“Deadman Switch” ( 3 x 07 )

I have completed my word count goal for this day and now it’s time to do a little bit of catch-up with my Stargate! So, without further ado, “Deadman Switch”. Can’t wait to see what it brings us.

Oh, by the way, the Crimson Tide… just got rolled by LSU. And now my roommate is happy. JUST SO YOU ALL KNOW.

We start off in a forest (hey, this looks just like the forest on Chulak… and the one on Cimmeria… and the one on… Hm… Nah, just a coincidence) where they find this bizarre red force field… which has successfully boxed them in. A guy who looks straight out of Halo steps up and introduces himself to them (with them at gunpoint, of course) as Aris Boch. Apparently he’s a pretty famous bounty hunter… but one who not even Teal’c has heard of. And Teal’c’s heard of everyone, and if he hasn’t, then Jackson has. Anyhow, he knows them, of course, but that’s because the bad guys usually do.

But is he a bad guy? I guess we’ll find out.

He’s got a good sense of English colloquialisms (hm… that’s interesting… is he from Earth?) but really it just makes me not take him very seriously. He seems better suited to something like Spaceballs, but that’s just my first impression.

Boch tells them he’s deactivated the Stargate, and takes them prisoner in a cloaked Goa’uld vessel. (ROMULANS! Oh, wait, wrong series.) Inside a holding cell, Carter confirms that Boch is not a Goa’uld (okay… that’s good) but also that even if they did manage to rig up the ship, it would take them about a decade just to get back.

Boch returns and takes off his helmet, and yup, he looks pretty human. He’s been wounded and orders Carter to patch him up. What I’m wondering is how he got injured/who injured him, but I guess we won’t find that out. What we do find out is that he’s hunting a Goa’uld named Keltar, but neither Jackson nor Teal’c have heard of him.

Hm… This guy’s kind of sketchy. Besides that, it sounds like he’s working for that Sokar guy. (Not Spock’s grandfather. That’s Solkar.)

We do get a funny scene as he’s telling them each the bounty on their head, and to O’Neill he says,

“You, well, you’re a pain in the mikta.”

Jack: (Looking at Teal’c) “‘Neck’?”

Teal’c: “…No.”

However, Boch says that if they help him capture this Goa’uld, he’ll let them all go free. To be honest, he kind of reminds me of a Ferengi without the lobes. He’s a scumbag but he’ll keep his word in a business deal.

Boch takes Jackson and O’Neill into the forest and says that they are to turn themselves over to the Goa’uld. He hands O’Neill a Zat’nik’atel … and then O’Neill shoots him, but moments later he looks over and smirks.

Oh man. I hate it when the bad guys smirk. That’s never a good sign.

The two escape back to the ship, but they can’t get Teal’c and Carter out of the holding cell, and when they try to get the main console, they find… a self-destruct mechanism. Fun.

Teal’c tries to talk them through disarming it, but they figure out that only Boch has the way to disarm it. He comes  back and does, but we then discover that the Zat guns don’t work on him. Well, that’s just great.

This time Boch takes all of them into the forest with him. Here we find out that he’s not human, and that something in his now-almost-exctinct race’s genetic makeup rejects the Goa’uld symbiote. He gives them a sob story about his dead wife and enslaved son, and something tells me Teal’c’s going to tend to sympathize with him a little there. We’ll see how legit he is, though.

Jackson, Teal’c, and O’Neill go to seek out this Goa’uld while Boch keeps Carter hostage. They approach the Goa’uld… who’s not a Goa’uld. Oh dang. That can only mean…

…HE’S A TOK’RA!

Also, his name is Korra. Looks like Boch gave them false in-for-ma-tion..!

He’s severely injured, but he’s conscious. He explains to them that Carter would be able to identify him as a Tok’ra, and also that he was a spy in Sokar’s ranks. So obviously all that’s why Sokar wants his head.

Carter tries to talk to Boch about their goal of defeating the Goa’uld, but he’s adamant in his position. Also, he seems addicted to this thing he keeps drinking. Hm… why do I keep getting images of Jem’Hadar and Ketracel-White?

Korra tells SG-1 that Boch’s story is primarily a lie (particularly about his “wife and son”), but he is addicted to a substance called roshna. Without it, he’d die. (Knew it!)

The four go into the forest where they find Carter lying unconscious, but Boch is nowhere in sight. He wakes her up… and then the ship shows up.

Well, this is just fan-tas-mi-tastic.

They’ve all been taking prisoner again but Aris Boch is ready to take Korra away. In fact, he’s already called up Sokar… but just in time he realizes that, oh, wait, this guy isn’t a Goa’uld, he’s a Tok’ra, for real! Huh! How about that?

And then Teal’c does that heartbreaking thing he always does where he

OFFERS HIMSELF UP IN KORRA’S PLACE.

(God, Teal’c, WHY?! Why do you always have to do this?!)

Okay, I know that nothing’s actually going to happen to Teal’c, since he’s part of the main cast and all, but at the same time it’s still sad that he’s willing to do this. Is this going to be a two-parter? Maybe… this could get interesting.

Oh, BOY, and then it does!

After Teal’c tells Aris Boch, “I would rather serve with those willing to die trying,” (gotta love that guy), the ship… BLOWS UP!?

What?!

But-!

Oh, wait, I see two escape pods! That’s a good sign!

Indeed, Aris Boch and Teal’c are okay! He bids them farewell, hoping that one day they’ll meet again under better circumstances, and everyone’s a better person. And Teal’c is alive and lovable, and that’s all that matters.

Final thoughts… Good episode! Somehow, I just really dug it. Mainly because of that ending. You know that part in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where Harry is lying on the ground after going through his whole limbo-thing with Dumbledore, and Narcissa Malfoy approaches him, sees he’s alive, and asks if her son is alive? And when he answers that Draco is, she lies to Voldemort and tells him Harry’s dead (thus actually sparing him)? That’s what this reminds me of. At a split-second, Aris Boch realizes what the right path is, and he takes it. It’s pretty fantastic. But Teal’c just has that effect on people. Not that I’m equating him to Harry, of course… Teal’c is far more awesome.

But anyways! It was interesting to see the other ways that the Goa’uld have found to enslave other races. Yes, we’ve got the Jaffa, enslaved by the larval Goa’uld, and of course the humans that host them, but the chemical dependency is very Deep Space Nine-esque. Well, I’m sure it’s popped up in other sci-fis, but the whole getting-them-addicted-to-keep-them-subservient is tried and true even in our own world’s history. Just look at the workers who were kept addicted to opium to keep them working. It’s nothing new, and it that sense it almost makes it even more powerful as a plot device.

All in all I really liked Aris Boch. He’s kind of corny at first glance but he turns out to be an interesting character. He’s not a bad guy. He’s a liar, a schemer, and a conspirator, but in some ways he’s no less worse than the Jaffa under the Goa’uld’s various rules… (Okay, maybe a little bit worse.) I’d say he’s very much a Ferengi… without the lobes!

(If you really want to see what I mean, check out the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Business as Usual” (5x18). It’s pretty close, plot-wise. Gotta love it.)

It’s good as a stand-alone. Always nice to see!

PREDICTION/REFLECTION THINGY

(The crew notices something…)

O’Neill: Hey, has anyone noticed that this writer is kind of biased towards Teal’c?

Carter: I don’t know, she gets a kick out of you.

Jackson: She’s pretty nice to the rest of us.

Teal’c: I would go so far as to say her favourite among us all is Master Bra’tac.

O’Neill: Hm… true that.

Jackson: It’s a bit of an understatement! She has replaced the word ‘awesome’ with his name!

O’Neill: You’ve got to admit, he’s pretty cool.

Teal’c: I would agree.

Carter: Of course you would! He beat you up upon your first meeting and taught you!

Marie: (She’s just grinning madly in the background...)