An episode of Stargate SG-1 that Christopher Judge wanted to make comedic

Stargate SG-1 produced several great episodes before it was canceled after season 10. However, some of the episodes started out as completely different ideas, only to take on new forms during the writing process. A key example is classic “The Lost City” – a two-part episode that was originally intended as a feature film. Elsewhere, Season 8’s “Victims” was conceived as a comedy called “My Big Fat Jaffa Wedding,” but later took on a darker tone.

“Victims” follows the attempt of Rayak of Chulak (Neil Dennis) to marry Karin (Mercedes de la Zerda), which did not sit well with their families and led to some disagreements. Christopher Judge, who played Tealco and wrote the episode, said GateWorld that he realized it couldn’t be a comedy, as the story explores ideas such as war, tyranny and the enslavement of the Jaffa people by Moloch (Royston Innes):

(How) I started writing it, but it didn’t come out as funny as I thought it would because there were serious issues that needed to be addressed, regarding their freedom, their purpose, the entire Jaffa movement – and regarding the entire Jaffa movement for freedom, and as Hak’til don’t necessarily face a larger movement. And until their release, they will go differently.”

While The writers of “Stargate SG-1” sometimes pushed the comedic ideas to the limitthey had good reason to refuse to make “Sacrifices” a horror caper. The good news, however, is that Judge learned from the experience.

Although Christopher Judge’s original plan for “Victims” never came to fruition, he understands that’s just the nature of television writing. During the aforementioned interview, he revealed that the episode was meant to fit into the larger picture of the series, and that the Jaffa’s freedom storyline doesn’t exactly lend itself to comedy. However, Judge found a sympathetic ear in series producer Robert Cooper, who understood the concept of ideas becoming more serious than originally intended:

“I said, ‘I don’t know. It’s not funny.” And he said, “You know, a lot of times it starts out in our minds as a lighter episode, but there’s often issues that you’re going to have to deal with because of the ongoing storyline, it’s not going to end the way you envisioned because you have to solve certain problems”.

Although his original idea didn’t work, Judge seems to have had a lot of creative freedom with the series. In addition, there is experience and wisdom allowed Judge to offer sound advice to the creators of a potential reboot of “Stargate: SG-1” down the line. If this project ever comes to fruition, he hopes the writers will make the show their own and not depend on what has come before.