First of all, I would like to open up this blog saying “thank you” to everyone over at The Rush Forum and Gateworld, respectively, who have followed this and either given me hits or even left a comment! Your feedback is my motivation and it warms my heart every time I see the hit counter go up at the bottom of my blog. It’s up to 375 at the time of this writing! Whoo-hoo!
A special thanks to Seaboe, my largely anonymous commenter here on Blogspot. You’ve been helpful in clarifying a few things and I’ll try to keep those in mind so you don’t have to keep correcting me!
That said, let’s get a move on with what you’re all here for. I know I made my Star Trek funny last blog, but to be honest, I have no idea what to expect. So let’s just watch and see.
The scene opens up to the glistening Stargate and a very modern-looking lab of sorts, on the planet they have designated PX3-989. In fact, both Carter and Teal’c think that this must be a place far more advanced than Earth. It’s quite different from the usual “landing into a random pasture/field/landscape” that they usually do when they step out.
Carter makes the (fatal) mistake of flipping a switch (God! you never flip a switch in a weird place! you never know what could happen!) and just as they start to move out, they are all zapped by some kind of electrical wave and fall to the ground.
They wake up eventually and seem to be unharmed. However, they are changed into different outfits now. (Always freaks me out when that happens.) The transmitter, of course, is gone.
They are greeted very warmly by a short, balding man with an almost unnervingly cheerful face. O’Neill cuts straight to the chase and asks why they were attacked. He seems slightly regretful that it had to be done, but cheerfully informs SG-1 that their weapons and uniforms are gone. He then introduces himself as Harlan, the “last survivor of Altair”.
Yeah, as usual, I have a bad feeling about this.
He tells them that they are underground, because on the surface, the radiation is bad. (Some kind of nuclear fallout or warfare?) What’s more, the complex was built, according to Harlan…
…11,000 years ago.
But that’s not the only surprising thing. Even the crew seems to be performing at a higher mental capacity. Harlan, indeed, says, “I have made you all… better!” He just can’t explain how.
Something tells me he’s expecting them to hang around here for a long while.
When they go to the Stargate and leave, he shouts that they cannot leave, that they will be back, and I’ve a strong feeling they will be back, because something will go terribly wrong.
Back on base, Fraiser finds out that he no longer has a pulse… and he no longer has blood. Teal’c no longer has a Goa’uld larva. O’Neill at last takes a scalpel and tears open his arm, and sees… machinery.
Fraiser and even Hammond are convinced that each of the crew are not who they say they are, and they are all taken into custody.
In the holding cell, Carter and O’Neill argue about what just happened, but Teal’c merely paces while Jackson looks on thoughtfully. We find out that Teal’c still feels the Goa’uld’s presence despite the fact that it is no longer there. Could it have been somehow transformed into part of his, now literally, body’s engineering? Carter at last resolves that, since they are clearly not going to be trusted by their own people, they’ll have to return to PX3-989.
Just as they try to explain the situation to Hammond, they all collapse again, and whether or not they’re truly trusted, he does send them back through the gate. Carter figures out that their energy source must be here on the planet. Harlan is less than warmly greeted in return when he tells them that there’s no way to get back into their original bodies.
…Which has got to be a lie. They always make it back into their original bodies/alive by the end of the episode.
He leaves them in a room, and as O’Neill goes off after Harlan, he seems extremely upset that he’s lost his humanity, as it were. Jackson seems much more accepting of the circumstances. The way he sees it, they’re no different. The human body was just a machine; a “vessel for the consciousness”. Maybe this really is “better”.
Except, of course, that they’re trapped on this planet with a guy who’s way too happy all the time.
Teal’c seems almost as upset, for his own reasons, and leaves as well. Jackson and Carter go after him, and he seems to be in a state of extreme stress. He ducks behind a corner and starts convulsing violently.
I swear, this has got to have something to do with the loss of his Goa’uld! The effects could be catastrophic! It’s now that I realize that while Carter, Jackson, and O’Neill might be okay, they’re human. Harlan himself didn’t recognize Teal’c as a Jaffa. What if something went terribly wrong?
Harlan tells them that many others died, too, after the transformations, primarily because of being away from the power source.
…And then the power source starts to fail. Right on cue.
They all rush out to go fix the system, Harlan at the computer, testing their new mental and physical capacities in the process.
O’Neill finally finds Teal’c, and then he… attacks him!
Oh man.
He’s completely off his rocker and is even stronger than O’Neill. He definitely has an intent to kill.
…And then Harlan vaporizes him! But all will be well!? What?! I don’t understand!
Oh, right! Ten seconds!
Carter and Jackson chase after Harlan and find him making (synthesizing, rather) a “new Teal’c”. Yup, there was something wrong with the fact that he had two minds. My guess is he was channeling the consciousness of the Goa’uld for the most part when he had that breakdown. O’Neill eventually gets the confession out of Harlan that their bodies do still exist. And yet, the process is irreversible, according to him.
They find their bodies in a room, and at that moment they realize that they are perfect copies of themselves. Their bodies are still conscious, even. It’s a very awkward meeting; seeing themselves. It’s literally the perfect genetic copy. Not only their bodies, but their minds too.
Human O’Neill and Android O’Neill talk in front of Teal’c’s synthesizing body, and start to argue about “whose” life it really is. O’Neill-two, as I’ll call him, says that O’Neill is welcome to go back without a hard time. He even says that he’ll bury the gate.
They all part at the ‘Gate, wishing each other well, and the organics go back to Earth while the others stay behind to help Harlan maintain the facility.
Final thoughts… I found this episode interesting and with a very nice twist at the end, but overall kind of superfluous to the plot. I’m still trying to figure out what to make of all O’Neill’s rabid raving about humanity vs. machinery and Jackson’s very converse feelings that they’re all just the same… only “better”. Or something.
More than anything I liked the use of perspective. I like how the writers immediately changed perspective to the copies of SG-1 and never went back until the end. I would’ve never guessed that they were actually clones of sorts – android-like clones, anyways. It really kept me guessing and kept me hooked.
It was a decent episode. Primarily plot-driven, but that’s okay. To each writer his or her own.
REFLECTION ON THE LAST EPISODE
The original crew is back at SGC and they talk about what just happened.
O’Neill: Man, can you believe that? We just met ourselves.
Jackson: Yeah, and more than just carbon copies. That was pretty incredible technology.
O’Neill: I seemed pretty upset, didn’t I?
Carter: Kind of did seem that way.
Teal’c: I must apologize for attempting to strangle you, O’Neill.
O’Neill: Eh, don’t worry about it. It wasn’t really you. As far as I’m concerned, we all just woke up from a pretty long nap, and our copies suffered a pretty horrible nightmare.
Carter: Do you think they’ll – we’ll – be okay?
Jackson: I sure hope so. Our sense of pronouns, though… that could take some adjustment.
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