By Jonathan Klotz
| Updated 27 seconds ago

Once any show has been on the air for five years, it will start to wobble under its own internal logic, lore, and mythology. Stargate SG-1 was on the air for a decade, which means those early Season 1-3 episodes sometimes contradict what becomes canon later. In the case of Season 1’s “Hathor,” it’s unclear why a Goa’uld Queen needs male DNA to produce more larvae. Later episodes show that it’s not needed, and they can reproduce asexually, but that’s the least of the issues with “Hathor.” 

Stargate Goes Full Species

“Hathor” centers around the unearthing of the Egyptian Goddess of Love, Hathor (Suanne Braun), who emerges from a sarcophagus after 3000 years, speaking English. Drawn to the Stargate, she shows up at Cheyenne Mountain and quickly starts bringing the men within the base into her thrall. Starting with Daniel (Michael Shanks), then General Hammond (Don S. Davis), O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) is the next to succumb, though Teal’c’s (Christopher Judge) Goa’uld renders him resistant to her power. 

That sets up a showdown between the men and the women (all five of them), led by Captain Carter (Amanda Tapping) and Dr. Frasier (Teryl Rothery) in the locker room where Hathor is preparing to use a hot tub to birth a new generation of Goa’uld larvae using Daniel Jackson’s juices. That’s how the show refers to it. It’s as awkward as it sounds. 

The Writers Chose To Ignore The Episode

Stargate SG-1 would eventually mock “Hathor” in the Season 8 episode “Citizen Joe,” a clip show that highlighted the ridiculousness of those early season episodes. “Hathor” was the first episode in the series where the team didn’t travel through the Stargate, and the only one written by David Bennett Carren and J. Larry Carroll. Hathor herself would come back two more times, as a much more formidable (and better written) villain, particularly in Season 2’s “Out of Mind.”

Ever since Homer introduced the concept of Sirens in The Odyssey, the “beautiful woman mind controls all men” trope is widely used in sci-fi and fantasy shows. Stargate SG-1 had no problem recycling classic tropes and often doing them incredibly well, from time loops (“Windows of Opportunity”) to “that old man can kick everyone’s ass” (Bra’tac), but “Hathor” was a misfire. 

Teryl Rothery wasn’t even able to deliver the line “there’s five women in here, and we’re very lonely” while keeping a straight face. The more series re-watches you do, “Hathor” sticks out more and more like one of the worst episodes of the series. Unlike “Emancipation,” which was so bad it caused the writers to rework Carter’s character, “Hathor” has no silver lining, other than the self-styled goddess having more character, personality, and better lines in her later appearances. Her debut episode could be erased from the timeline, and you’d still know everything about her within minutes of her second appearance.

They can’t all be winners, and with a decade of episodes to get through, Stargate SG-1 was going to have some episodes you don’t have to bother watching.