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Season 01 SG-1 Stargate

Enigma

Stargate SG-1SG-1 visits the planet Tollan, where volcanic activity has buried that world’s entire civilization beneath ash. Only ten survivors are found in the immediate vicinity of the stargate, and they’re hurriedly brought back to the SGC. When one of the refugees, Omac, recovers from his ordeal, he seems less than grateful to the SG-1 team, referring to them as primitives who shouldn’t even be able to use the Stargate. The Tollan refugees are an advanced human species who are paranoid that the people of Earth only want to enslave them and exploit their advanced scientific knowledge and technology. When Colonel Maybourne from the NID arrives with orders from the President to take the Tollan into custody, however, it seems to confirm all of Omac’s fears – and even when O’Neill tries to contact some of the worlds SG-1 has helped before to ask them to provide a safe refuge, it seems the Tollan are even less interested in seeking asylum from other “primitives” than they are in serving the darker side of U.S. intelligence.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Katharyn Powers
directed by William Gereghty
music by Joel Goldsmith, Richard Band, Kevin Kiner and Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Tobin Bell (Omac), Garwin Sanford (Narim), Tom McBeath (Colonel Maybourne), Gerard Plunkett (Tuplo), Gary Jones (Technician), Frida Betrani (Lya), Tracy Westerholm (Airwoman), Woody Jeffreys (Guard)

Notes: Tuplo and his people first appeared in the episode The Broca Divide.

LogBook entry by Earl Green with notes by Dave Thomer

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Season 01 SG-1 Stargate

Solitudes

Stargate SG-1A power overload during gate travel hurls Daniel and Teal’c through the gate with unusual force, stranding Carter and O’Neill in an ice cave, and O’Neill is critically injured. Carter finds a dial-home device but can’t get its stargate to power up. In the meantime, Daniel and Teal’c join SG-3 in several missions to other worlds, looking for their missing teammates, and finding nothing but trouble along the way. Nobody can figure out where O’Neill and Carter are – and their situation is growing more desperate by the hour. What no one realizes is that they’re closer to home than anyone can imagine – and whether they realize it or not, they’ve made a very important discovery.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Brad Wright
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith, Richard Band and Kevin Kiner

Guest Cast: Gary Jones (Technician), Dan Shea (Sgt. Siler)

Notes: Dan Shea, who makes his first appearance in the recurring role of Sergeant Siler in this episode, plays another important role in Stargate SG-1 – he’s Richard Dean Anderson’s stunt double.

LogBook entry by Earl Green with notes by Dave Thomer

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Season 01 SG-1 Stargate

Tin Man

Stargate SG-1A visit to the planet PX-939 quickly becomes terrifying for SG-1. They are immobilized by an energy discharge near the stargate, awakening later in new uniforms. A man named Harlan claims to have made the team “better,” but when they insist on returning to Earth, Harlan tells them they’ll be back. During the routine post-mission medical exam, Dr. Fraiser discovers that all four of the members of SG-1 now appear to be robotic rather than human, despite having all of their memories intact. General Hammond has SG-1 confined until they begin to malfunction. SG-1 returns through the gate, where Harlan reveals that he, too, is a synthetic – and has been for 11,000 years. He has recreated SG-1 as synthetics to help him in the daunting task of maintaining the planet, and also to keep him company. But even as they learn the advantages and abilities of their new bodies, O’Neill and the others can’t help but wonder…what happened to their organic bodies?

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Jeff King
directed by Jimmy Kaufman
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Jay Brazeau (Harlan), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Fraiser), Dan Shea (O’Neill alternate)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 01 SG-1 Stargate

There But For The Grace Of God

Stargate SG-1When their most recent destination turns out to be a world that has been conquered by the Goa’uld, O’Neill orders SG-1 to make a hasty retreat back to Earth. Daniel’s investigation of some relics at the site is cut short, so he decides to bring some of the pieces back with him. Before he joins the others at the stargate, Daniel notices a mirror that reflects everything in the room – except for him. When he touches it, he experiences a brief energy surge and then runs to meet the rest of the team for the trip home, only to find they’ve already gone. When he returns through the gate himself, no one at the SGC recognizes him, and he is quickly arrested and interrogated. Daniel’s friends and colleagues are all here, but apparently in different roles; Carter, now the SGC’s resident astrophysicist, gives Daniel a clue that the mirror may have transferred him to a different reality. In this reality, the Goa’uld have besieged Earth, killing over a billion people and laying waste to countless major cities; a select handful of scientists, leaders and others are preparing to mount a “genesis” mission to an offworld site via the stargate when the Goa’uld attack the SGC. Daniel has to convince these alternate versions of his teammates to use that last precious window of opportunity to help him return to his own reality – because he must warn his Earth that the same Goa’uld attack could be imminent for them as well.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxstory by David Kemper
teleplay by Robert C. Cooper
directed by David Warry-Smith
music by Joel Goldsmith, Kevin Kiner and Richard Band

Guest Cast: Elizabeth Hoffman (Catherine Langford), Gary Jones (Technician), Stuart O’Connell (Marine), Michael Kopsa (News Anchor), Laara Sadiq (Technician #2), Shawn Stewart (Jaffa)

Notes: Daniel is able to convince Catherine of his story by mentioning her lost fiance Ernest, whom Daniel learned about in The Torment of Tantalus.

LogBook entry by Earl Green with notes by Dave Thomer

Categories
Season 01 SG-1 Stargate

Politics

Stargate SG-1Safely returned from his alternate reality nightmare, Daniel’s attempts to warn the SGC of an impending Goa’uld attack are a hard sell, even where his own teammates are concerned. What his teammates are concerned with is an equally imminent invasion by Senator Kinsey, who has learned of the SGC’s existence – and its annual $7 billion price tag – but still isn’t cleared to know of its purpose. Kinsey’s aim is to shut down the SGC permanently, but the President has told him to interview the SG-1 team before making his decision. The Senator believes that the explorations through the stargate have exposed Earth to unimaginable danger, and that the gate should be closed forever. When Daniel tries to back up SG-1’s defense with the incredible news of the coming Goa’uld attack, it may not help the case for keeping the SGC’s lights on.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxwritten by Brad Wright
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith, Richard Band, Kevin Kiner and Dennis McCarthy

Guest Cast: Ronny Cox (Senator Kinsey), Robert Wisden (Lt. Col. Samuels)

Appearing in footage from Children Of The Gods and The Nox: Peter Williams (Apophis)

Notes: Daniel’s sarcastic reference to “uploading a computer virus to the mothership” is a sly nod toward the 1996 movie Independence Day – which was, of course, the brainchild of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, who also wrote and directed the original Stargate film. Since Devlin and Emmerich have expressed that Stargate SG-1 – and MGM – took the Stargate universe in a direction that they would not have chosen for future movie sequels, it may be that this is the producers’ response to those comments. (Maybe the producers would’ve been on firmer ground to fire that kind of shot if this episode wasn’t a “clip show” consisting largely of excerpts from not just past episodes, but the movie as well.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green with notes by Dave Thomer

Categories
Season 01 SG-1 Stargate

Within The Serpent’s Grasp

Stargate SG-1In the wake of Senator Kinsey’s visit, General Hammond is preparing to shut down the stargate facility. O’Neill is worried that this could leave Earth open to a devastating attack, even though he still isn’t completely sold on Daniel’s story of a Goa’uld attack witnessed in an alternate reality. But despite his misgivings about the specifics of Daniel’s story, O’Neill is unwilling to stand by helplessly. SG-1 embarks on an unauthorized mission, disobeying the orders of both General Hammond and the President. They find themselves not just behind enemy lines, but aboard the gigantic Goa’uld starship which is already underway to launch an attack on Earth. Apophis has sent his own son – actually Daniel and O’Neill’s young friend Skaara, inhabited by a symbiont – to lead the attack, but when Teal’c and O’Neill try to get Skaara to rebel against the creature controlling his mind, SG-1 is quickly exposed. O’Neill and Teal’c are both sentenced to death, and even if they do escape, the Goa’uld ships are mere hours away from a defenseless Earth.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazon's Unboxstory by James Crocker
teleplay by Jonathan Glassner
directed by David Warry-Smith
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Peter Williams (Apophis), Gary Jones (Technician), Alexis Cruz (Skaara), Brent Stait (Maj. Ferretti), Michael Richard Dobson (Jaffa)

Notes: This episode sees the first appearance of the Goa’uld “zat guns.” Daniel learned the coordinates from which the Goa’uld attack would come in There But For The Grace Of God. Skaara was possessed by a Goa’uld in the series pilot Children Of The Gods.

LogBook entry by Earl Green with notes by Dave Thomer