It’s a classic bit of "Stargate SG-1" dialogue.

"That’s the bright side?" sighs Dr. Elizabeth Weir (Torri Higginson), who’s discussing the finer points of some of Earth’s interstellar adversaries with scientist Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks).

"Mmm, more of a slightly less dark side," answers Jackson dryly.

In the world of "Stargate SG-1," which has its satisfying Season Eight premiere at 8 p.m. Friday on the Sci Fi Channel, saving the universe doesn’t mean you have to be a humorless techno-babbler.

But you do have to be able to tell which outer space race is which. Over the course of seven seasons, Earth’s alien friends and foes have multiplied like Tribbles, and you might want a dance card to keep "Stargate’s" main players straight:

Dance Partner 1: Goa’uld. Bad dudes who destroy and enslave entire planets. Avoid if possible.

Dance Partner 2: Replicators (the name of the group of characters as published has been corrected here and in subsequent references in this text). Hungry machines who eat everything in sight in order to make more of themselves. Gee, they sound almost human.

Dance Partner 3: Asgard. They look like the big-eyed gray aliens of Whitley Strieber’s worst nightmare, but the fighting technique of these little guys is almost unstoppable.

All three dance partners take different members of the "SG-1" team for spins in the show’s eventful two-hour premiere (Jackson and Weir’s boardroom meeting with some squirrelly Goa’uld is slightly less eventful — one gets the impression that all parties would rather be chasing one another through the galaxy at hyperspeed).

Well, at least Jackson and Weir are having more fun than SG-1’s leader, Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), who spends the first half of the premiere immobilized, Han Solo-style, in a chunk of ice. Curse you, alien freezing technology!

Well, never mind. The other members of the team have plenty to do while O’Neill imitates an ice cube. Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), the team’s resident scientist, tries to hunt down the replicators, only to be kidnapped by a compellingly creepy, human-looking replicator who has a huge crush on her.

Human-replicator love stories. Have those ever worked out?

But the two-hour season premiere of "SG-1" — and, hey, did we mention it’s the No. 1 original series on basic cable for adults 25-44? — raises even bigger questions.

For one thing, it is immediately apparent that the formerly bald alien on the "Stargate" team, Teal’c (Christopher Judge), who spends the episode running around helping Jackson and O’Neill kick some replicator behind, has suddenly grown hair. How did this happen?

"It was the culmination of seven seasons of begging," laughs the very un-Teal’c-like Judge in a phone call from the show’s Vancouver set.

But typical of the show, the alien’s new ’do barely rates a mention, and Judge plays his hair moment with typical wry understatement.

Wry overstatement is the domain of O’Neill, who, when he finally defrosts, does so much heroic stuff that he gets a big promotion.

"I’ve spent my whole life sticking it to the man. . . . I don’t think I can be the man," O’Neill says. "I don’t even have a desk."

"For the record, sir, you do have a desk," Carter deadpans.

Well, is it any wonder O’Neill never got a chance to use it? He running around saving the world — no, the universe — every three minutes.

But he won’t be any longer. This season, the team is going to be spending more time on Earth and less time going through the secret "star gate" that enables split-second interstellar travel (avid "Gaters" who miss that kind of thing can check out the spinoff "Stargate Atlantis," which premieres July 16 on Sci Fi).

Teal’c, Jackson and Carter will be trying to stop leaks about the hush-hush Stargate program from, er, leaking, and they’ll also be getting lives. Carter’s new boyfriend is still on the scene, and as if growing hair weren’t enough, Teal’c also — egad! — gets his own apartment.

O’Neill, on the other hand, finally sits behind a desk as the commander of the entire "Stargate" program.

And he hates it.

"That’s part of what we’ll be able to play with, that O’Neill’s frustrated," says Anderson, who indicates this season may be his last on "SG-1." "He’d rather be on the front lines and obviously he’s much better suited to that position. Putting him behind a desk is just so much torture."

Well, in his time, O’Neill has endured worse at the hands of those nasty Goa’uld. And, hey, Teal’c had to shave his head.