Stargate SG-1 Minicaps / Season 6, Eps. 1-4

The Stargate SG-1 Season Six Minicaps had to get some work done and now looks better than ever! You can’t even see the surgery scars!

Stewart here…

Welcome to season six, everyone! So a few things to know before we get this going: things haven’t been going so hot for our heroes. Their comrade, Daniel Jackson, got Ascended, so he’s not going to be joining us (for a while). They got a Bigger Bad in Anubis, a creepy System Lord who’s laying waste to SG-1’s allies. Just last time, the team saved the Asgard, Thor, from Anubis’ clutches, only to have him end up comatose. And they also have an alien, Jonas Quinn, who defected to their side now living in the SGC. This was all three months ago. So let’s check in on things in the SGC…

“Redemption”

As the team is trying to find a replacement for the Ascended Daniel Jackson, they are hit with a duo of problems. The first involves Teal’c having to go home to find his wife dead and his son really upset with him over that. The second happens after Teal’c leaves, when the Stargate is kept on indefinitely by an incoming wormhole by Anubis, but its gaining more power the longer its left on, making it a deadly time bomb. So yeah, what’s there to do?

I’m with you, Teal’c. I miss Daniel Jackson too. Oh wait, you’re crying over your dead wife? Um, yeah, I’m there too.

While Teal’c, his son, and Bra’tac try to stop the Anubis wormhole on their own, the rest of the team and Jonas Quinn from last season try to get the Stargate off the Earth before it explodes. It’s a jam packed double length season opener that works well in setting up a new dynamic for SG-1 with the addition of Quinn as a team member.

–So if you think about it, the Stargate that was blown up here was the second gate found in season one, while the original gate was recovered by the Russians after being lost by our team in the season three finale. But now that the SGC needs a Stargate, they get back from the Russians…the original Stargate they once had. Whew. So that’s a long journey home, huh?

–This marked the first original SG-1 episode to be shown on Sci-Fi Channel, which would be its home for the remainder of its run, and home to its two spinoffs (which, BTW, still debating doing those as Minicaps for this site, so leave your opinions on that in the comments).

–So, when pushed to have Jonas as a team member or a Russian, O’Neill finally goes with Jonas. Hope he likes hanging with an alien Weather Channel junkie.

O’Neill: “Eh, we’ll see.”

–Rya’c ends up being the big hero in destroying Anubis’ Stargate supercharger weapon, even after spending the first half of this two-parter whining about his mom’s death (and literally beating up his dad over it). Nothing like killing Anubis’ Jaffa to mend father/son bonds.

–McKay is back to help out, and all I’ll say about this competitive relationship between him and Carter, if we ever get to Stargate Atlantis, it gets really weird.

–This is also first appearance of the X-302/X-303 hybrid ship/glider, a big addition to the SGC’s arsenal. Of course, the 302 doesn’t have a successful hyperspace launch in Part 1, and gets destroyed with the Stargate in Part 2, but it won’t be the last we see of these new fighters.

–“Y’know, I can be as diplomatic and open-minded as anyone.”

–” ‘Hey, Anubis, this is your agent. You’re playing it way over the top, can you get serious, please?’ ”

–“Oh, please.”

“Descent”

SG-1 discover a Goa’uld mothership from Anubis (the same that Thor took control of in last season’s finale) has arrived over Earth orbit, infected by some virus that Thor left behind. But the supposedly empty ship has a few unhappy stragglers who end up sending the ship and the team into the bottom of the ocean. With water starting to leak into the ship, a rescue attempt is launched to save the team, but something weird is going on. Something’s wrong with the computer itself, like its trying to help them. What is going on?

“So where can I get a forehead tattoo like that done?”

“….”

–Well, if you guessed it, the reason Thor went comatose in the season finale is because his mind ended up downloaded into the ship’s computer. So guess what the team takes with them in their escape to get downloaded into a new Thor clone body?

–Teal’c’s great poker face when suggesting Jonas’ joking “us aliens gotta stick together” is an “alien conspiracy” is quite funny. He is joking, right?

–So the team escapes the self-destructing mothership via death gliders, which, good to know, can operate submerged in water.

–“Are you smiling?” “It’s my first time in a death glider.”

–“Next mothership, we keep, OK?”

“Frozen”

An expedition in the Arctic leads to a incredible discovery: an alien woman frozen in the ice for thousands of years! SG-1 is sent to investigate and de-ice the mysterious woman, who Quinn becomes quite attached to. But then a unknown virus breaks out and looks to kill the team and the expedition. Then we discover the unthawed woman is not just the carrier of the virus but also the only one who can cure them.

Woman on/in ice!

–So the big open end of the episode is O’Neill not getting cured of the virus, and having to agree to be a temporary host to a Tok’ra symbiote to heal. Also said symbiote has importance for O’Neill in the next round of Minicaps.

–Ayiana, the frozen alien woman (who we theorize correctly is an Ancient) whose healing powers save almost everyone from the virus at the expense of her losing her life, actually reappears briefly (via flashback) in the pilot of Stargate Atlantis.

–As for the virus, this is a thread that is picked up in later seasons as the thing that almost eradicated the Ancients, but who was responsible for spreading it we’ll shelve for now since we haven’t met the culprits for that yet.

–This episode ties back as far as season one, with the survey team investigating the area where they found the second Stargate on Earth.

–“I forgot to record The Simpsons. (Pause) It’s important to me.”

NEXT TIME: Nocturnal Goa’ulds take over a small town in “Nightwalkers”, SG-1 and a surprising ally try to save O’Neill from torture by a Goa’uld lord in “Abyss”, Quinn is forced to decide the fate of his planet during a civil war in “Shadow Play”, and two dopey scientists get involved in an SG-1 operation in “The Other Guys”.