Stargate SG-1: Hathor

Episode 14 (Hathor) is real dumb, but also pretty essential. There are some great ideas here, but the execution is just, well, dumb.

Pyramid? Ziggurat? Whatever.

The episode opens with a team of archaeologists exploring a Mayan pyramid where they find an apparently Egyptian sarcophagus. One of them somehow immediately remembers reading an article Daniel Jackson had written - and remember, Daniel is widely regarded as a crazy idiot who no one pays attention to - and recognises a symbol signifying the Egyptian goddess Hathor - even though he's an expert in Mayan civilisation, not Egyptian - which he presses, opening the sarcophagus. And Hathor pops out.

Also the inside of it is glowing for some reason.

She demands to know where Ra is, and receiving no satisfactory answer she kills the archaeologists and leaves. This just makes me wonder, why have them bring up Daniel Jackson if they're about to die? If they brought the sarcophagus to him that would be some justification, but since they don't it adds nothing. It just stands out as weird that they know of him.

But the sarcophagus does get sent to Daniel who brings it to SGC, where it gets stored in the gate room for some reason. The team recognise it as being the same as a device they saw Ra use to bring dead people back to life, but before they can decide what to do with it Hathor shows up.

Yeah, this seems like a good place to store this.

Despite the fact that she claims to be an ancient Egyptian god and somehow knows the stargate is there (and calls it by its Goa'uld name, "the chappa'ai"), they draw no connection between her appearance and the sarcophagus and just assume she's a crazy person. This allows her the opportunity to breathe some weird pink mist onto Daniel's hand that makes him obedient to her. Then she does the same to Hammond.

Isn't this one of Sonya's abilities in Mortal Kombat?

She asks Daniel about Ra (her husband) and he tells her that they killed him. Surprisingly, she's pretty happy about that and declares that Daniel shall be her new "beloved". Then she kisses him and blows more pink mist into his mouth and nose, and tells him how she's an enemy of Ra and was trying to save the people of Earth from being enslaved by him. He passes the message on to Hammond, who immediately accepts it.

They must have really liked this effect because they use it a lot.

She then breathes her mist on Jack and Teal'c. Sam is highly dubious of her, but is overruled by Hammond and O'Neill, and Hathor is basically given the run of the place. She has Daniel show her to the gate room, where she explains that she's a sort of Goa'uld "queen" - queen in the same sense as an insect queen, mother to the whole colony or hive. It's really handy that she's explaining this for us, because there's no good reason for her to do so.

Oh, have you had the tour yet? Let me show you the gate room.

She also explains that she needs human DNA to create Goa'uld larvae to be implanted in human hosts, and that means she's got to have sex with Daniel. Which is an interesting idea but raises a few questions about how they managed to create human-compatible Goa'uld to begin with.

Meanwhile, Carter and Dr Fraiser do some research and discover a website that says that basically all "sex goddesses" are the same person (ie. Hathor). They discover that these goddesses were able to control men - and only men - and theorise that she's using some sort of unknown "chemical" to control the men of SGC. So they decide to kill her.

The Internet™. Hey, remember Netscape?

They quickly recruit the four other women who work there, and Teal'c, who turns out to be immune thanks to his own Goa'uld. They arm themselves and go to Hathor's room, where they find Daniel in a sort of post-coital daze. They leave him behind and continue their search, eventually finding Hathor taking a bath in some weird room that I don't know what it is or why it's part of the base.

Seriously, what is this room?

Before they can kill her though, a bunch of men (including Hammond and O'Neill) come out and form a wall of human shields to protect her. So the women surrender and are locked up. Fortunately Carter's venting about the institutional sexism of the military inspires Fraiser to come up with the idea of seducing their way out. It's the dumbest fucking thing and I can't even. At least Carter disapproves of the plan, even if she does end up going along with it.

Meanwhile, Jack goes to have a chat with Hathor, and she uses a glowing thing on her stomach to make him a Jaffa. She then puts him in the bath so a Goa'uld can get all up in him. I couldn't help wondering as I watched this episode, how did she expect this to go down? We know from Teal'c that Jaffa are immune to her mind control, so if she did manage to turn Jack into one he'd immediately go back to normal. Did she forget he was only helping her because of the mind control?

Fortunately Carter, Fraiser, Teal'c and the rest of the women show up and get him out of there before any of the Goa'uld larvae get in him, and Fraiser sticks her hand in his Goa'uld pouch to make sure. This does leave them with the problem that he no longer has a functioning immune system, however. Fortunately they've still got the sarcophagus, which they use to fix him.

Wasn't that light orange before?

So he comes good (and is also no longer under Hathor's control), but then there's a bit of a fight and the sarcophagus is damaged and explodes. Because obviously it's way too useful for them to be able to keep it at this stage, even just long enough to get rid of Teal'c's Gao'uld. And Jack knows about some tranquilliser guns that they've got stored away somewhere, so they go get them and use them to take out Hathor's remaining guards, and Carter shoots her, which somehow sets fire to her bath and burns up the Goa'uld larvae, because apparently it's also too soon for the humans to get any of them to study.

They weren't even in the flames, they caught fire on the floor somehow.

But somehow Hathor is unharmed and manages to get back to the gate room and dial Chulak (even though she should have no way of knowing how the jury-rigged dialling process works or the addresses of any worlds she could actually get to). And they just sort of let her go rather than trying to stop her.

Well, bye!

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