Who has several hours to spare?

[hils]

Ok, after spending one evening this weekend talking about SGA a lot I thought I'd give Season 1 a try

Do I need to have seen SG-1 to understand who everyone is and what's going on? And how long will it be before I want to start writing McShep?

Please feel free to write an essay-like comment explaining the whole Stargate history. I think I saw the first few episodes of SG-1 when it aired on Sky but that was many moons ago before I went to university