Stargate SG-1 Season 1 Highlights

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Stargate SG-1 Season One

Teambuilding

Season One of the show defined the Stargate universe; heroes and villains, enemies and allies, worlds, history and myth. Four talented and disparate individuals forced together by circumstance worked and sacrificed to become a team and then we saw the team become a family.

Children Of The Gods reunited Air Force Special Ops Colonel Jack O'Neill and archaeologist Dr. Daniel Jackson, and drew to them theoretical astrophysicist Captain/Doctor Samantha 'Sam' Carter and the former First Prime of Apophis, Teal'c. Stargate Command - the SGC - was formed and led by General George Hammond, and teams set up, including O'Neill's SG-1 and Kawalsky's SG-2.

We also gained our first insights into the enemy Earth was facing: the Goa'uld, a predatory, parasitic life form. Truly, then, an Enemy Within.

It was through Major Charles Kawalsky and the symbiote which infested his body that O'Neill and Daniel first gained hope that something of the host survived, that when they found Sha're and Skaara, there was a chance their bodies and minds could be freed from their Goa'uld captors. It was also through Kawalsky that Teal'c was able to prove to Hammond his sincerity in switching sides and the honour in his pledge of allegiance to Earth in the battle against the Goa'uld.

Earth is the First World, lost to the Goa'uld for countless centuries, the home of humans, the Tau'ri. A legend to Teal'c and the Jaffa and their only hope of freedom from enslavement.

The early missions were fraught with the sense of an entirely new command with unprecedented rules of engagement being built from the ground up and many casualties along the way. The Goa'uld attacked the Earth Stargate relentlessly, one of their own was taken as host and killed by their hand, Earth myth became history, legend became reality, and SG-1 fell victim to ancient and truly alien cultures.

Sam Carter was kidnapped and traded as property only to teach the Mongolian warlords who so oppressed their women a lesson in Emancipation, then SG-1 and the entire base were infected with a virus which regressed them to an aggressive primitive state and Teal'c lost Daniel Jackson on the dark side of the planet in the Broca Divide. Jack O'Neill learned that life comes in many shapes and that even the darkest pain can be healed as an alien entity sought to reconcile him with his wife and the loss of his son in Cold Lazarus, while Daniel and Carter discovered a mutual sibling passion for science.

All the team members learned the hard way not to judge a book by its cover. An SGC officer first found God and then became God to the superstitious people he was working to death, breaking The First Commandment without compunction. The seemingly simple, rustic, pacifist alien race The Nox evolved to a level of technology that clouded the mind, made a city fly and defeated death. O'Neill indulged in a gooey treat of a cake which wedded him to the giver and left him aging years in mere days, his life a nano-technology enhanced Brief Candle.

SG-1 and Hammond learned that Teal'c had sacrificed far more than they ever imagined to fight against the Goa'uld, leaving behind not just home and position but family. Their mission to Chulak reunited Teal'c with mentor Bra'tac, wife Drey'auc and son Rya'c, affirming the importance of Jaffa honour and family Bloodlines.

Daniel's assertion that the Norse Gods were good gods and that the Goa'uld did not build the Stargate network resulted in an encounter with Vikings, vicious Unas and a former Goa'uld host, his hope quickly turning to despair as he chose to free Teal'c and O'Neill by destroying Thor's Hammer, the one piece of technology which could've saved his wife Sha're. He later found he had much in common with the aquatic alien Nem, mourning the loss of his own mate. Daniel risked his life to bring Nem peace while O'Neill, Carter and Teal'c fought their own battle against grief and false memories of Daniel perishing in Fire and Water.

Four became one - a team.

When Teal'c's past victims as Apophis' First Prime came back to haunt him, his teammates defended him as a different man, a better man, one Daniel had forgiven for choosing his wife for Apophis' queen. Teal'c refused to fight the fate doled out to him in Cor-ai but fought for the people trying to kill him. Daniel was entranced by the universal language and knowledge of four ancient alien races but was forced to confront a simple truth - what value has knowledge which cannot be shared? Ultimately, Daniel put his friends first and rejected The Torment Of Tantalus.

Sam Carter and medical officer Dr. Janet Fraiser launched into their own war of the sexes when the beautiful Goa'uld Hathor enslaved the male personnel of the base. While the goddess of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll seduced Daniel and O'Neill in very different ways, Carter, Fraiser and the female personnel kicked ass.

The two became friends, uniting once more to save the little alien girl Cassandra, who seemed as doomed as the prophetess in myth. Orphaned by the Goa'uld Nirrti, Cassandra clung to Sam Carter. When Fraiser discovered a naquadah bomb in Cassie's heart and science failed them, Carter lost objectivity and found faith in Singularity.

Science also failed the Tollan people, their advanced technology destroying their natural world. Their brusque, dismissive leader Omoc was truly an Enigma to Daniel and an irresistible temptation to covetous NID Colonel Harry Maybourne. SG-1 earned Maybourne's enmity as the Nox were summoned to rescue the Tollan.

O'Neill, never a fan of scientists, was tested to the limit when he discovered he was a Tin Man - a robot copy of himself, doomed to live forever on a mouldering space station with the infuriatingly chipper Harlan while the real SG-1 got to live the lives the copies still felt were their own.

O'Neill and Carter came close to losing their lives when the malfunctioning Stargate catapulted them into Solitudes in a bleak icescape. With her C.O. desperately injured, Carter had to battle the bitter cold, the ice and the Stargate courageously to try to keep them alive. The world was struck by seismic tremors, and at the SGC, Daniel by inspiration; he found his friends - and a second Stargate - in the most unlikely of locations: Antarctica.

Daniel had his own battles to fight, not just for belief but for the lives of everyone on Earth. Touching a beautiful alien mirror translated him into an alternate reality, one where O'Neill was a general, Carter a civilian, Catherine Langford had his place at the SGC and Teal'c was leading a world-wide Goa'uld attack. There But For The Grace Of God stood our own world and Daniel was determined to save it whatever the cost.

Returning to his own reality, Daniel was met by patronising disbelief from friend as well as foe as the SGC was forced to fight the ruthless Senator Kinsey for its very survival in cut-throat Politics. Hammond and the team failed to convince Kinsey that their enemy could come in ships and shutting down the Stargate was to shut down our first line of defence.

Kinsey didn't listen, but ultimately, O'Neill did. With nothing left to lose, Daniel was determined to go through the Stargate and attempt to stop the attack he was certain would come on Earth. His adamance convinced his friend O'Neill and together the teammates gated through to the co-ordinates Daniel had brought back from the alternate reality. To their shock, they found themselves not on a planet but on a vast starship commanded by Klorel, the son of Apophis and the symbiote which had taken Skaara as host.

While Carter and Daniel planted C-4 with which to destroy the ship, O'Neill and Teal'c were captured and sentenced by Apophis to execution. An attempted rescue saw Daniel almost killed by Klorel and Skaara killed by O'Neill. Skaara's soul was freed but O'Neill, Daniel, Carter and Teal'c were imprisoned Within The Serpent's Grasp.

Article by Alison

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--Alison 14:55, 27 Jun 2004 (PDT)