but pure exploitation. You know, the sort of thing we've come to expect from Showtime". Pierce also criticised the episodes plot for being "extremely similar" to the feature film, although did believe that audiences might be "pleasantly surprised". Will Joyner from The New York Times considered Stargate SG-1 as a "challenging, if derivative, mix" that is "more than a Stargate [feature film] fan might expect but certainly less than one would hope for". His opinion about the main cast was mixed, and he found it disturbing that SG-1 used shock tactics to make up for its lower television budget. He would not recommend the show for children because of the "grotesque physical attributes in the new villains" and the "gratuitous use of sexual implication and nudity". The episode got a Nielsen rating of 3.3 / 3.4, -4. Retrospective & Final Cut Reviews Writing for IGN, R.L. Shaffer praised what he believed to be an "extravagant, fun and surprisingly amusing, but very cheap-looking film" and whilst he was critical of the shows sets and production, he attributed the cast's performances to the ultimate longevity of the show. Reviewing the Final Cut, PopMatters writer Dan Heaton noted that the episode displayed writers Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner still deciding whether they were going to move the show in a more adult, creepy or clever, family-fun direction, resulting in an unclear dominant tone in the pilot. Heaton believed the pilot had been strengthened through many of the changes, including using Goldsmith's score and updates to some of the CGI, although was singled out the new Abydos Pyramid shots as looking "too much like a video game". In 2013 WhatCulture Joe Julians was complimentary of the episode, believing that the casting of Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks made Kurt Russell and James Spader "almost instantly forgotten", enjoying the humour that Anderson injected into the character. Julians also felt that whilst Samantha Carter goes on to be a "great character", he felt that the writing in the pilot made her come across as "entitled". The episode was ranked at number 19 out of 25, in a feature listing the series best episodes on Den of Geek. Writing for Comet in 2018, Kieran Dickson awarded the episode the number 1 spot on his Top 10 episodes of Stargate SG-1. The shows creators and cast have criticised and gone onto parody some of the dialog from