Perhaps if I was doing a deeper dive into Stargate, I’d note the writers and directors more carefully than I do here, but unlike some of the other programs we’ve watched, I haven’t pored over production details and minutiae and didn’t feel like doing the work. But I did notice that this episode was written by Alan Brennert, who contributed one of my favorite Twilight Zone installments in the 1980s, “A Message From Charity”. It is unfortunately the only Stargate contribution from this fine writer, which I think is a shame. It’s a good story, very intelligent, and very knowing about the genre.
The kid pretended that he didn’t like this one much – there was smooching and he was denied a probably-expensive special effects shot that he was hoping to see – but he’s fibbing. He enjoyed this one in part because the script very overtly references Captain Kirk’s parade of space girlfriends, and it’s all very funny. It’s already been established that McKay knew all the right sci-fi stuff inside and out before he started working with wormholes, and now that Sheppard has brought an alien “ambassador” back to Atlantis and gets to spend an evening showing her some of this Earth thing we call kissing, he blows his top. Men in the early 21st Century shouldn’t be doing all those displays of machismo. “That’s very 1967 of you,” he sneers.
When we looked at a little Trek last year, I didn’t pick many examples of Kirk wooing the alien ladies – “What are Little Girls Made Of?”, in which he smooches a robot into having emotions, was one – the stereotype is somehow nevertheless known to him. Did Kirk ever tie tongues with that green girl from the end credits? Probably.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 
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