While SG-1 may have - thankfully - been put out to pasture and shot repeatedly in the head, it's legacy lives on in a series of straight to DVD releases. Never stop milking a cash cow until it's dead.

Naturally, the last season of SG-1 ended on a bit of a "meh"... with plenty of loose ends and no real resolutions to the current problems the Milky Way faced at the hands of the Ori. Enter - THE ARK OF TRUTH to give us some kind of closure on the whole thing.

Despite having managed to follow the paint by numbers instructions on their deus ex Ascended being killing plot device 4000, the Ori's followers are still going around the galaxy with more zeal than a televangelist and a LOT more fire power.

Where one deus ex plot device failed... another will surely succeed. Enter the Ark of Truth. SG-1 are -naturally - the only people in the entire universe to be entrusted with finding it and hence we start with them, looking... when they bump into Erin's old boyfriend. After some jiggery pokery, they manage to get him to join them and they head back to SGC for cakes and rigorous interrogation by the new IOA douche.

For those who don't know or have forgotten the IOA are the latest in a series of governmental/bureaucratic foils for the brave, anti-paperwork SG-1 heroes... there have been many variations on the theme but essentially they're always meddling for nefarious purposes or just plain stupid. Robert Picardo's petty bureaucrat pales in comparison to the aggressively asinine behaviour of the new boy.

As it goes, the SG-1 team have to take him along as they look for the Ark and the friction between him and Mitchell couldn't have been more by the numbers if it tried. It's been pretty much the same with all the douchebag bureaucrats. Anyway, he's along for the ride and as it turns out after things finally get going... he decides to sabotage his own side by... DUN DUN DUN! Unleashing Replicators. Yeah. Fan favourites.

To be honest, it takes some of the impact out of defeating probably the greatest enemy the SGC EVER faced to just be able to recreate them... and to be honest, you have to question the wisdom of using them to defeat the Ori... Yes. They probably could take down the Ori... but the Replicators aren't really interested in one galaxy. They'd probably prefer to take all galaxies and given their original appearance, it seems likely that after overtaking the Odyssey they'd not hesitate to come to the Milky Way - again. So, in the long sad history of bad ideas... it seems to be another very big one.

On the plus side, at least these are ACTUAL diabolic mechano and not the rubbish T1000 ripoff human form replicators that low budgets have subjected us to in recent years. Nope, these are bonafide evil mechano spider things. Which is for the best. When Replicators became people, it made them tedious. Their whole schtick was that they were faceless and inhuman... Of course, in what amounts to poetic justice IOA douche gets mauled and taken over by Replicators... It's actually fairly stupid. Robozombie.

While this Replicator related fun is transpiring, Daniel, Teal'c et al are searching for their much needed insta-win device on the Ori's home planet. The lone Replicator has been true to its name and there are plenty of them... Quite why they didn't chase after it when the ARG failed isn't elaborated upon. Idiocy seems the likely answer... Anyway, the Ori show up as part of IOA's diabolical plan to use the Replicators to take the Ori out, so the ship skedaddles.

It's around this point that you'll notice it's taken 40 minutes for stuff to actually happen... regardless, it's with incredible ease that Daniel et al find the Ark of Truth. They pretty much waltz in, pick it up and then get captured... except Teal'C, who gets left for dead. Despite the pivotal importance of what happens on Celestus... it feels pretty much like an after thought to the action on the Daedulus.

Which isn't a bad thing... Replicators have always been a fun enemy. The SGC personnel pulling out their shotguns and pumping out hundreds of rounds of ammo - it should be noted that there is actually a scene where Mitchell RUNS OUT OF AMMO! Possibly for the first time in Stargate history. Fully automatic P90s can fire 900 rounds a minute and have a clip of 50 bullets... why it choose this moment to stop having an infinite amount of ammo... we may never know. Also, watch out for the most unnecessary and gratuitous use of profanity since the Transformers Movie.

So, ignoring the somewhat tedious Celestus events... The Daedulus is being taken over by Replicators, they're resistant to the Anti-Replicator Guns but there's a shut-off code. Of course, as it happens the person who knows where the shutoff code is, is the IOA type... who has now become ROBO-IOA HUMAN-REPLICATOR THING! It looks fairly stupid and the notion of Replicators being able to integrate into a person like that to extract knowledge is even more so. Robo-Douche starts beating Mitchell up... I can't blame him. As you may expect, a guy full of metal isn't really phased by getting shot or punched. Or even - as it turns out - getting exploded. Fortunately though, unplugging the Mechano from his brain lets him tell Mitchell that the plot device to deactivate the Replicators is on the back of the crystal. After getting beaten up a little more he manages to tell her this and then blows up the queen Replicator and gets TOSSED from the room.

Someone had clearly been watching Terminator because the explosion leaves a big Replicator style Terminator endoskeleton rip off leering at Mitchell and random soldiers shoot at the innumerable normal Replicators - but then, Sam finds the off switch! The Replicators all fall to pieces. Which just leaves the Ori ships surrounding them, happily firing away.

Probably best to elaborate upon the fact that Daniel has escaped captivity and has had a tete a tete with Morgan Le Faye, the Ancient who has made their journey ridiculously easy... Of course, this is when find that Adria has Ascended and has taken the God complex to its logical extreme. Fortunately, the Ark of Truth is sitting on an unstable table and while laughably distracted, Daniel works out how to switch it on, a Prior comes in and Teal'C shoots the Ark so it falls and the Prior - literally - sees the light. If it sounds contrived, it's because it is. Then - because it's an insta-win plot device - everything is ok!

There's a little time to wrap up but that's about it...

All in all, it feels rather rushed. In fact, it feels as if you've dropped into the middle of things. Given that it takes a long time for the action to get under way, this is probably a blessing in disguise but the action isn't particularly amazing - especially for a movie, even a straight to DVD one. There have actually been more action packed, special effects laden episodes... namely the original appearance of the Replicators... this feels rather cobbled together. The use of Replicators proof - if needed - that the SG-1 vehicle has been tapped dry of ideas. The introduction of an IOA douche seems unnecessary - he has literally no chance for character development before he's locked away and Replicatorised. It seems there had to be someone else they could have used that had some history and despite the fact the IOA are consistently depicted as bureaucratic idiots, this one takes the biscuit. It feels as if they wanted to wrap up the ill advised Ori arc but didn't really know what to do, so they just contrived another deus ex plot device - Stargate is pretty much littered with them, really - stuck in some mandatory action and had it all wrap up in the obligatory 90 minutes.

It feels as if all of this could have been done just as well in an episode - which somewhat highlights the obvious point of this DVD. Money... Which isn't surprising but it doesn't offer the impact that has been achieved in the series. There was little real tension here, no characters were in danger of being developed and no special effects risked awesomeness when they could stick to tried and tested. In short, it's a disappointment. It doesn't have much of a plot to speak of and the action - while putting B5's rather dreary Lost Tales to shame - is nothing the numerous Replicator episodes haven't done before... often better. In fact, it feels as though some of those episodes were gutted and then copied and pasted to fill the immense holes in plot and pacing here.

It's a small mercy that we weren't subjected to the irritation of budget pleasing human form Replicators but really, that's the only good thing you can say about this effort. It's got the A to B to C style plot feel of The Matrix: Reloaded... Earth is threatened but nothing much happens about it. There was a great chance for another great big guns blazing Earth defence battle like they had when Anubis got around to attacking Earth... but no, the Ori sit on their hands for no discernible reason, giving the magical win device time to do it's thing and for Adria to be banished or whatever.

It just feels flat. There's conflict... but it feels so by the numbers... or that you might just have accidentally put a regular episode in... surely this kind of project - which will rake in the dough -should be giving the viewer more bang for their buck? There really isn't a huge amount of that. It simply lacks any real punch. Yes, it's more Stargate but really, after 10 years - we've had enough.