The Stargate SG-1 Episode That Christopher Judge Wanted To Be Comedic

“Stargate SG-1” produced several great episodes before it got 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 the classic “Lost City” two-part episode, which was originally envisioned as a feature film. Elsewhere, season 8’s “Sacrifices” was imagined as a comedy called “My Big Fat Jaffa Wedding,” but it took on a more somber tone later on.

“Sacrifices” is about Rya’c of Chulak’s (Neil Denis) attempt to marry Kar’yn (Mercedes de la Zerda), which doesn’t go down well with their families and leads to some disagreements. That said, Christopher Judge, who played Teal’c and wrote the episode, told GateWorld that he realized it couldn’t be a comedy as the story explores ideas like war, tyranny, and Moloc’s (Royston Innes) enslavement of the Jaffa people:

[As] I started writing it, it didn’t turn out as funny as I thought it was going to be, because there were serious issues that needed to be addressed as far as their freedom, their goal, the whole Jaffa movement — and as far as the whole Jaffa movement of freedom, and how the Hak’tyl don’t necessarily see eye to eye with the bigger movement. And they’re going to go about their liberation differently.”

While the “Stargate SG-1” writers sometimes pushed comedic ideas to the limit, they had valid reasons to resist making “Sacrifices” a laugh-out-loud caper. The good news, though, is that Judge learned from the experience.

While Christopher Judge’s original plan for “Sacrifices” never came to fruition, he understands that it’s just the nature of writing television. During the aforementioned interview, he revealed that the episode had to fit into the series’ bigger picture, and the Jaffa freedom storyline didn’t exactly lend itself to comedy. That said, Judge found an empathetic ear in series producer Robert Cooper, who understood the concept of ideas becoming more serious than they were originally intended to be:

“I said, ‘I don’t know. It’s not funny.’ And he said, ‘You know, a lot of times these start out in our minds as what’s going to be kind of a lighter episode. But when there are issues that you have to deal with because of an ongoing storyline, a lot of times it doesn’t end up the way you envisioned it because you have to address certain issues.'”

Despite his original idea not working out, it sounds like Judge had a lot of creative freedom on the series. Furthermore, experience and wisdom has allowed Judge to come up with some sound advice for the creators of a potential “Stargate: SG-1” reboot down the line. If that project ever comes to fruition, he hopes that the writers make the show their own and aren’t beholden to what came before.