Wormhole X-Treme!

"Wormhole X-Treme!" is an episode from Season 5 of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1. The title also refers to a camp fictional science fiction series named Wormhole X-Treme!, a show-within-a-show that is portrayed in the episode. This was the 100th episode of Stargate SG-1, and as such was produced as a "special" episode laden with large numbers of in-jokes, cameo appearances, and heavy use of metafictional elements for comedic effect.

Plot

This episode is a continuation of the Season 4 episode "Point of No Return". A spaceship that had been hidden in the outer solar system activates and begins approaching Earth, and its energy signature is matched to that of Martin Lloyd's escape pod suggesting that this is its mother ship. The military tracks down Lloyd (played by Willie Garson) and discovers that he has become the creative consultant for a television series whose concept he sold to a Hollywood studio, Wormhole X-Treme!. The parallels between Wormhole X-Treme! and the real SGC are clear. The Air Force had decided that while being a breach of secrecy, the show could prevent any future leaks of information about the Stargate program from being taken seriously.

Jack O'Neill is given the position of the Air Force technical advisor to the show in order to covertly confront Lloyd about both the secrets he has leaked and the approaching spacecraft. He discovers that Lloyd has resumed using memory suppressants and does not consciously remember his previous encounter with them or his own extraterrestrial origin. O'Neill initially suspects Lloyd's associates of drugging him again, but in fact Lloyd started taking them on his own so that he could feel more comfortable with living on Earth.

Lloyd's associates are indeed nearby, however, as well as another secret government group called the NID that wishes to seize the ship's technology for themselves. Lloyd has in his possession the remote control device necessary for boarding the empty ship when it arrives, thinking it merely another of the many functionless science fiction props used on the show, and both parties want to recover it. His associates kidnap O'Neill and Lloyd, injecting Lloyd with a memory-restoring drug. Before they interrogate him, however, O'Neill and Lloyd escape.

O'Neill and Lloyd recover the remote control just as the spacecraft arrives, with the NID and Lloyd's associates in close pursuit. O'Neill gives the remote to Lloyd's associates allowing them to flee Earth, both because he sympathizes with their plight and to deny the ship's technology to the NID. Lloyd decides that he is comfortable with his new life and remains on Earth to continue consulting for Wormhole X-Treme!.

At the end of the episode there is a "Making of Wormhole X-Treme!" featurette with interviews of several of the actors from the fictional show. Wormhole X-Treme is mentioned again in the season 8 episode "Citizen Joe", which reveals that the fictional show ran for one episode before being cancelled, though Mitchell later claims it ran for three episodes. Martin Lloyd returns in the milestone episode "200" in season 10, trying to write a TV film based on the fictional show. The latter episode stated that Wormhole X-Treme ran for ten seasons prior to cancellation.

Production

"Wormhole X-Treme" features many cameos by the crew of Stargate SG-1. The director of this episode, Peter DeLuise, also played the director of Wormhole X-Treme!. Writer and executive producer Robert C. Cooper played a Wormhole X-Treme! writer. Further cameos include Joseph Mallozzi (who co-wrote this episode), producer N. John Smith, and Stargate SG-1 writer Ron Wilkerson as Wormhole X-Treme! crew members; Stargate SG-1 property master David Sinclair as the Wormhole X-Treme! assistant director; make-up artist Jan Newman as a make-up artist; director Andy Mikita and producer John Lenic as the characters being beaten by Col. Danning; Stargate SG-1 director Martin Wood as an NID agent; and several more.^[1] The two executives who commented on the unrealistic look of Lloyd's spacecraft are played by Stargate SG-1 executive producer Michael Greenburg and executive producer/co-creator Brad Wright.

Within the fictional show Wormhole X-Treme!, the four primary characters of SG-1 each had a representative character within the show-within-a-show. The characters, actors, and their counterpoints are:

Reception

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Wormhole X-Treme! (Stargate SG-1)

• Wormhole X-Treme! at mgm.com
• Wormhole X-Treme! at the Internet Movie Database
• Wormhole X-Treme! at scifi.com
• "Screenplay" (PDF). Distributed by MGM.