Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell’s 200th trip through the Stargate (that is, in total—leaving and coming back to Earth) is put on hold due to technical difficulties. Conveniently, SG-1 has already been tasked to doctor Martin Lloyd’s script for the revival movie of Wormhole X-Treme! Until the gate can get up and running again, it looks like they’ll have to spend the time continuing to help their old friend out.
When you get down to it, the entire plot of “200” is just a 40-minute writing circle, and the episode’s behind-the-scenes writing team still made it extremely entertaining to watch. The ideas that Martin and SG-1 pitch take the form of vignettes, and they’re all extremely funny.
Some of the best vignettes are the thoroughly well-done pop cultural parodies, such as of The Wizard of Oz, Star Trek, and Farscape. What makes each of these parodies work is how well the Stargate characters and settings are adapted into the parodies. The Star Trek parody nails the style of the Original Series so perfectly—right down to Brad Wright’s cameo as Scotty—and the Oz spoof builds itself up so subtly underneath the Stargate lore it’s just beautiful. I have a problem with the Farscape spoof casting Mitchell as Stark and Daniel as John Crichton, though. Those roles should have been switched because it would’ve been amazing to see Ben Browder reprise his role as John Crichton one final time, especially with Claudia Black reprising Aeryn Sun. It was such a missed opportunity.
Another funny sketch is the homage to the Andersons’ supermarionation classic shows like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. It’s a hilarious throwback to the original Stargate movie and “Children of the Gods”, and there are many callbacks to both of them that weave well into the scene (i.e. Daniel drawing on the computer screen with a sharpie, the reprisal of Sam’s infamous “sex organs” line). But don’t worry if you haven’t seen either of those yet; all of the lines in this scene are so quotable that even non-Stargate fans will laugh at it (especially Puppet Hammond, who’s just hilarious the entire time).
Lastly, there’s the part with the “younger, edgier versions of the team.” Much of its humor comes from how intentionally cringeworthy it is, and it induces even more cringe (and thus, laughter) with age. Its mimicry of 2000s teen dramas is spot-on—the lingo, the sentimental piano soundtrack, the FLIP PHONES. You know a genre of television is a product of its time when a parody of it feels dated almost 15 years later.
Through all these vignettes, the narrative has a central conflict that ties it all together: the Wormhole X-Treme movie is facing production setbacks, and it’s up to Marty (with SG-1’s help) to try and work around them. Even after his show got cancelled, Marty is still insistent about its survival. This episode is very much Marty’s journey to keep Wormhole X-Treme! alive, five years later. This is pretty solid character development. It is very clear that Martin Lloyd, once the lost alien in “Point of No Return”, has finally adapted to life on his new homeworld. It’s also consistent with who he was in “Wormhole X-Treme!”: Marty is still a writer with a big imagination who cares about his art.
Also like “Wormhole X-Treme”, the episode isn’t laughing at Marty in any way. As a writer, his ideas just need some polishing and the constructive criticisms SG-1 gives him (while lending over to some funny scenes) actually feel like they’re coming from an honest perspective of struggling to get a good idea to fruition. Considering that all seven of the show’s main writers wrote on this episode, they very likely had a whole decade’s worth of experience to apply to Marty’s struggle—making it feel somewhat semi-autobiographical, in a way. (He even makes references to writer’s terms, such as “lampshade-hanging” for narrative conveniences.) 10 years is long enough for a team of writers to feel lots of pressure from peers and the public along the way. I can only imagine.
“Wormhole X-Treme!” was unafraid to delve into some self-referentiality on Stargate SG-1 as a series, and “200” continues this tradition. Some appear throughout the episode, especially in the second half; for instance, a callback to Season 8’s ending with the fishing sequence, Marty’s question on any possible twist is a funny little reference to the differences between the endings of “Threads” and “Moebius”.
Most, however, take up the last five minutes in the form of interviews with the in-universe cast and crew of Wormhole X-Treme!. Many of their statements contain hidden references to Stargate’s history, which veteran fans might be able to pick up on if they listen closely; but even if casual viewers don’t, they’ll still laugh at some of the other jokes the interviewees say—especially Peter DeLuise, who just chews the scenery! Overall, this scene is Stargate SG-1’s production team celebrating their show’s record achievement and congratulating the fans for sticking around all this time and supporting it all along the way.
“200” was a bittersweet moment for Stargate SG-1, as the series crossed a milestone in what would become its final season. After a decade of being in danger of getting cancelled every season yet miraculously getting renewed again, the plug was pulled on Stargate SG-1 for the last time. Infamously (yet poetically) enough, Sci Fi Channel announced the final cancellation just after “200” had premiered. Nevertheless, the fact that the show even managed to become (for a time) American television’s longest-running sci-fi TV show (while staying consistently strong the whole time, too) is an accomplishment unto itself. If anything, “200” should be remembered as a celebration of a television institution that had become—and still remains—an enduring science fiction classic.
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