This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kizor (talk | contribs) at 22:40, 9 June 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 22:40, 9 June 2006 by Kizor (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Television episode| "Window of Opportunity (Stargate SG-1)" |
|---|
Plot
Template:Sgspoiler On planet P4X-639, SG-1 encounters a man named Malikai who is working with an Ancient device. P4X-639 has strange geomagnetic storms that occur once every 50 years and it is time for another. Malikai subtly tries to get SG-1 to leave before the storm is at its peak, but to no avail. With no time left, Malikai shoots Daniel and activates a strange altar that seems to be the centre of the ruins. Unsure as to what is going on, O'Neill and Teal'c try to stop the altar, but Malikai gets in their way. While the three of them are struggling, a blinding light flashes.
O'Neill suddenly finds himself back in the SGC commissary with Sam and Daniel, confronted with the end of a question which he has no idea about. He asks Sam and Daniel if they had just been "some planet", but they appear to have no recollection. In a briefing to the mission to P4X-639, Jack and Teal'c start acting strange and predicting future events. After thorough medical testing by Dr. Fraiser which turns up no anomalies, the rest conclude that Jack and Teal'c are trapped in a time loop that restarts every 6 to 10 hours. Although the mission to P4X-639 is cancelled, the Stargate is nevertheless dialed from the planet and the loop starts again.
Now the whole story of explaining to the other what is happening starts again, as everyone else forgets the events every time the loop starts over, but nothing they try to stop the loop works, e.g. by dialling stargates other than P4X-639 just before the loop is due to repeat. So the team decides to go to the planet again to meet up with Malikai but it turns out that he, like Jack and Teal'c, is fully aware what is happening and that it is him who causes these events. He is doing this because now he has enough time to figure out how the device properly works. Although SG-1 tries to stop him, the device activates and the loop starts again, much to O'Neill's annoyance.
So the team decides that the best way to stop the loop is to translate the Ancient language which they found on the planet. Jack and Teal'c, with the help of Daniel, soon become more knowledgable than the archeologist, but they also become increasingly frustrated because there is otherwise no real progress. To vent their frustration, Jack and Teal'c both start to learn juggling. Eventually both enjoy some consequence-free actions; Jack rides a bicycle through the base, Teal'c punches those who annoyed him, both golf through the open Stargate (thus breaking distance records) and in one loop Jack resigns from the military in order to kiss Major Carter.
After the duo gets a grip Jack, Teal'c and Daniel finally complete the translation and learns that the colony of the Ancients on the planet was once confronted with a disease dire enough to make them invent the machine to change their history. It didn't work properly and so they shut it down and let the inevitable come. With this in mind SG-1 returns to the planet to confront Malikai, who reveals that he wants to use the device to go back in time and see his dead wife. After Jack tells him what happened to his son and all that Malikai would accomplish would be seeing his wife die over and over again, Malikai gives in and turns the device off thus ending the timeloop. Back at SGC, Daniel and Carter ask Jack what he did in the time loops when he did some impulsive things that would have no consequence. Jack just stares at them and continues eating his oatmeal.
Quotes
- O'Neill: "We've already been to P4X-639! 'No, we haven't.' That's what you were going to say."
Daniel: "...of course that was what I was going to say."
O'Neill: "...bad example."
- O'Neill (attempting to explain the time loop device): "Magnets!"
- O'Neill (to Hammond) "Hey, if it was just me, I'd agree. But what about Teal'c? C'mon, is this the face of a crazy man!?"
(pause)
O'Neill: "Bad example."
- O'Neill: "Lose it. It means, go crazy... nuts... insane... bonzo... no longer in possessions of one's faculties... three fries short of a Happy Meal... WACKO!!"
- (O'Neill is golfing through the Stargate)
Hammond: "Colonel O'Neill, what the hell are you doing!"
O'Neill (misses): "In the middle of my backswing!?"
- O'Neill (cycling through the base): "How's the wife?"
- O'Neill: "I'm taking this loop off."
- O'Neill (to Malikai): "What kind of archaeologist carries a weapon?"
Daniel (raising hand): "Uh... I do."
O'Neill: "Bad example."
Notes
- The length of time that Earth was caught in the time loop was greater than 3 months.
- Some of the activities that O'Neill is shown doing while in the timeloop: learning Latin and from there Ancient; teaching Teal'c to juggle; practicing pottery; resigning near the end of a loop (quickly followed by a kiss with Samantha Carter); and golfing through the Stargate for what he believes to be a record-long shot (since the wormhole is connected to Alaris, a planet several billion miles away).
- The cereal Jack is eating at the beginning of each loop is, appropiately, Froot Loops.
- The Latin book Jack and Teal'c use to study Ancient is Latin for Beginners, by Dr. Joseph Mallozzi, when in fact Joseph Mallozzi is a co-writer (with Paul Mullie) of the episode.
- Peter DeLuise, the show's director, briefly appears as an unnamed airman who repeatedly collides with Dr. Daniel Jackson in each loop sending an armful of research papers flying and leaving Daniel sprawled on the floor.
- This is one of several episodes in which O'Neill defaults to "magnets" as an explanation for some kind of confusing event.
See also
- Cause and Effect, a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode with a similar premise. Unlike Cause and Effect, where the loops ended with the destruction of the Enterprise with all hands on board, this episode is one of the more humorous of the SG-1 episodes, probably due to O'Neill's inevitably hilarious responses to the loop, and the fact that he is actually completely aware that the looping is taking place; the crew of the Enterprise retained no memory of the previous loops baring slight cases of deja-vu.
- Groundhog Day, the above-mentioned movie that inspired this, in which a man is forced to relive the same day over and over.
External links
- Official Stargate SG-1 site. MGM. Visited June 8, 2006. Most of site requires Flash.
- Transcript from Stargatefan. Transcribed by Andrea-T. Visited May 13, 2006.
- Transcript from StargateWiki. Visited May 13, 2006.
- Transcript from Moon-catching. Transcribed by AQ. Visited May 13, 2006.
- Summary from GateWorld. Visited May 13, 2006.
- Episode guide from rdanderson. Visited May 13, 2006.
- Review from GateWorld. Reviewed by Debra Kraft. Visited May 13, 2006.