ORBzine - 1999.08 Television Review

[Season 3, Episode 1] Into The Fire
Shown Second Week, September 2001
Shown 4th March 2002 [Monday]

This is the second part of the cliffhanger story from the end of last season. The team are prisoners of Hathor, who wants to use one of them as a host for a new ghoul.

The Tok'Ra get word to General Hammond, who sends every available SG team through for a rescue attempt. Meanwhile, Teel'c escapes to his homeworld and tries to raise an army of Jaffas.

As you can imagine, since this is the first episode of the Season [and the second part of a 2-parter] the budget is well above average for a TV episode. There are big shoot-outs with lots of extras and SPFX - a nice season opener indeed.

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[Season 3, Episode 2] Seth
Shown 16th September 2001
Shown 5th March 2002 [Tuesday]

The Tok'Ra have lost track of a particularly dangerous Ghoul, Seth. He was last seen on Earth, and he may still be there.

The climax is the ATF facing off against a Cult ... Hmm, that sounds familiar. The Cult's compound is north of Seattle, which allows for some nice Canadian scenery.

The best part of the episode is when Teel'c tells a Jaffa joke. Yes, they DO have humour after all!

[Season 3, Episode 3] Fair Game
Shown 23rd September 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 6th March 2002 [Wednesday]

Captain Carter [ Amanda Tapping ] is promoted to Major. The ceremony is interrupted by the Asgard, who teleport O'Neill away. They warn him that the Ghouls are planning a new invasion of Earth. The Asgard fleet is employed in their own galaxy, fighting an enemy worse than the Ghouls. However, they have arranged a peace conference with the Ghouls.

The Ghouls send three System Lords - one Greek, one Indian, one Chinese. O'Neill is assigned as Earth's representative. The treaty offered is one where Earth's technology is subject to limitation, and Earth loses its Stargate.

One of the System Lords is attacked, and there are several suspects - Teel'c, Carter and even the other System Lords!

[Season 3, Episode 4] Legacy
Shown 30th September 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 7th March 2002 [Thursday]

SG-1 discovers the rotting corpses of nine minor ghouls. When they get back to the SGC Daniel begins to hallucinate.

[Season 3, Episode 5] Learning Curve
Shown 7th October 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 8th March 2002 [Friday]

The team are on a world with advanced technology. The locals have managed to increase the society's ability to learn, but the team don't think to ask how [or what the cost is].

The locals assign one of their Learners, an early-teens girl, to instruct Captain Carter in the use of a piece of technology. The team get close to the Learners, which increases the shock factor when they learn how the society works. The Learners have nanites in their brains that absorb the knowledge. At puberty the nanites are removed and re-distributed, but the Learners are left with permanent brain damage.

Jack kidnaps the Learner girl and takes her to school, where she can mix with other kids socially. We are reminded that O'Neill lost his own son, who was a similar age, and doesn't want to go through it again.

[Season 3, Episode 6] Point of View
Shown 14th October 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 11th March 2002 [Monday]

The have visitors from an alternate universe, where Kowalski survived and Samantha Carter is Jack O'Neill's widow.

The team manage to get into the alternate universe, and take on that universe's Apophis and Teel'c. They are blatantly eeevil - they wear goatee beards!

[Season 3, Episode 7] Deadman Switch
Shown 21st October 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 12th March 2002 [Tuesday]

SG-1 are captured by an armoured bounty-hunter, a Boba Fett type [but without the rocket-pack].

[Season 3, Episode 8] Demons
Shown 28th October 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 13th March 2002 [Wednesday]

SG-1 arrives on a medieval-looking world that has somehow got Christian religion. The people are held in terror by a beast called the Unas, which serves the ghoul Sokas. We learn from Simon the Monk that Sokas calls himself Satan, and demands that humans be handed over to him as sacrifice. The locals use this as an excuse to get rid of anyone who they don't like.

The local religious leader, the Canon, uses hi-tech weaponry to capture SG-1. He subjects Teel'c to the standard witchfinder tests ... A pity the good guys can't manage to defeat the remarkably flimsy restraints. They don't even try, although brute force would undoubtedly work.

[Season 3, Episode 9] Rules of Engagement
Shown 4th November 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 14th March 2002 [Thursday]

SG-1 meet a strange new team, SG-X. And since no such team work for General Hammond, they know that something is wrong. Well, they should.

The plot appears to be some kind of Gun Control metaphor. Strange nobody in SG-1 volunteers to go gun-less.

[Season 3, Episode 10] Forever In A Day
Shown 11th November 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 15th March 2002 [Friday]

SG-1 tracks down Sha'uri, Daniel's Ghoul-possessed wife. There is a huge pitched battle with the Serpent Guards, while Daniel tries to reason with his woman. Teel'c has to intervene to save his friend ...

Back in Cheyenne Mountain, Daniel decides to quit the team. However, he has visions of his wife ...

[Season 3, Episode 11] Past And Present
Shown 18th November 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 18th March 2002 [Monday]

The SG-1 team arrive on a world where everyone has amnesia. They can all somehow remember how to speak the English language, however. Pictures of the peoples' elders have been found, but there is no sign of the elders themselves. Neither are there any children - or any photos of the children.

It appears that the collective amnesia was caused by the Destroyer of Worlds, whom SG-1 released from the Dante prison-colony.

Daniel gets on rather well with the planet's female Minister of Health. He mentions to her that he recently lost his wife, which dates this episode to just after Forever In A Day. Unfortunately, in TV shows this kind of romance is always doomed - but the writers go a nice way about it.

[Season 3, Episode 12] Jolinar's Memories
Shown 25th November 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 19th March 2002 [Tuesday]

Sam Carter's father has been captured by the Ghoul Sokas and taken to his prison planet. Sam has Jolinar's memories, and since Jolinar had actually managed to escape from there she is the one with the best chance of succeeding in the rescue attempt. SG-1 and the Tok'Ra representative tag along as well.

The episode ends with a cliffhanger and the reappearance of an old enemy long believed dead.

[Season 3, Episode 13] The Devil You Know
Shown 2nd December 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 20th March 2002 [Wednesday]

SG-1 are interrogated by their old enemy, who uses a halucinogen on them and forces them to relive traumatic memories.

Teel'c gets back to the Tok'Ra, who decide to destroy the planet to kill So'Kar instead of trying to rescue SG-1!

Meanwhile, the old enemy plots to overthrow So'Kar.

[Season 3, Episode 14] Foothold
Shown 9th December 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 21st March 2002 [Thursday]

SG-1 arrive back from a mission, and Dr Frasier gives them sedative injections. Yes, something strange is afoot in the SGC.

Teel'c and Carter are taken off to the cells, as apparently the Ghoul proteins in their bloodstream render them immune to the aliens' sedatives. Carter escapes from the SGC, and calls for help from one person she usually would never trust - Colonel Maybourne of the NID!

Can Carter trust him? Has the SGC really been taken over by aliens, or is Carter merely suffering from halucinations brought on by a dangerous chemical spill?

[Season 3, Episode 15] Pretense
Shown 6th January 2002 [Sunday]
Shown 22nd March 2002 [Friday]

SG-1 are summoned to the Tollan homeworld. O'Neill's surrogate son, taken over by a Ghoul in the Pilot episode, is a prisoner of the Tollan. Now he is on trial.

SG-1 must argue the case that the boy has the right to his own body. A Ghoul lawyer argues that the Ghoul parasite should be allowed the body. A neutral party, a Nox babe [happy, smiley, birds-nest hair], must be allowed to decide the boy's fate.

Can the Ghouls be trusted to keep their part of the bargain? Will there be an exciting shoot-out at the climax of the show?

[Season 3, Episode 16] Urgo
Shown 13th January 2002 [Sunday]
Shown 25th March 2002 [Monday]

SG-1 travel through the Stargate to a paradise world. They step through the gate and instantly find that they have returned to the SGC. Despite having 15 hours of missing time, and physiological changes [such as an addiction to steaming-hot coffee] they are not immediately quarantined.

SG-1 discover that they have been implanted with a cybernetic personality named Urgo [Dom Deluise] who has all the irritating comic-relief attributes of Neelix! Only they can see him, and an operation to surgically remove the chips will result in permanent brain-damage.

[Season 3, Episode 17] A Hundred Days
Shown 20th January 2002 [Sunday]
Shown 26th March 2002 [Tuesday]

SG-1 are on an away mission to a lo-tech human civilisation. The human village is bombarded by meterorites, so SG-1 try to evacuate the villagers back to the SGC.

Unfortunately a meteor buries the Stargate before O'Neill can get through. He has to face the future and prepare to spend the rest of his life there.

[Season 3, Episode 18] Shades Of Grey
Shown 27th January 2002 [Sunday]
Shown 27th March 2002 [Wednesday]

SG-1's negotiations with the Tollan break down because the Tollan's Prime Directive forbids them from giving technology to Earth. O'Neill decides to steal a Tollan weapons-neutraliser. Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing that SG-1 stopped the NID team from doing.

O'Neill is forced to take early retirement by Hammond. With O'Neill's prior record of insubordination, this is the straw that broke the camel's back.

Now that O'Neill, Earth's foremost expert in off-world expeditions, is unemployed he is headhunted by Mayborn and the NID!

[Season 3, Episode 19] New Grand
Shown 3rd February 2002 [Sunday]
Shown 28th March 2002 [Thursday]

The SGC computer's cold-calling system discovers a world where archaeologists recently uncovered their Stargate. SG-1 travel through, but discover the planet is scene of a religious war. The locals believe that a Ghoul created human life on their world, and are keen to cover up the existence of the Stargate.

Teel'c escapes, but is blinded. The others are kept in electrified tiger-cages.

[Season 3, Episode 20] Maternal Instinct
Shown 10th February 2002 [Sunday]
Shown 29th March 2002 [Friday]

Apophis is on the warpath, massacring Jaffa who formerly served him. Breytag and Teel'c realise that he must be after his son.

SG-1 work out what planet the boy is hidden on. They try to get there before Apophis' forces do. However, they discover that the planet has defences of its own.

The team discover a temple, and a Buddhist monk who teaches Daniel the power of mind over matter. There is also a female alien, who appears at the end of Season 5.

[Season 3, Episode 21] Crystal Skull
Shown 17th February 2002 [Sunday]
Shown 1st April 2002 [Monday]

The team travel to another world, and discover a human skull carved out of solid crystal. The skull zaps Daniel - not only does he become invisible, nobody can hear him and he can walk through solid objects.

Daniel's only hope is his Grandfather, who discovered a similar skull in Belize in 1971 and is now in a home for the Mentally Disturbed.

[Season 3, Episode 22] Nemesis
Shown 24th February 2002 [Sunday]
Shown 2nd April 2002 [Tuesday]

Thor of the Asgard summons Jack O'Neill. Thor's ship has been overrun by robotic spiders known as Replicators. They have aimed the ship towards Earth, and plan to invade ...

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