Stargate SG-1: There But for the Grace of God

Episode 20 (There But for the Grace of God) continues the run of good episodes. It's one of those concepts that every sci-fi show gets to eventually, but it's pretty much always fun and usually serves a worthwhile purpose - and this is no exception.

This is not a place of honor.

SG-1 arrive on a new planet where they quickly discover a symbol which Teal'c identifies as a Goa'uld warning - the planet has been the target of a Goa'uld weapon that has left it radioactive. Jack immediately orders everyone back through the gate, but not before Daniel has time to find some alien tech and, like the fucking idiot he is, stick his hand in it.

First rule of mysterious substances: Don't stick your hand in it.

He then turns around to leave only to find the other three missing. So he just assumes they left without him - which I'm pretty sure is not a thing they would ever do - and "follows" them back to Earth. But when he gets there, no one seems too pleased to see him. In fact, they don't know him at all.

Uh, hi?

Of course, Daniel has found his way to a parallel universe. Hammond is a colonel, Jack's a general, Sam's a civilian, Daniel never joined the Abydos mission, and Teal'c never defected to Earth, and Catherine is still involved in the project. Also, without Daniel to stop them, the military went ahead and nuked Abydos, provoking the Goa'uld into all-out war.

Also Sam has long hair.

The situation's pretty grim. In fact, the Earth is basically fucked. Goa'uld ships are systematically destroying every city on the planet and SGC is at the "evacuate our best and brightest to some remote planet" phase. This is made difficult, however, by the Goa'uld constanmtly dialling in to Earth to tie up the stargate. Either this SGC never found the other one  in Antarctica or there's some reason it can't be used - honestly who really knows how that works.

Daniel sort of gains Catherine's and Jack's trust by revealing information about them that corroborates his story, but for most of the episode people are just sort of trying to get on with what they're doing and he's getting in the way. But he does provide them with the gate address for Chulak, which of course they immediately nuke. Seriously, Daniel, what did you think was going to happen?

And then a Goa'uld ship lands on top of them. Clearly they intend to secure the stargate, which is fortunate, because their weapons could apparently level the entire mountain and destroy the complex in one hit. And of course the invaders are being led by Teal'c.

Lucky the mountain's the exact right shape and size.

Meanwhile, Sam and Catherine show Daniel a transmission they've received and which he is able to translate - a rare instance of Daniel actually being useful - that seems to be the gate address of either the Goa'uld home world or perhaps a military base. Either way it's going to be useful if Daniel can manage to get it back to his own world.

The crossed out bit is a nice touch.

But to have any chance of that they need to buy some time. The Goa'uld have the stargate tied up, and it looks like Teal'c and his team are going to have the place overrun before the wormhole disengages and allows them to dial out. Daniel somehow manages to convince Jack that he might be able to convince Teal'c to defect even at this stage, and Jack goes to make the attempt - bringing with him the video Daniel took of the "real" SG-1 arriving on the planet from the beginning of the episode. Teal'c's not convinced, but he is distracted for just long enough.

Also Teal'c has ridiculous hair.

And as Daniel makes his escape, everyone else dies heroically. Even civilian-Sam takes out a room full of Jaffa by blowing them (and herself) up with a grenade. Hammond and Harriman go down fighting, and Catherine just manages to get the blast doors down to protect Daniel's retreat before the Jaffa kill her. But he gets out alive and with the gate address from the message, and touches the mirror again, returning him to his own universe.

Boom.

Like I said, good episode. Strong similarities to certain episodes of TNG, Farscape, etc. but that's not a criticism. And it sets up the two-part finale really well. We've had very little sense so far of the kind of threat the Goa'uld actually pose to Earth; Teal'c mentioned that they could attack with ships if they couldn't get through the gate, but we didn't really know what that would look like. Now we do. We also, finally, have some information for the team to use to take the fight to the Goa'uld instead of just blundering around at random as they have been. It's taken a while, but the series finally feels like it's got some direction.

Seriously, look at that hair.

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