“Message in a Bottle” ( 2 x 07 )

Hm… Reminds me of the beginning of that Star Trek: TNG novel, I, Q. With the whole girl-finding-a-message-in-a-bottle thing. But since I don’t think John de Lancie nor Peter David were involved with this, I’ll put my suspicions away and just see what’s going on.

SG-1 is in full-on spacesuits (first time I’ve seen that since the Hazmat suits of “Singularity”) on a planet that’s deserted and looks suspiciously like the moon. They discover some kind of device, a small sphere about the size of a softball, which is emitting E.M. frequencies. Jackson thinks it’s a time capsule of sorts. They decide to pack it up and take it back with them, hoping they can learn something from it.

Back on Earth, they get out of their suits and hook up the sphere. Jackson believes the writing, which can only be viewed zoomed-in, is instructions on how to open the capsule. Unfortunately, the Big Wigs over at N.I.D. want to look at it, too. Hammond will give Carter and Jackson twenty-four hours to try and figure it out, but beyond that, there’s nothing he can do.

Good ol’ General Hammond. Always willing to twist the rules a little to help out the team.

In the lab, Jackson and Carter continue to look at and X-ray the sphere. Just as O’Neill calls them away for their next mission, the sphere begins to rise in temperature – rapidly – and radiation levels. It opens up a bit, revealing a blue light within.

Just as O’Neill and Teal’c are about to throw it back through the Stargate to the original planet, it sprouts these huge spikes, and lodges itself in the ceiling, floor, and… between Jack’s shoulder and heart. It literally has him pinned to the wall. They shut the ‘Gate down, and the temperature stops rising. However, O’Neill is still staked through his shoulder, and he keeps shouting for Teal’c to shoot the object down. He’s got his staff weapon now, and he fires one shot, then another. The energy just keeps getting absorbed, and they’re not sure at all how to get him down.

N.I.D. is once again being pricks and now really wants to see this object, since they think it could one day be a valuable weapon. Of course, the focus here is freeing O’Neill, so Hammond more or less locks down the base

Nothing is getting through the pole keeping him pinned, and he’s contracted an injection. The sphere’s temperature continues to rise, slowly but steadily. Fraiser figures out that his infection has something to do with a virus/bacteria the device is continuously flowing into O’Neill’s body. However, it’s also affecting everything else. It’s indiscriminate – people and computers are all at risk.

In other words, we all seem to be… screwed.

But is Teal’c okay?

He sure is. He’s continued to stand at O’Neill’s side through this whole, terrible ordeal. Even when the Colonel tells him he doesn’t have to stick around, Teal’c, ever-loyal, says,

“Undomesticated equines could not remove me.”

(O’Neill) “Wild horses, Teal’c. It’s… That’s a joke. You told a joke.”

It’s enough to make O’Neill smile, though. In a way it’s also an indication of Teal’c’s further understanding of how to make light of a situation, as O’Neill so often does. It’s really been fascinating to me to see these two men grow in their friendship and the ever-present understanding between them. Ever since the pilot, and I’ll say it again, it’s been these two. They’ve got each other’s backs. In a way, they’re almost like Kirk and Spock… Okay, maybe not that close, but getting there!

Just as a Sergeant is almost through the pole with his welding tool, it shifts again and jams the pole further past O’Neill – and further into the wall. It’s not letting him go anywhere.

Carter figures out that they can starve the sphere of its energy – oxygen – but they need to work quickly. It’s started infecting the computers. Even the elevators are going down. And it gets worse – the lockdown Hammond initiated has a self-destruct countdown, and the virus prevents them from stopping it.

Jackson’s staring down a flickering computer, and he keeps seeing the symbol on the artifact. He thinks it’s trying to communicate with them through the computers. Carter proposes they do the opposite of what they just did – lower the oxygen – and see if they can get better communication. Maybe it’s even trying to use Jack as a vessel.

Oh, man, I hope this works!

Teal’c shoots his weapon at the sphere continuously, and then, even after Carter sees that he has no pulse, O’Neill starts to speak in a somewhat distorted sort of voice. The organism within Jack says that their race created the sphere in order to be taken elsewhere. It also states that, if the auto-destruct goes off, it/they will consume the planet. At the same time, it knows Jack’s thoughts and feelings. They offer to send it through the Stargate to a different planet, one that does not have a civilization yet, so that both species may survive.

The organism lets O’Neill go and restores all the computers, so they start dialing up the Stargate, one minute until the whole place goes ka-boom! O’Neill takes the sphere to the ‘Gate, pushes it through, and collapses. Just in the nick of time, Hammond and Carter stop the destruction. SG-1 helps their leader to his feet, and when Carter says she thought he was gone for good, his final words are these:

“Wild horses, Captain.”

Final thoughts… Okay, as much as I love the interaction between Teal’c and O’Neill, and I always do, this episode seemed… largely pointless. From one standpoint, it’s pretty exciting, with the tried-and-true fighting-against-the-clock idea. I thought the ending was kind of interesting, too, with them finally figuring out that the alien(s) was (were?) merely trying to communicate with them through O’Neill. Even the concept of the entity was kind of neat. And yet, this episode failed to truly captivate me in the larger sense of a plot.

That ending was pretty intense, though, with the auto-destruct ticking down to four minutes, then one minute, and then finally shutting down at the 0:01 mark. Also, if you ever check out (or re-watch, since I do believe most of you fine readers have already seen SG-1 in its entirety) this episode, watch Teal’c’s face at the end. Of course, I believe one should always watch Teal’c’s face, simply because it is nice to look at, but he really has some great expression going on. It’s strangely subtle but there’s never any doubt to Chris Judge’s acting abilities. Just spectacular.

REFLECTION/PREDICTION THINGY

(The crew muses over the recent ordeal in the infirmary.)

O’Neill: Ugh, I feel like crap.

Carter: Uh, yeah, you just had a huge pole impaled in your shoulder and you suffered a massive infection. I’m surprised you don’t feel worse.

Jackson: Hey, guys, why do we keep having these sorts of reflective conversations in the infirmary?

Teal’c: It would seem our team is prone to physical injury.

O’Neill: (Chuckling darkly) You think? In our line of work, I’d say we’re damned lucky to be alive.