Of course, the big thing from a continuity perspective about “Beachhead” is that Amanda Tapping rejoins the cast starting with this episode. It’s also the Ori’s first attempt to build a gigantic “supergate” in space, through which they can fly an armada. So of course our son loved this one to pieces, because it’s a really special effects-heavy piece with lots of gunplay and hundred mile-wide explosions and planet-crushing force fields. Louis Gossett Jr. returns as Gerak, and at one point one of Earth’s flying battleships is raining missiles down on the planet alongside three of his big pyramid battle cruisers, and I can imagine our kid jerry-rigging some Lego constructions to recreate it.
It’s also goodbye – for now – for Claudia Black as Vala Mal Doran, but she’ll be back before too long. And happily, we meet a really great new villain. Nerus is a minor System Lord played by Maury Chaykin and he is so incredibly fun. He’s apparently a very clever technician who came up with all sorts of advancements while in the service of one powerful Goa’uld or another, and he knows on what side his bread’s buttered, because he figures getting in the Ori’s good graces is the right move. So he promises the stars with his intel, in exchange for a gigantic meal that might make Chaykin’s best-known character, Nero Wolfe, proud, planning, of course, to stab everybody in the back, because he’s a Goa’uld and that’s what they do.
Before he gets marched to his cell in Area 51, Nerus gets to enjoy chicken for the first time and thinks it’s completely amazing. Our son couldn’t help but comment that Nerus should try it fried. I’m glad that Nerus enjoyed the chicken, because there probably isn’t any saucisse minuit or anchovy fritters where he’s going.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 
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