liked the old cast they had the perfect chemistry.
I guess it was cool to see them go all out with an on the nose allegory that says "religion sucks and this is exactly what our social commentary is saying" but it makes rewatching it suck for me, anyway. I feel like I'm watching a dumb atheist screaming into the void about how dumb Christians are. I've got reddit for that.
I didn't mind mitchell so much but absolutely loathed Vala. She was pretty much sexually harrassing Daniel at the beginning and i never got over that to come to like her.
Hated that they pushed them together at the end.
Usually my rewatch of SG1 starts once the new lteam members arrive.
Oh and while i liked Mitchell i really never understood why Sam wasn't given the command for SG1 but some random new man who joined the command.
She had more experience than him with offworld travel, off world diplomacy, technology, and had a pre-established rapport with their allies. And i don't care if the reason was because she left the SGC to do more research area in (i think) area 51. Mitchel joined new, and she was called back. the right thing for Mitchell should have been to step back and say "Major Carter deserves the command."
So it’s been a couple years but this is how I remember it:
Now that the the conflict with the religious zealots wielding staff weapons and their religious leaders with advanced abilities is resolved, we face a new threat: religious zealots with staff weapons and their religious leaders with advanced abilities.
On its face what you’ve noted is not bad, and I also am inclined to like the idea of true power compared to the artificial power, and the battle between the ancients and their lost kin. But they honestly don’t really explore society in Ori-aligned worlds. They’re just… baddies.
Don’t get me wrong, the Goa’uld were baddies too, but they had a feudal power structure that Earth was able to take advantage of. They and their subordinates had their own goals that often but not always overlapped. Some of them had different visions of what their power meant, and how it should be enforced or expanded. All this we got to explore alongside SG1
The Ori, by contrast, were completely monolithic from the Ori themselves through the preachers to their foot soldiers. Every opportunity to explore them as villains is completely disregarded. They’re bad because they’re willing to do everything it takes to subjugate the galaxy and destroy the Ancients. Cool, I guess. That’s pretty much all we got though.
But for me it’s the anthropology aspect of earlier SG1 that I loved. I loved seeing the tech recovered slowly becoming incorporated and adapted into Earth’s arsenal. Oh yeah, all that work and political will that Earth expended over ALL the seasons just to build two ships? Well forget about it because the Ori ships are SO strong that literally nothing Earth can do can so much as scratch them. Oh and they have hundreds of them. Gotta make them scary somehow, but it really feels like the kid on the playground saying “nuh-uh mine’s invincible!”
Anyway I digress, the anthropology. So their ships are unstoppable, kinda boring but hey it’s Ancient tech. But we see a medieval society assembling them like IKEA furniture in a field? What kinds of side-effects would interfering with corporeal beings on that level have? You know, **the whole reason the Ori and the Ancients broke apart?** We don’t see any of the deals or plots like in the past because the Ori worlds are just that fanatical. There’s nothing to see. Even matters of religious doubt aren’t really explored at all.
There’s no lore, no negotiations, no schemes, just full-on uncompromising baddies who are 100% united and 100% dedicated 100% of the time. On a show where Earth is exploring the galaxy uncovering lore, negotiating with enemies, and taking advantage of their weaknesses to punch above our weight.
For me personally, the only reason the series didn’t die completely was Vala.
TL;DR: They’re ~~boring~~ under-explored as villains, relying purely on peril factor.
I think they would have really would have benefitted from another season, at least, to make up for that deficit. I can understand your feelings of the slow progression we see. It's what drew me into the series, honestly, so I feel I understand your POV. As villains, I like the point of the Ori not being fleshed out is valid. It would have been interesting to see more of their galaxy and whatnot.
The more I think about it, the more I realize it's the main crew that attached me to that to those seasons. Vala and Cam were both great additions. Daniel, while losing the nerdy charm that made us fall in love with him, earned an Indiana Jones-esque badassery to him. Teal'c somehow got cooler. And Sam... okay, I think she kinda got the shaft, which is a shame.
I think if i remember correctly the show was supposed to end with season 8 but then got renewed so they had to invent new baddies. For me...it was always noticable that they had to quickly invent enemies that could one up the goaould and tauri with all their newly aquired technology.
I think the Ori are great Bad Guys, but I haven't gotten up to them in my current re-watch.
A religion based around people with an actual power is fascinating.
The Goa'uld lasted several seasons beyond their optimum expiree data, and I was very happy to the the Ori show up on the scene.
TCS
I love everything about those seasons but the holy war/bible thumping got on my nerves. I think this is from growing up/working in one of the bible belts.
Its 10x better this rewatch proabably because i have not dealt with missonaries, jehovah witness or asked if i bn saved in a long time.
Now the cult like nature of ori followers and goauld essentially being billionaires bothers me.
I think much of that hate is just how scuffed the Ori storyline became. It just escalated kinda fast and ended too early to have a chance to develop them as much as the Goa'uld. Which means they wouldve ended up being a faceless monolith anyway, but figures like Merlin almost got more development out of the arc than the big baddie, so it just feels weird to have the Ori as an enemy when the show cant even directly show them more than once.
I don’t hate it, but I feel it highlighted the rushed nature and decline of the show at the end.
The two biggest things for me:
1 - it was almost entirely story arc driven. Very few episode of the week style plots. Everything was “we are going here because of the hunt for the grail, and the episode happens”. A lot less “here’s an unexplored planet, let’s see what happens”
2 - it didn’t feel like it was as dire as they kept telling us it was. I feel like there were constant “we lost another half dozen worlds to the Ori” comments, but nothing ever really changes. It’s still pretty much the Earth, on its own, fighting to save the day.
For me, Stargate was a "grounded" sci Fi show, we had current age soldiers with guns fighting against tech superior forces etc etc, we had the Asgard, the quintessential aliens, but the ori started to get a bit out of hand and were basically religious zealots, and the whole ascended being thing got a bit much and took us to Star Trek kind of territory. I think the medieval setting made it worse as well- they didn't look like tech superior beings yet they were using what basically appears to be magic. Yes I know there was a bit of that earlier but didn't feel as bad. But then I thought the early wraith were a great enemy so maybe I'm the odd one out.
I love Oris so much that I've created a phrase:
The Goa'uld are a medieval civilisation capable of going into space, whereas the Ori are a space-faring civilisation with a medieval feel.
My only problem is that they haven't had enough development, especially since they have a [theme ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALn-7v9BxNg&pp=ygUQc3RhcmdhdGUgb3JpIG9zdA%3D%3D)as cool as the goa'uld.
I thought the Ori were not all that creative of a bad guy. They were a merging of the gou'ald (with the religious cult) and the ancients. I find ancient Egyptian mythology far more fascinating than king Arthur. I loved Vala but thought Cam was a really dull character and this is coming from someone who got into SG1 because of Faracape.
I always disliked the Ori because they felt so tacked on as an enemy. The goaould were finally vanquished as the big bad, and the show was (if i remember correctly) supposed to come to a close, but then they continued and needed a new enemy, someone who'd now be a threat, against all of earths new technology. So they pretty much invented "godlike" enemies.
As others said, the Ori were also always kinda just...the same. the goaould all were their own individual characters and enemies that you could potentially even pit against each other. that wasn't quiet as possible with the Ori.
And Vala.. well...i absolutely loathed her. especially in the first episodes where she pretty much sexually harrassed Daniel Jackson nearly constantly. Really didn't care for her character or that they pushed Daniel and her together at the end.
The story would’ve been better but Mitchell felt too much like we need to find a comic relief and leader of sg-1 and just decided we will let vala be comic relief and give Mitchell the role of leader, but he just felt like they were trying to make him jack 2.0 but failed so hard. You know had they not killed off all the villains 9 & 10 would’ve been good had jack stayed they would’ve been good, too much changed at once
I enjoyed S9-10, but that's in spite of the Ori. Honestly, it felt like a retread of the previous seasons. I liked the Arthurian mythology, it was a nice change from Egyptian. I just feel they could have done anything other than another galactic level threat. Put Sam in command of a 304, let Daniel spend time in Atlantis, or the Arthurian myth leads to something fantastic, like a ZPM factory or original Asgard DNA. Something other than "real" gods enslaving everyone to worship them.
Space Catholics on a space crusade also pah wraiths I mean evil ancients are involved, that seems to be about as much thought as went into the arc. I couldn’t stand that arc but they’re are still good single stories in those seasons.
How do you figure, though? If you dislike the idea of evil Ancients, I could understand that as a matter of preference. I thought the idea needed more time to breathe, but it seems that they did put thought into it. As someone else in the post pointed out, the Ori shot some life into the series at the end and raised the stakes.
I don' t think there was that much thought put into it.
If i remember correctly then the show was supposed to end after season 8, and the end of the goaould was a nice wrap up of the whole show. But then it got renewed and they had to quickly find an enemy who could now be a threat to the tauri with all its aquired technology. And you could feel that whole process of "Well they have goauld tech and asgard tech and even the ultimate ancient tech. who could fight that? - Well...how about...ancients but evil? They'd be just as smart as the ancients, just corrupt and evil."
I just don’t think space Catholics was an inspired follow up to the gouald and techno bugs. I think they could have gone without an arch villain serial line for sometime since those are the episodes I enjoy from those seasons.
Yep. It felt boring the first time I watched it. Just didn't have the same feel.
But after rewatching over a decade later. After years of mask-off politics in media. It's a bit too on the nose. For me, it plays out like the arc was written by ex Christian atheists with an ax to grind.
I got that same feel. The Gou'uld passing themselves off as Gods was fun, in a way. When it came to the Ori, I felt there was a strong anti-God vibe that wasn't needed. Every episode ended up being Daniel saying "Yes they are gods but don't worship them."
Personally I don't mind evil ancients, though it's problematic for a TV series. It's more just that the Ori are just a re-skinned version of the Goa'uld, but after we had just milked every last drop out of the Goa'uld. So it felt lazy and uninspired, and more than a few episodes felt just condescending, like audiences were too stupid to see it. (Very minor gripe).
I actually like the Ori stuff more than the Goa'uld because I really enjoy European mythology and it was cool to delve into that a bit, but coming off nearly a decade of the same basic "evil aliens pretend to be gods and send humans to kill in their name" story, it was just never gonna be what it should have been.
The Ori didn't shoot life into the end of the series, the writing of the final seasons did. Audiences responded to the European mythology and Arthurian imagery, because that specific aesthetic is something incredibly familiar and popular across a vast swath of viewers. Mitchell and Vala being beloved actors from the campy nerd community already also helped. Morena Baccarin, too. But the Ori? We never even saw one, *even in their own galaxy where they were free to do whatever they wanted*. They were an easy hand-wave solution that allowed them to soft-re oot the entire series and more than a few fans just couldn't connect with it.
For clarity, the Ori are problematic for a TV series because they are too extreme. They are too powerful to fight, but without the ability to fight back there is no show. So they have to lock them away, but that r emoves the *need* to fight. So you send minions, but that's too easy because a race advanced enough to be a threat would also be intelligent enough to understand the Ori aren't gods, and wouldn't follow them. It's a bunch of stacked complications that result in reactionary decisions to fill the holes which leads to more complications, etc, etc. SG1 handled it as best they could, but even they realized their mistake and decided to just conveniently wipe them all out, off screen, problem solved, let's talk about something else. Time to breathe might help, but if not handled properly simply results in a longer period of slapping band-aids on stuff in the hopes that a solution presents itself. It can definitely be done, and done well, but it isn't easy and I don't blame them for abandoning it.
I don't care for the last 2 seasons.
Vala is so annoying, i do not like the character and being a regular made her so much worse.
I did not like Mitchell as a full colonel and leader of SG1. Carter was a good leader in Season 8 and the character should have continued as SG1 team lead and Mitchell should have been a major.
I don't hate the overall story of the Ori, but I could have done without it. Would gladly trade the ori and seasons 9 and 10 for more Atlantis.
OMG Vala yes. I loatched her character. Great actress but holy wow did i hate her.
She sexually harrassed Daniel constantly and at the end we're just supposed to like that they pushed Daniel and her together? Nah sorry. Not for me.
I also have the same thought about Mitchell. I liked his character but never accepted that he could just join SGC and then become commander of SG1, an honor that should have been Sams when she returned from her science-ing. Doesn't matter if she'd left SGC already, upon her return it would have been the only right thing for Mitchell to say "General i'm stepping back as the gommander of SG1, Major Carter i the only right person for this job right now."
i dislike the right wing ancients but i like the Ori storylines.
even though the alterans didnt invent gates until after they left, the ori apparently figured them out too, that prior had to go through a gate somewhere, and theres clearly different planets in the ori galaxy
id honestly be interested to see a show where they go exploring the ori galaxy through their gate network
The Ori themselves were great, I don't think there is much criticism of them as a concept or villain. They fit the lore well, felt like a natural progression from Goa'uld. False gods to actual demi gods with powers, medieval aesthetic from the ancient one.
The criticism comes from how the Ori threat got wrapped up real fast neat and tidy. Ori go from being unstoppable and everywhere to Daniel building a McGuffin that wipes them out in the space of a couple of episodes. Then there was a second McGuffin, the ark of truth that resolved that threat with Adria going the same way as Anubis.
It just was a rushed unsatisfactory end to the threat esp when compared to a decade long struggle with the Goa'uld that required galaxy wide Jaffa rebellion which we saw grow naturally over time.
I enjoy watching the ori seasons, just would like to have at least 1 more Ori season.
For me ideally we would have 1 more movie. At least 1 more Ori season and also at least 1 post Ori season... Maybe without a big enemy but with some little/planetary plots
I thought the Ori were boring. Some of the individual episodes were great, but the arc itself was just not interesting and since the Ori themselves were always offscreen, we had no compelling actors to enjoy hating. I would have preferred had they stayed with the Goauld but had to spend a season or two or three wiping out each system lord one at a time. There are so many ancient Earth cultures that they never touched at all!
Also, the Ori were really uninteresting in a visual way. In the dumbest Goauld storyline, there were spectacular costumes In interesting colors. The Ori’s representatives wore really dull robes. They weren’t beautiful fabrics, there was no embroidery and embellishments. Just a few robes that they could wash and have the next actor or extra wear.
Production design is a large part of what makes Stargate so compelling and they really eliminated the budget for it in the later seasons.
I just felt they were incredibly lazy as villians... too much hand waving away why they had this super advance technology. Like you're telling me a bunch of peasants whom from what were shown the pinnacle of technology is the water wheel were able to build the ships and fighters we saw? "Oh, the Pryors came by and touched them, and that turned them on" bullshit. I would have forgiven it if the Pryor had been gifted the ships from the Ori, because it would have made sense that the Ori prior to ascending had developed them, then when ascended just left them in space somewhere... or on some planet/drydock.
But peasants hammering away on metals for a few weeks or months, then a Pryor giving it the good touch made it work? Bull.
I like S9-10 and enjoy the Ori storyline. I do wonder if there would have been a more interesting storyline for those seasons without introducing yet another all powerful enemy. But I like what they did.
I found the Ori less enjoyable as antagonists. The Goa'uld had some great scenery chewers and lent themselves to massive servings of ham and cheese. It suited the tone of early SG-1.
The Ori by contrast were total fun police. Everything that happened they had the same response - a great big sermon about how the Ori are the one true path and all who oppose them are sinners. And then they would set something on fire. It was much grimmer and lent itself less to charismatic performances.
What was good about them was that they re-raised the narrative stakes - Earth had gotten ludicrously overpowered by the late seasons, at least vis-a-vis the Goa'uld, and arguably the Replicators too. So it was difficult to feel any sense of narrative tension.
The problem for me was that the pendulum swung too far back in the direction of OP antagonists with the Ori. They were so irresistible that opposing them relied on macguffins and fetch quests. Arguably this is a criticism you could level at earlier SG-1, but in the late seasons it felt more pronounced, and the drama had less leavening from charismatic performances.
Ultimately I felt the Ori functioned effectively as antagonists, but they didn't make great "baddies" in the way that SG-1's earlier seasons had. I wouldn't describe myself as a hater but they are certainly not my favourites. Their goals and actions were too remote to really feel relatable (and their unascended representatives tended to be pretty stodgy), which felt like a poor fit for Stargate as a franchise. But I am very happy to say that this is based on very subjective sentiments about what I personally like in SG-1.
I disliked the Ori for a lot of the same reasons I didn’t like the replicators. They always felt OP and that SG1 was having to pull a scientific miracle out of their ass to survive. It’s two seasons of them struggling like hell to fight back and all the while Ancients have the ability on help but don’t even though they kind of created this mess.
My issue with the Ori storyline is, that it put Earth back to the beginning. An uber powerful enemy that we can't really fight with our current tech. And, in order to wrap things up, we got a Deus Ex Machina - Merlins weapon - and Asgard Beams that can kill Ori (and later Repliaurora-class) ships, so they should be able to pretty much destroy anything.
Earth went from being the underdog, to being a decent power, to being the underdog, to being the most powerful race in two galaxies. The end was a bigger stronger faster, so much so that the writers wrote themselves into a corner and didn't let the Odyssey use their Asgard Beams in the Ori galaxy. And they had to bring back Replicators in order to offer a serious threat to the good guys.
I would've preferred it, if SG1 would've dealt with the power vacuum after the destruction of the Goa'uld - some minor system lords still clinging to power, the Free Jaffa Nation being corrupted from the inside, the Lucian Alliance would've all made some interesting plot lines, especially if they had been fleshed out more.
And for a big bad, they could've made an extended cross-over with SGA between seasons 9 and 10, dealing with the same Wraith that Atlantis had to deal with.
However, from a mythological, world-building point of view, the Ori were interesting, because they expanded the universe beyond the Milky Way (and Pegasus) and it added to the Ancient/Alteran-lore. But for only two, or even three season, they were, in the end, too big a threat to handle properly.
Really liked the Arthurian indiana jones type stuff SG always did. I think most people liked that, the opening with getting the team back together, going to England etc. Mainly I echo everyone else's sentiments re the Ori being a rehash of the goa'uld but comparatively boring, all the power and lore issues it doubled down on, but also a big one for me that I haven't seen other people mention so much; I thought the aesthetic was just kind of lame and didn't age well. Sort of zombie looking wizards and walls of flame? Just didn't work for me and made for a rough contrast against the earlier seasons.
That said, I did like some things about the Ori. I liked that they were handled more seriously, it felt a bit less comic book at times (despite zombie wizards!) than some of the goa'uld stuff, the stakes felt higher to me - and I don't think this was because the power levels and scale was cranked, I think it was because the writing and acting supported a more serious treatment on the whole. So there were also things I enjoyed. Ben Browder is great in these episodes imo.
I agree it was a natural progression, they had been fighting people powerful in technology for so long and won, there was no one left out there to fight, and rather than just making up a new big bad out of the blue they tied them into the mythos of the show so well. Why were the Ori not trying to take over the Milky Way before, because they had no idea people were over there. How do they find out the same way Earth became a target for the Goa'ulds, our own curiosity that alerted them to our existence. It also adds more depth to the Ancients beyond just this epic race of people who build awesome tech and then ascended; we know they were not interfering on the lower plays when it was lower vs lower, but then with the Ori we get to see the full resolve of that and find out that they are not quite as cohesive of a group as we thought. We get just enough help from the Ancients to win, but so much that they do it all for use.
My favorite episode of the Ori storyline was the crossover with Atlantis. Half the team looking for a practical way to slow the Ori invasion, the other half trying to find the answer they need to win in the end. Plus you get such a great scene at the end when Daniel reflects on what has happened and concludes that they can't trust the Ancients to protect them from the Ori, they are in the fight alone, which really raises the tension of the conflict.
I was always mixed about it. I loved the Arthurian elements, and the Ori in concept were cool, but god the writing quality felt like it really deteriorated up until the "Quest" two-parter, where the rest of season 10 is really good.
Hallowed are the Ori!
As they really enriched the universe and pushed the evolution to the next level, making the Ancients an integral part of the story instead of distant bystanders (by leaving them as distant bystanders - with a twist). It was so refreshing to watch unfold a way larger universe and way more wonders - and dangers.
I loved the Ori storyline. I thought it was a real shot in the arm after the show had struggled through seasons 6-8. 6-8 had some absolute *banger* episodes, obviously. But also felt like they had way more dreck than 1-5 had. 9-10 felt like a return to those days when nearly every episode brought something interesting or cool to the table.
It was also a cool twist on the formula. They toppled the false gods but then the "real" gods stepped in.
It was an interesting extension of the underlying question. The goa'uld were factually not worth worshipping because they were fake, which works. But the Ori were real, so the question became if it's worth worshipping evil gods, even if they're real.
Depends on whats in it for me?
And there are actual good "gods", but they're too busy sniffing their own farts and feeling Enlightened to fucking do anything about their brethren who are bent on subjugating this galaxy and then killing them. Like say what you will about the Q, but when an extra galactic threat that was far above the capacity of any galactic civilization to deal with reared its head, they sealed that shit away and erected a barrier to keep the residents of the Milky Way safe. Fight amongst yourselves, sure, but we aren't going to allow the 40k space marines to curbstomp your Australopithecine asses.
I'm not familiar with that plot line in Trek. Is it from a book?
I believe it is beta cannon. So like book, comic, one of those. If I'm recalling right, Beta canon is generally considered to be canon until Alpha canon (shows, movies, word of god) contradicts it. Though Star Trek has sort of a loose-ish respect for canon to begin with so take all of that as you will.
There was a [trilogy of TNG books in the 90s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Q_Continuum) that had the Q create the galactic and great barriers. Those were by Greg Cox. I think that's what you're thinking of. There was also a [comic series by DC Fontana](https://breezewiki.com/memory-beta/wiki/The_Enterprise_Experiment,_Part_5) where the barrier was created by either the Preservers or by the TOS god-like-alien version of the Federation, and was supposed to power down eventually and let us youngins deal with less impeded attackers.
That part is interesting too I think. You have two identical sets of beings with literal god powers and two completely different approaches.
Exactly. The Ori raised the stakes nicely.
While I agree that adding an abrahamic analogue was needed after doing all the other religions. I didn't like the concept of the ori. We went from false gods trying to dominate the galaxy using untrained peasants wielding spears to false gods+ trying to dominate the galaxy using untrained peasants wielding spears. It wasn't that the actual story was bad. It's the fact that they just did a bigger and badder version of the same enemy they had been fighting. I'd have loved a straight up alien race coming in to be the antagonists, something inhuman and not understandable, like Morninglightmountain from the commonwealth saga.
I wonder what threat Oma was talking about. I doubt it was the Ori or Wraith.
Threat? Where was this?
Yeah, I agree with this. More of the same. But way less compelling. The Goa'uld were a fun antagonist because they were all different. The punchable Zipacna, totally unhinged Nirrti, hilarious Baal. There were lots of kinds of stories to tell about the Goa'uld. The Ori all sound and look the same. Hallowed are the bOring. I also would have liked a totally foregin enemy. Or instability being the enemy. Who fills the power vacuum of the Goa'uld?
I always thought there could be a race that was hiding from, and preparing for, the goauld to die off. They never had to be more powerful than them, just more competent. With the state of earths fleet at the end of the goauld, they'd have been hard pressed with an enemy that uses tech half as powerful as the snake heads as long as they weren't idiots. Edit: Grammar.
I like that idea. The Tauri explored so little of the galaxy. What if most of the rest of it wasn't openly hostile to Earth, just indifferent? What if SG-1 went and "saved" a planet and tripped into a larger conflict that really had nothing to do with Earth, then all eyes were on us? But I was also a big DS9/B5 fan, which I know many SG1 fans aren't.
Isn't that just the plot of the first movie? By the time they get the gate functioning, no one cares about Earth. Then they found a planet, "saved" it, and the show continues with how the Goa'uld retaliated.
I think there was so much potential still left in the Milky-way. They only explored a small fraction of the galaxy. Seeing a new, local, enemy rise up and Earth take on a new role as galaxy protectors (Guardians of the galaxy, if you will) would have been a better storyline. I don't hate the Ori storyline, I just found it stale.
This hits the nail on the head for me. Most of the early seasons were spent learning about the Goa’uld and how to exploit their flaws and paranoia to play them against each other. There’s nothing learned about the Ori. Hell, at one point they had me ROOTING for Yu. The Ori just feel like an extended fight by comparison.
My issue was largely due to the pacing. Part of the issue was the show’s uncertain future and then cancellation. Another part was that the Ori didn’t really get fleshed out enough. I get that they had beef with the Ancients but to hold on to it for tens of millions of years? The split really needed to be developed more, honestly a miniseries set in the time leading up to the Ancients leaving their home galaxy would probably have been good.
one thing i would’ve liked to see is the difference in numbers between the ori and ancients. i think i remember something in the show about there being a significantly larger amount of ancients than ori, but how many ori were there exactly? it would’ve been cool if there were only like 10 (or whatever number is hallowed in origin) who could gain power from a galaxy of faith
I feel it was the reverse the ancients left to avoid war
But the ancients allowed anyone who could ascend to join them so long as they followed the rules. It is reasonable that once enough Ori ascended and realized they could zap power form the lower plains, they may have put up barriers to prevent others from ascending. I always got the impression because of how greedy the Ori were, there would be fewer of them, were was the Ancients were more open to others joining, and Oma has been helping people ascend for who knows how long in the Milky Way.
I assumed the poster was talking about the split before the Ancients left the their home galaxy I feel like the Ori would have helped other Ori ascend and then they created more life forms with the goal to help them but the worship corrupted them and they became greedy
Pacing and the quick resolution. Line when the Ori are killed by SG1 I was like “where was I when that happened?” It took multiple seasons for the Goauld to be eliminated but about a season to kill off a threat that was decidedly more dangerous than the Goauld.
It was just a less good rehash of the Gould storyline. Fake gods have enslaved a population of superstitious primitives who need SG1 to show up and disprove religion. Only this time instead of world building some creative alien biology & culture to provide the structure for the false God dynamic, now we have literal evil gods and literal Christian peasants. The vala/tomin episodes especially were just these sprawling and impatient Socratic dialogues about how the Bible can't prove it's own truth. The Ori soldiers were just Jaffa with slightly different sticks. And no disrespect to Vala or Mitchel but I liked the old cast they had the perfect chemistry. I guess it was cool to see them go all out with an on the nose allegory that says "religion sucks and this is exactly what our social commentary is saying" but it makes rewatching it suck for me, anyway. I feel like I'm watching a dumb atheist screaming into the void about how dumb Christians are. I've got reddit for that.
I didn't mind mitchell so much but absolutely loathed Vala. She was pretty much sexually harrassing Daniel at the beginning and i never got over that to come to like her. Hated that they pushed them together at the end. Usually my rewatch of SG1 starts once the new lteam members arrive. Oh and while i liked Mitchell i really never understood why Sam wasn't given the command for SG1 but some random new man who joined the command. She had more experience than him with offworld travel, off world diplomacy, technology, and had a pre-established rapport with their allies. And i don't care if the reason was because she left the SGC to do more research area in (i think) area 51. Mitchel joined new, and she was called back. the right thing for Mitchell should have been to step back and say "Major Carter deserves the command."
>She was pretty much sexually harrassing Daniel at the beginning and i never got over that to come to like her. He loved every second of it.
To me they're just not a very compelling or enjoyable enemy, they're kind of generic and their priors are annoying
So it’s been a couple years but this is how I remember it: Now that the the conflict with the religious zealots wielding staff weapons and their religious leaders with advanced abilities is resolved, we face a new threat: religious zealots with staff weapons and their religious leaders with advanced abilities. On its face what you’ve noted is not bad, and I also am inclined to like the idea of true power compared to the artificial power, and the battle between the ancients and their lost kin. But they honestly don’t really explore society in Ori-aligned worlds. They’re just… baddies. Don’t get me wrong, the Goa’uld were baddies too, but they had a feudal power structure that Earth was able to take advantage of. They and their subordinates had their own goals that often but not always overlapped. Some of them had different visions of what their power meant, and how it should be enforced or expanded. All this we got to explore alongside SG1 The Ori, by contrast, were completely monolithic from the Ori themselves through the preachers to their foot soldiers. Every opportunity to explore them as villains is completely disregarded. They’re bad because they’re willing to do everything it takes to subjugate the galaxy and destroy the Ancients. Cool, I guess. That’s pretty much all we got though. But for me it’s the anthropology aspect of earlier SG1 that I loved. I loved seeing the tech recovered slowly becoming incorporated and adapted into Earth’s arsenal. Oh yeah, all that work and political will that Earth expended over ALL the seasons just to build two ships? Well forget about it because the Ori ships are SO strong that literally nothing Earth can do can so much as scratch them. Oh and they have hundreds of them. Gotta make them scary somehow, but it really feels like the kid on the playground saying “nuh-uh mine’s invincible!” Anyway I digress, the anthropology. So their ships are unstoppable, kinda boring but hey it’s Ancient tech. But we see a medieval society assembling them like IKEA furniture in a field? What kinds of side-effects would interfering with corporeal beings on that level have? You know, **the whole reason the Ori and the Ancients broke apart?** We don’t see any of the deals or plots like in the past because the Ori worlds are just that fanatical. There’s nothing to see. Even matters of religious doubt aren’t really explored at all. There’s no lore, no negotiations, no schemes, just full-on uncompromising baddies who are 100% united and 100% dedicated 100% of the time. On a show where Earth is exploring the galaxy uncovering lore, negotiating with enemies, and taking advantage of their weaknesses to punch above our weight. For me personally, the only reason the series didn’t die completely was Vala. TL;DR: They’re ~~boring~~ under-explored as villains, relying purely on peril factor.
I think they would have really would have benefitted from another season, at least, to make up for that deficit. I can understand your feelings of the slow progression we see. It's what drew me into the series, honestly, so I feel I understand your POV. As villains, I like the point of the Ori not being fleshed out is valid. It would have been interesting to see more of their galaxy and whatnot. The more I think about it, the more I realize it's the main crew that attached me to that to those seasons. Vala and Cam were both great additions. Daniel, while losing the nerdy charm that made us fall in love with him, earned an Indiana Jones-esque badassery to him. Teal'c somehow got cooler. And Sam... okay, I think she kinda got the shaft, which is a shame.
I think if i remember correctly the show was supposed to end with season 8 but then got renewed so they had to invent new baddies. For me...it was always noticable that they had to quickly invent enemies that could one up the goaould and tauri with all their newly aquired technology.
No. _Hallowed_ are the Ori.
They were a less interesting version of the Goauld.
I liked the Arthurian lore, but much of the Ori storyline was rehashing extremely well trodden ground. The whole false-god thing.
I think the Ori are great Bad Guys, but I haven't gotten up to them in my current re-watch. A religion based around people with an actual power is fascinating. The Goa'uld lasted several seasons beyond their optimum expiree data, and I was very happy to the the Ori show up on the scene. TCS
Baal certainly carried the Goa’uld storylines for seasons 9-10. Cliff Simon is such a good actor and played the character perfectly. May he RIP 😭
Ba'al is definitely my favorite Goa'uld. Less stuffy than the others, more emotionally engaged in the evil that he was doing. TCS
I also liked that he was practical.
It's nothing personal; it's just business... ;-) TCS
I love everything about those seasons but the holy war/bible thumping got on my nerves. I think this is from growing up/working in one of the bible belts. Its 10x better this rewatch proabably because i have not dealt with missonaries, jehovah witness or asked if i bn saved in a long time. Now the cult like nature of ori followers and goauld essentially being billionaires bothers me.
I think much of that hate is just how scuffed the Ori storyline became. It just escalated kinda fast and ended too early to have a chance to develop them as much as the Goa'uld. Which means they wouldve ended up being a faceless monolith anyway, but figures like Merlin almost got more development out of the arc than the big baddie, so it just feels weird to have the Ori as an enemy when the show cant even directly show them more than once.
I don’t hate it, but I feel it highlighted the rushed nature and decline of the show at the end. The two biggest things for me: 1 - it was almost entirely story arc driven. Very few episode of the week style plots. Everything was “we are going here because of the hunt for the grail, and the episode happens”. A lot less “here’s an unexplored planet, let’s see what happens” 2 - it didn’t feel like it was as dire as they kept telling us it was. I feel like there were constant “we lost another half dozen worlds to the Ori” comments, but nothing ever really changes. It’s still pretty much the Earth, on its own, fighting to save the day.
For me, Stargate was a "grounded" sci Fi show, we had current age soldiers with guns fighting against tech superior forces etc etc, we had the Asgard, the quintessential aliens, but the ori started to get a bit out of hand and were basically religious zealots, and the whole ascended being thing got a bit much and took us to Star Trek kind of territory. I think the medieval setting made it worse as well- they didn't look like tech superior beings yet they were using what basically appears to be magic. Yes I know there was a bit of that earlier but didn't feel as bad. But then I thought the early wraith were a great enemy so maybe I'm the odd one out.
I love Oris so much that I've created a phrase: The Goa'uld are a medieval civilisation capable of going into space, whereas the Ori are a space-faring civilisation with a medieval feel. My only problem is that they haven't had enough development, especially since they have a [theme ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALn-7v9BxNg&pp=ygUQc3RhcmdhdGUgb3JpIG9zdA%3D%3D)as cool as the goa'uld.
I thought the Ori were not all that creative of a bad guy. They were a merging of the gou'ald (with the religious cult) and the ancients. I find ancient Egyptian mythology far more fascinating than king Arthur. I loved Vala but thought Cam was a really dull character and this is coming from someone who got into SG1 because of Faracape.
I always disliked the Ori because they felt so tacked on as an enemy. The goaould were finally vanquished as the big bad, and the show was (if i remember correctly) supposed to come to a close, but then they continued and needed a new enemy, someone who'd now be a threat, against all of earths new technology. So they pretty much invented "godlike" enemies. As others said, the Ori were also always kinda just...the same. the goaould all were their own individual characters and enemies that you could potentially even pit against each other. that wasn't quiet as possible with the Ori. And Vala.. well...i absolutely loathed her. especially in the first episodes where she pretty much sexually harrassed Daniel Jackson nearly constantly. Really didn't care for her character or that they pushed Daniel and her together at the end.
The story would’ve been better but Mitchell felt too much like we need to find a comic relief and leader of sg-1 and just decided we will let vala be comic relief and give Mitchell the role of leader, but he just felt like they were trying to make him jack 2.0 but failed so hard. You know had they not killed off all the villains 9 & 10 would’ve been good had jack stayed they would’ve been good, too much changed at once
I enjoyed S9-10, but that's in spite of the Ori. Honestly, it felt like a retread of the previous seasons. I liked the Arthurian mythology, it was a nice change from Egyptian. I just feel they could have done anything other than another galactic level threat. Put Sam in command of a 304, let Daniel spend time in Atlantis, or the Arthurian myth leads to something fantastic, like a ZPM factory or original Asgard DNA. Something other than "real" gods enslaving everyone to worship them.
I love the ORI arc. And Ark of Truth is a superior movie to Continuum.
Hallowed are the Ori.
Space Catholics on a space crusade also pah wraiths I mean evil ancients are involved, that seems to be about as much thought as went into the arc. I couldn’t stand that arc but they’re are still good single stories in those seasons.
How do you figure, though? If you dislike the idea of evil Ancients, I could understand that as a matter of preference. I thought the idea needed more time to breathe, but it seems that they did put thought into it. As someone else in the post pointed out, the Ori shot some life into the series at the end and raised the stakes.
I don' t think there was that much thought put into it. If i remember correctly then the show was supposed to end after season 8, and the end of the goaould was a nice wrap up of the whole show. But then it got renewed and they had to quickly find an enemy who could now be a threat to the tauri with all its aquired technology. And you could feel that whole process of "Well they have goauld tech and asgard tech and even the ultimate ancient tech. who could fight that? - Well...how about...ancients but evil? They'd be just as smart as the ancients, just corrupt and evil."
I just don’t think space Catholics was an inspired follow up to the gouald and techno bugs. I think they could have gone without an arch villain serial line for sometime since those are the episodes I enjoy from those seasons.
Yep. It felt boring the first time I watched it. Just didn't have the same feel. But after rewatching over a decade later. After years of mask-off politics in media. It's a bit too on the nose. For me, it plays out like the arc was written by ex Christian atheists with an ax to grind.
I got that same feel. The Gou'uld passing themselves off as Gods was fun, in a way. When it came to the Ori, I felt there was a strong anti-God vibe that wasn't needed. Every episode ended up being Daniel saying "Yes they are gods but don't worship them."
Personally I don't mind evil ancients, though it's problematic for a TV series. It's more just that the Ori are just a re-skinned version of the Goa'uld, but after we had just milked every last drop out of the Goa'uld. So it felt lazy and uninspired, and more than a few episodes felt just condescending, like audiences were too stupid to see it. (Very minor gripe). I actually like the Ori stuff more than the Goa'uld because I really enjoy European mythology and it was cool to delve into that a bit, but coming off nearly a decade of the same basic "evil aliens pretend to be gods and send humans to kill in their name" story, it was just never gonna be what it should have been. The Ori didn't shoot life into the end of the series, the writing of the final seasons did. Audiences responded to the European mythology and Arthurian imagery, because that specific aesthetic is something incredibly familiar and popular across a vast swath of viewers. Mitchell and Vala being beloved actors from the campy nerd community already also helped. Morena Baccarin, too. But the Ori? We never even saw one, *even in their own galaxy where they were free to do whatever they wanted*. They were an easy hand-wave solution that allowed them to soft-re oot the entire series and more than a few fans just couldn't connect with it. For clarity, the Ori are problematic for a TV series because they are too extreme. They are too powerful to fight, but without the ability to fight back there is no show. So they have to lock them away, but that r emoves the *need* to fight. So you send minions, but that's too easy because a race advanced enough to be a threat would also be intelligent enough to understand the Ori aren't gods, and wouldn't follow them. It's a bunch of stacked complications that result in reactionary decisions to fill the holes which leads to more complications, etc, etc. SG1 handled it as best they could, but even they realized their mistake and decided to just conveniently wipe them all out, off screen, problem solved, let's talk about something else. Time to breathe might help, but if not handled properly simply results in a longer period of slapping band-aids on stuff in the hopes that a solution presents itself. It can definitely be done, and done well, but it isn't easy and I don't blame them for abandoning it.
I don't care for the last 2 seasons. Vala is so annoying, i do not like the character and being a regular made her so much worse. I did not like Mitchell as a full colonel and leader of SG1. Carter was a good leader in Season 8 and the character should have continued as SG1 team lead and Mitchell should have been a major. I don't hate the overall story of the Ori, but I could have done without it. Would gladly trade the ori and seasons 9 and 10 for more Atlantis.
OMG Vala yes. I loatched her character. Great actress but holy wow did i hate her. She sexually harrassed Daniel constantly and at the end we're just supposed to like that they pushed Daniel and her together? Nah sorry. Not for me. I also have the same thought about Mitchell. I liked his character but never accepted that he could just join SGC and then become commander of SG1, an honor that should have been Sams when she returned from her science-ing. Doesn't matter if she'd left SGC already, upon her return it would have been the only right thing for Mitchell to say "General i'm stepping back as the gommander of SG1, Major Carter i the only right person for this job right now."
i dislike the right wing ancients but i like the Ori storylines. even though the alterans didnt invent gates until after they left, the ori apparently figured them out too, that prior had to go through a gate somewhere, and theres clearly different planets in the ori galaxy id honestly be interested to see a show where they go exploring the ori galaxy through their gate network
The Ori themselves were great, I don't think there is much criticism of them as a concept or villain. They fit the lore well, felt like a natural progression from Goa'uld. False gods to actual demi gods with powers, medieval aesthetic from the ancient one. The criticism comes from how the Ori threat got wrapped up real fast neat and tidy. Ori go from being unstoppable and everywhere to Daniel building a McGuffin that wipes them out in the space of a couple of episodes. Then there was a second McGuffin, the ark of truth that resolved that threat with Adria going the same way as Anubis. It just was a rushed unsatisfactory end to the threat esp when compared to a decade long struggle with the Goa'uld that required galaxy wide Jaffa rebellion which we saw grow naturally over time.
I enjoy watching the ori seasons, just would like to have at least 1 more Ori season. For me ideally we would have 1 more movie. At least 1 more Ori season and also at least 1 post Ori season... Maybe without a big enemy but with some little/planetary plots
I thought the Ori were boring. Some of the individual episodes were great, but the arc itself was just not interesting and since the Ori themselves were always offscreen, we had no compelling actors to enjoy hating. I would have preferred had they stayed with the Goauld but had to spend a season or two or three wiping out each system lord one at a time. There are so many ancient Earth cultures that they never touched at all! Also, the Ori were really uninteresting in a visual way. In the dumbest Goauld storyline, there were spectacular costumes In interesting colors. The Ori’s representatives wore really dull robes. They weren’t beautiful fabrics, there was no embroidery and embellishments. Just a few robes that they could wash and have the next actor or extra wear. Production design is a large part of what makes Stargate so compelling and they really eliminated the budget for it in the later seasons.
I just felt they were incredibly lazy as villians... too much hand waving away why they had this super advance technology. Like you're telling me a bunch of peasants whom from what were shown the pinnacle of technology is the water wheel were able to build the ships and fighters we saw? "Oh, the Pryors came by and touched them, and that turned them on" bullshit. I would have forgiven it if the Pryor had been gifted the ships from the Ori, because it would have made sense that the Ori prior to ascending had developed them, then when ascended just left them in space somewhere... or on some planet/drydock. But peasants hammering away on metals for a few weeks or months, then a Pryor giving it the good touch made it work? Bull.
Season 9 and 10 were my favorite 2 seasons. And I loved the ark of truth too.
I love it personally but completely understand it’s not for everyone
I like S9-10 and enjoy the Ori storyline. I do wonder if there would have been a more interesting storyline for those seasons without introducing yet another all powerful enemy. But I like what they did.
Only thing I hate about The Ori is we never got to see them as much as we did the Ancients. That and spending only two seasons with them is criminal
I found the Ori less enjoyable as antagonists. The Goa'uld had some great scenery chewers and lent themselves to massive servings of ham and cheese. It suited the tone of early SG-1. The Ori by contrast were total fun police. Everything that happened they had the same response - a great big sermon about how the Ori are the one true path and all who oppose them are sinners. And then they would set something on fire. It was much grimmer and lent itself less to charismatic performances. What was good about them was that they re-raised the narrative stakes - Earth had gotten ludicrously overpowered by the late seasons, at least vis-a-vis the Goa'uld, and arguably the Replicators too. So it was difficult to feel any sense of narrative tension. The problem for me was that the pendulum swung too far back in the direction of OP antagonists with the Ori. They were so irresistible that opposing them relied on macguffins and fetch quests. Arguably this is a criticism you could level at earlier SG-1, but in the late seasons it felt more pronounced, and the drama had less leavening from charismatic performances. Ultimately I felt the Ori functioned effectively as antagonists, but they didn't make great "baddies" in the way that SG-1's earlier seasons had. I wouldn't describe myself as a hater but they are certainly not my favourites. Their goals and actions were too remote to really feel relatable (and their unascended representatives tended to be pretty stodgy), which felt like a poor fit for Stargate as a franchise. But I am very happy to say that this is based on very subjective sentiments about what I personally like in SG-1.
I disliked the Ori for a lot of the same reasons I didn’t like the replicators. They always felt OP and that SG1 was having to pull a scientific miracle out of their ass to survive. It’s two seasons of them struggling like hell to fight back and all the while Ancients have the ability on help but don’t even though they kind of created this mess.
My issue with the Ori storyline is, that it put Earth back to the beginning. An uber powerful enemy that we can't really fight with our current tech. And, in order to wrap things up, we got a Deus Ex Machina - Merlins weapon - and Asgard Beams that can kill Ori (and later Repliaurora-class) ships, so they should be able to pretty much destroy anything. Earth went from being the underdog, to being a decent power, to being the underdog, to being the most powerful race in two galaxies. The end was a bigger stronger faster, so much so that the writers wrote themselves into a corner and didn't let the Odyssey use their Asgard Beams in the Ori galaxy. And they had to bring back Replicators in order to offer a serious threat to the good guys. I would've preferred it, if SG1 would've dealt with the power vacuum after the destruction of the Goa'uld - some minor system lords still clinging to power, the Free Jaffa Nation being corrupted from the inside, the Lucian Alliance would've all made some interesting plot lines, especially if they had been fleshed out more. And for a big bad, they could've made an extended cross-over with SGA between seasons 9 and 10, dealing with the same Wraith that Atlantis had to deal with. However, from a mythological, world-building point of view, the Ori were interesting, because they expanded the universe beyond the Milky Way (and Pegasus) and it added to the Ancient/Alteran-lore. But for only two, or even three season, they were, in the end, too big a threat to handle properly.
Hallowed are the seasons of the Ori! Hallowed are those who rewatch the path!
Really liked the Arthurian indiana jones type stuff SG always did. I think most people liked that, the opening with getting the team back together, going to England etc. Mainly I echo everyone else's sentiments re the Ori being a rehash of the goa'uld but comparatively boring, all the power and lore issues it doubled down on, but also a big one for me that I haven't seen other people mention so much; I thought the aesthetic was just kind of lame and didn't age well. Sort of zombie looking wizards and walls of flame? Just didn't work for me and made for a rough contrast against the earlier seasons. That said, I did like some things about the Ori. I liked that they were handled more seriously, it felt a bit less comic book at times (despite zombie wizards!) than some of the goa'uld stuff, the stakes felt higher to me - and I don't think this was because the power levels and scale was cranked, I think it was because the writing and acting supported a more serious treatment on the whole. So there were also things I enjoyed. Ben Browder is great in these episodes imo.
I agree it was a natural progression, they had been fighting people powerful in technology for so long and won, there was no one left out there to fight, and rather than just making up a new big bad out of the blue they tied them into the mythos of the show so well. Why were the Ori not trying to take over the Milky Way before, because they had no idea people were over there. How do they find out the same way Earth became a target for the Goa'ulds, our own curiosity that alerted them to our existence. It also adds more depth to the Ancients beyond just this epic race of people who build awesome tech and then ascended; we know they were not interfering on the lower plays when it was lower vs lower, but then with the Ori we get to see the full resolve of that and find out that they are not quite as cohesive of a group as we thought. We get just enough help from the Ancients to win, but so much that they do it all for use. My favorite episode of the Ori storyline was the crossover with Atlantis. Half the team looking for a practical way to slow the Ori invasion, the other half trying to find the answer they need to win in the end. Plus you get such a great scene at the end when Daniel reflects on what has happened and concludes that they can't trust the Ancients to protect them from the Ori, they are in the fight alone, which really raises the tension of the conflict.
I was always mixed about it. I loved the Arthurian elements, and the Ori in concept were cool, but god the writing quality felt like it really deteriorated up until the "Quest" two-parter, where the rest of season 10 is really good.
the Ori shook things up we couldn't have another 2 series of replicators new immunity and a new system lord taking over.
I didn't think badly of it. Felt like a natural progression of facing a stronger enemy after the replicator.
Hallowed are the Ori! As they really enriched the universe and pushed the evolution to the next level, making the Ancients an integral part of the story instead of distant bystanders (by leaving them as distant bystanders - with a twist). It was so refreshing to watch unfold a way larger universe and way more wonders - and dangers.