Stargate SG-1: Need
January 29, 2025 3:54 PM - Season 2, Episode 5 - Subscribe

When Jack and his team explore an unknown planet and Daniel saves Princess Shyla's life, they are captured by the Goa'uld and have to work in the naquadah mines. Daniel learns Goa'uld secrets from an alien princess.

On a planet, SG-1 are captured and sent as slaves to work in the local mine. As Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Samantha Carter and Teal'c try to devise an escape plan, Dr. Daniel Jackson meets the alien princess who introduces him to the Sarcophagus, which has negative effects on his personality.
posted by Carillon (2 comments total)
 
I appreciate Michael Shank's work here to show Daniel Jackson morphing from concerned about his friends, but also curious about the world and the process, to being fully consumed by the device. I am curious how long they are supposed to have spent on this planet though. Are we talking, days, weeks, or months? I know they address why there's no rescue team, but still interesting to know how long it takes for the sarcophagus to work evil.
posted by Carillon at 3:56 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]


The question of timing is a good one. My feeling is that they were there maybe a few weeks but not too much more, if only because over too long a period and as the story implied, Jack, Teal'c, and Carter would have perished from the slave labor in the mine. I also think SGC would have wanted more information for an unplanned prolonged mission it was turning into, and likely, wanted a report from Jack as the military lead of the team.

Clearly, the sarcophagus' effects were happening at a much faster rate because the Princess was having Daniel spend daily, if not entire night time sessions in the machine. One would suppose that there must be a base line where one's morality just kind of ended or something, or the king would have been much more of a tyrant in his old age. One question I had was whether the princess was also the subject to multiple sessions in the sarcophagus and was also hundreds of years old or if her father just had her late in life....extremely late in life. I wonder what happened to the Queen other than "dead" so to speak. Did she run afoul of her husband's wicked temper?

I thought using the Sarcophagus as a potential rationale for why the goa'uld are evil was great. It's not just a miracle machine that saves our heroes or others, but something that has a price to its usage. I have to admit, though, when the Princess destroyed it, I thought, "But using it once to save someone from dying, or who had cancer, or something probably isn't a terrible thing?" Jolinar back again to help out the team. Favorite line of the episode may have been Jack's to Daniel, "You're a hard guy to kill." (or something along those lines).

It's always a little awkward where you see actors have to really bring it for pretty intensive moments, such as Daniel's recovery at SGC. It just pops up without any sort of lead in, such as maybe a ongoing story line of dependency, and then once you call cut on the final shot, we move on. I think Shanks did a pretty great job overall in the episode.
posted by Atreides at 6:52 AM on January 30


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