Category: Season 04

The SGC is on high alert after several unexpected offworld activations. Finally, a message is received from a colony of descendants of human slaves taken from Earth by the Goa’uld, which reveals that with each previous attempt to open the stargate, a volunteer stepped through and fatally slammed into the iris protecting the SGC’s gate. Their leader, Alar, pleads for assistance in his people’s war with an unknown enemy, and General Hammond dispatches SG-1 on a purely humanitarian mission. Alar’s people fight a war by remote control from a besieged underground headquarters, on a world whose surface has been left permanently uninhabitable by the ongoing war. After seeing their remote combat technology in action, and learning about their controlled fusion reactors, O’Neill pledges Earth’s assistance to ensure a technology exchange. What Alar wants from Earth is deuterium-infused heavy water to power both his defenses and offensive weapons. But this raises troubling questions about the war being fought – how did it start, who is the enemy, and is O’Neill getting in over his head?

written by Brad Wright
directed by Peter DeLuise
music by Kevin Kiner

Guest Cast: Rene Auberjonois (Alar), Anne Marie Loder (Farrell), Gary Jones (Sgt. Walter Harriman), Dan Shea (Sgt. Siler), Stephen Park (Controller), Kyle Cassie (Eurondan Soldier), Kris Keeler (Zombie Pilot)

Notes: Guest star Rene Auberjonois is a familiar face to SF TV fans, having spent seven years on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as the shapeshifting security officer Odo prior to this episode.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Two representatives from the Tok’ra arrive, bearing gifts – relics of an extinct race that, according to the Tok’ra’s best minds, should give their wearers superhuman strength. However, due to the Tok’ra’s symbiotes, the irony is that they’re incapable of using the devices. O’Neill, Carter and Daniel are chosen to be the guinea pigs for this experiment, and as the Tok’ra promise, the alien armbands give all three of them superhuman strength and speed and mental agility – but there’s also a price, such as a superhuman appetite and what Dr. Fraiser warns is an unsafely high body temperature. On Fraiser’s advice, General Hammond orders the use of the alien gear discontinued, only to find that O’Neill and the other test subjects are physically unable to remove them. Dr. Fraiser suspects that the Tok’ra knew this would happen, and her suspicions are confirmed – and the Tok’ra now admit that they would like to “borrow” the new and improved SG-1 for a mission to take out Apophis’ powerful new warship, a feat that the Tok’ra have thus far failed to accomplish for themselves.

written by David Rich
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith, Richard Band and Kevin Kiner

Guest Cast: Vanessa Angel (Anise), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Fraiser), Dan Shea (Sgt. Siler), Kristina Copeland (Waitress), Frank Topol (Big Guy), Bill Nikolai (Technician #1), Laara Sadiq (Technician #2), Daniel Melles (SF#1), Tracy Westerholm (SF#2), Fraser Aitcheson (Jaffa Commander), Shawn Reis (Jaffa)

Notes: Guest star Vanessa Angel is best known for starring as Lisa on the TV series based on the movie Weird Science; she was later cast as a warrior princess named Xena in a three-episode stretch of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, but fell ill before the filming dates and was replaced by a New Zealand actress named Lucy Lawless. Daniel deciphers the inscriptions on the alien devices to mean “with great power comes great responsibility” – apparently this alien culture once read The Amazing Spider-Man.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

The gate is activated with Bra’tac’s ID code, but the woman who steps into the SGC is obviously not Bra’tac. She is Shau’nac, an old flame of Teal’c, who claims to have developed the ability to separate her consciousness from that of her symbiote and can use that ability to convince the Goa’uld within her that its agenda is evil. Bra’tac has sent Shau’nac to teach this ability to the Tok’ra so that they may use it against the Goa’uld. At first, General Hammond is suspicious, and the Tok’ra scientist Anise is contacted, so that the Tok’ra can assess the situation without revealing their current base of operations. As she awaits the Tok’ra’s decision, Shau’nac shows Teal’c how to communicate with his symbiote – and urges him to leave SG-1 to help her spread this knowledge among all Jaffa.

written by Katharyn Powers
directed by Peter DeLuise
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Vanessa Angel (Anise), Musetta Vander (Shau’nac), Peter Wingfield (Hebron), Gary Jones (Sgt. Walter Harriman), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Fraiser), Ron Hadler (Cronus), Sean Millington (Ronac)

Notes: Genre fans may remember guest star Peter Wingfield better as Methos, the oldest surviving Immortal from Highlander: The Series.

LogBook entry by Earl Green