2 x 21 1969
Transcript is here.
This is one of my favorite episodes of all time. In it, the amazing versatility of the zat is abused without shame, General Hammond is awesome in two different decades, and "wardrobe malfunction" doesn't even begin to cover it.
We open in the Gateroom, where the male contingent of our team are waiting less-than patiently for Sam to do something fiddly with the dialing computer. Impatient Jack is impatient. Daniel admits to sometimes not paying attention when Sam talks. Sam speaks science at them. Teal'c is Teal'c.
General Hammond (who is awesome) asks after Sam's hand, which is still looking kinda painful, having been hurt during SG-1's encounter with "the little stripy white people," as my husband calls them. He hands her a folded note, telling her rather cryptically to read it once through the gate.
Sam joins her team on the Gateroom floor, and Hammond watches them more paternally than usual for reasons that will shortly become clear.
Kawoosh. The team strolls up the ramp and through the gate to emerge...back in the Gateroom. Which disappears. And is replaced by what, in Jack's words "looks suspiciously like the butt end of a Titan missile."
A voice comes over the tannoy, announcing the imminent commencement of a "test burn," and begins counting down, occasioning this amusing little exchange:
TEAL'C: What is a 'test burn'?
JACK: Just what it sounds like.
Panic ensues on the part of the three humans. Teal'c, rather than panicking, continues to be Teal'c, and zats the missile as the count-down gets close to zero. Miraculously, this seems to work, as SG-1 fail to be incinerated moments later, and are instead arrested by men in berets.
Somewhere along here, the opening credits roll. Staaaargaaaate...it's a great big woooorld...
The men in berets demand to know what they are doing in this facility. Sam demands that everyone on SG-1 shut up and not say anything. Jack demand to be taken to the berets' CO. Ow, rifle stocks to the head always make me wince.
Somewhere else, a young lieutenant and a beret-wearing sergeant discuss the fate of the team's various weapons and other accouterments. None of us are watching this for the first time, here, so I'm going to go ahead and squee for a minute about what a wonderful casting job was done on Baby Hammond. The nose! The slight drawl! Everything is perfect! (My family affectionately refers to Hammond as "General Babyfacehead." So naturally, this guy is "Baby General Babyfacehead." Try saying that ten times fast.) Anyway, Baby Hammond finds the note tucked in Sam's vest: it is addressed to "George" and reads simply "Help them" followed by two dates.
In a holding cell, which looks exactly the way it's going to look a few decades from now, Sam explains that they've traveled back in time. The boys' reactions to this information are fairly predictable: Jack is snide and would like to go home, Teal'c has ideas for the application of time-travel in the world-saving department, Daniel wants to go "watch history" as someone on the re-watch chat put it.
Sam rains science on everyone's respective parades. The grandfather paradox is summarized for anyone who hasn't been on the sci-fi scene for very long.
A beret walks in and asks Daniel, in Russian, if he is a Russian spy. Because it is the truth, he says "no." Because he is Daniel, he says it in Russian. Jack makes a visible effort to not pound his forehead repeatedly on the table.
In an interrogation room, a Major lights a cigarette indoors to reinforce the whole time-travel-to-the-sixties thing. He is hostile and suspicious. Jack is smirky and cryptic, giving his name as first James T. Kirk, then Luke Skywalker.
MAJOR: What was the weapon you used?
JACK: Weapon?
MAJOR: Our cameras saw some sort of weapon.
JACK: Oh. Well, it's hard to say.
MAJOR: Some sort of state secret?
JACK: No, just difficult to pronounce.
Hee.
Back in the '90s, the non-Walter Gate tech frets and is confused by Hammond's resigned attitude toward SG-1 being missing. Hammond continues to be awesome and worried about his kids.
1969. The team is being transported off-base. Options are discussed. Everyone wants to escape, but opinions differ on exactly how things should go from there. Sam wants to live their lives out as quietly as possible and just hope that they don't muck up the space-time continuum. This suggestion is greeted with very little enthusiasm by the guys. Cue the "where there's a will, there's an or" exchange. Teal'c points out that if they stay, he'll eventually be taken over by his symbiote. Since it latter becomes accepted that Jaffa cannot be taken as hosts, I'm guessing we should just ignore this and pretend he said something about dying after his symbiote matures and has to be killed.
The conversation is interrupted by a flat tire, which turns out to be the work of Baby Hammond, who is here (with a zat!) to save the day. After clarifying a few things, like who the heck they are and why they have a note addressed to him in his own handwriting, of course. Baby Hammond for the win! He un-cuffs them, apologizing to Sam (whom he adorably calls "miss") when he accidentally aggravates the cut on her hand.
They zat their compliment of berets, waylay a second truck, which contains all their toys, and zat those berets, too. Jack secures a GDO, then zats the rest of it into non-existence, because you can do that. Jack fleeces some cash off Baby Hammond, promising to pay him back with interest in the '90s. Baby Hammond gets sworn to secrecy, then promptly zatted, just to make sure he isn't suspected of anything. And with that, our heroes strike out into the woods.
More discussion of just what they're going to do, now. Jack is still very much on the "get back home" wagon, Daniel is concerned that Jack's plan of "find the Stargate" may be a little fuzzy
on the details, and Carter is still wearing the "wet blanket" hat, poor woman, because she's the one holding the note, so she gets to be the one to inform Jack that it does not, in fact, hold all the answers to their problems. Teal'c's contributions to this scene are mostly in the eyebrow department, but he does take one for the team by being the one to actually use the phrase "back to the future." Because someone had to.
Sometime later, the team attempts to hitch a ride, though they haven't decided where they're headed, just yet. Sam continues to argue with the rest of them while thumbing for a ride while the boys hide in a ditch. Daniel wants to hit New York and see if Catherine can help them. Sam objects (because it's increasingly clear that objecting is pretty much her job, in this ep). Daniel suggests that they avoid disruptions to the timeline by going in disguise.
Teal'c, who has been watching cars fly right by Sam without stopping, concludes that the whole thumb routine is not working. He climbs back up to the road and begins striding toward an oncoming VW bus, arms outstretched. Because Teal'c is Teal'c, and really, if it came down to a deathmatch between him and anything smaller than a semi, I'd put my money on Teal'c to be the one who walked away.
At any rate, the bus--which is painted very, um, whimsically--stops. It is being driven by the most adorable hippy couple in the history of ever, and they are more than happy to give the team a lift. Some truly hilarious conversation takes place between Teal'c and the hippy driver, Michael, whose chilled-outed-ness is proof even against extremely alarming pronouncements made in a scary Jaffa baritone.
Cue the Happy Musical Montage of Groovitude. Various shots of SG-1 driving, working on the bus, and purchasing various items of hippy drag with which to cleverly disguise themselves as Stereotypical Members of the Sixties Counter-Culture. Michael and Jenny really are just the cutest little things. Teal'c gets an inexplicable wig. Somewhere in here, Daniel teaches him how to drive.
Some indeterminate period of time later, the team sits around a fire in the woods, eating soup. A flare in the fire triggers a chain reaction of brilliant deductions in Sam's brain, and she exposites the following:
1. A solar flare was responsible for sending them back in time.
2. They can use another flare to get back to their own time.
3. General Hammond's note gives them the time and date of the next two flares.
4. General Hammond is awesome (she doesn't actually say this, but it's implied).
Michael and Jenny, having overheard much of this, demand to know what the heck they're talking about. Jack and Daniel totally tag-team them and convince them that they're all four aliens from another planet, mostly by dint of assuming a slightly formal cadence to their speech and quoting Star Wars. Just to make the point, Jack zats the fire, which flares again. Michael and Jenny prove how groovy they are by being completely mellow with the whole idea.
And off to the east coast, where the team splits up. Jack and Teal'c go break into an observatory to test this solar flare theory, Sam and Daniel go to visit Catherine and find out where the Stargate is.
You know Jack's totally geeking out on the inside at the opportunity to play with the giant telescope.
Daniel and Sam are shown into Catherine's home for tea. Catherine is wearing the necklace! I never noticed that before. Catherine's '60s self looks quite like her '90s self, but nothing like her '40s self in "Torment of Tantalus." Oh well, we won't have much time to take note of this fact, because we'll be busy laughing at Daniel's (truly appalling) German accent. Wow. And his actual German is even wonkier. It's like they wrote out the German in phonetic syllables and Michael Shanks proceeded to pronounce them as if they were English with a German accent. Or his rendition of German accent, anyway. Hee.
Anyway, both teams are successful: Jack and Teal'c confirm that the dates are flares they can use to get home. Daniel and Sam get the location of the Stargate. They start to say their goodbyes to Michael and Jenny, who unexpectedly ask to come with them because Michael's been drafted. Oh! Don't be sad, adorable hippy couple! I kind of want to know what happens to them, and sort of hope that there's fanfic out there where Teal'c looks Michael up after they get back to the '90s. I can't decide if I want this fanfic to be sad or happy. But moving on, the team say gently but firmly that no, the hippies cannot come. They wave farewell, and the last wee see of Michael and Jenny is the two of them hugging forlornly. Aw.
Inside the armory where the Stargate is being kept, the team is saved from having to discern where the Gate is by the fact that it's being kept upright, in the only big, flat crate in the room. How convenient. They get it un-crated, but there's still the question of how to power it. Jack has an idea! Next shot shows a few trucks hooked up to the Gate, which Daniel and Teal'c are dialing manually.
Seriously, trucks? Ooookay.
Also, somewhere in here it's explained that this flare will send them forward in time rather than further back because it'll be on the opposite side of the sun. DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY AT THE LOGIC.
Of course, it can't be that easy, so a few guards show up to shoot at the team just as the wormhole establishes. Thankfully, the guards are very poor shots. Our heroes wait around getting shot at for a few minutes, needing to jump through just at the right time for the solar flare to send them back to the future. Jack gets sick of being shot at and hustles them through a little earlier than Sam would like. Wheee!
They come out in the Gateroom, but it's looking suspiciously mothballed. Oz reference! An elegant older woman enters and starts speaking portentously to them. She clearly knows who they are, and after a minute Sam recognizes her, too: it's Cassandra! Who is here to tell them that they got it wrong and ended up waaaay in the future, and to send them back to their proper time by...well, she doesn't really say how, but anyway, who really cares, at this point, right? Hugs all 'round, and back through the wormhole we go.
And yay they're back in the '90s! Hammond (who is awesome) is happy to see them, and looks amused by his flagship team's less-than-regulation attire. He twinkles at them a bit while they discuss the finer intricacies of how what just happened were possible (more Ooookay) and then reminds Jack that he owes his CO a buttload of cash what with the interest that has accrued since 1969. There is grinning and more twinkling. Aaand roll credits.
Discussion points:
1. Exactly how awesome, on a scale of one to eleventy-billion and three, is General Hammond?
2. The wig: can it be explained?
3. Why didn't Cassandra have a hoverboard?
4. Disable missile. Disintegrate evidence. Do flashy things to campfires. How many more off-label uses does the zat have, do you think?
5. Y'all should probably discuss time-travel and the grandfather paradox and stuff. I don't know, near as I can tell, the whole point of the gag was to get the team into hippy drag, and considerations like whether or not the whole thing made any sort of sense were sort of secondary. I tried to come up with some serious thoughts on time-travel and I just got a headache. Thankfully, it looks like stargazercmc should be along shortly with some chewy meta on the subject, to make up for my complete lack of chewiness, here.
This is one of my favorite episodes of all time. In it, the amazing versatility of the zat is abused without shame, General Hammond is awesome in two different decades, and "wardrobe malfunction" doesn't even begin to cover it.
We open in the Gateroom, where the male contingent of our team are waiting less-than patiently for Sam to do something fiddly with the dialing computer. Impatient Jack is impatient. Daniel admits to sometimes not paying attention when Sam talks. Sam speaks science at them. Teal'c is Teal'c.
General Hammond (who is awesome) asks after Sam's hand, which is still looking kinda painful, having been hurt during SG-1's encounter with "the little stripy white people," as my husband calls them. He hands her a folded note, telling her rather cryptically to read it once through the gate.
Sam joins her team on the Gateroom floor, and Hammond watches them more paternally than usual for reasons that will shortly become clear.
Kawoosh. The team strolls up the ramp and through the gate to emerge...back in the Gateroom. Which disappears. And is replaced by what, in Jack's words "looks suspiciously like the butt end of a Titan missile."
A voice comes over the tannoy, announcing the imminent commencement of a "test burn," and begins counting down, occasioning this amusing little exchange:
TEAL'C: What is a 'test burn'?
JACK: Just what it sounds like.
Panic ensues on the part of the three humans. Teal'c, rather than panicking, continues to be Teal'c, and zats the missile as the count-down gets close to zero. Miraculously, this seems to work, as SG-1 fail to be incinerated moments later, and are instead arrested by men in berets.
Somewhere along here, the opening credits roll. Staaaargaaaate...it's a great big woooorld...
The men in berets demand to know what they are doing in this facility. Sam demands that everyone on SG-1 shut up and not say anything. Jack demand to be taken to the berets' CO. Ow, rifle stocks to the head always make me wince.
Somewhere else, a young lieutenant and a beret-wearing sergeant discuss the fate of the team's various weapons and other accouterments. None of us are watching this for the first time, here, so I'm going to go ahead and squee for a minute about what a wonderful casting job was done on Baby Hammond. The nose! The slight drawl! Everything is perfect! (My family affectionately refers to Hammond as "General Babyfacehead." So naturally, this guy is "Baby General Babyfacehead." Try saying that ten times fast.) Anyway, Baby Hammond finds the note tucked in Sam's vest: it is addressed to "George" and reads simply "Help them" followed by two dates.
In a holding cell, which looks exactly the way it's going to look a few decades from now, Sam explains that they've traveled back in time. The boys' reactions to this information are fairly predictable: Jack is snide and would like to go home, Teal'c has ideas for the application of time-travel in the world-saving department, Daniel wants to go "watch history" as someone on the re-watch chat put it.
Sam rains science on everyone's respective parades. The grandfather paradox is summarized for anyone who hasn't been on the sci-fi scene for very long.
A beret walks in and asks Daniel, in Russian, if he is a Russian spy. Because it is the truth, he says "no." Because he is Daniel, he says it in Russian. Jack makes a visible effort to not pound his forehead repeatedly on the table.
In an interrogation room, a Major lights a cigarette indoors to reinforce the whole time-travel-to-the-sixties thing. He is hostile and suspicious. Jack is smirky and cryptic, giving his name as first James T. Kirk, then Luke Skywalker.
MAJOR: What was the weapon you used?
JACK: Weapon?
MAJOR: Our cameras saw some sort of weapon.
JACK: Oh. Well, it's hard to say.
MAJOR: Some sort of state secret?
JACK: No, just difficult to pronounce.
Hee.
Back in the '90s, the non-Walter Gate tech frets and is confused by Hammond's resigned attitude toward SG-1 being missing. Hammond continues to be awesome and worried about his kids.
1969. The team is being transported off-base. Options are discussed. Everyone wants to escape, but opinions differ on exactly how things should go from there. Sam wants to live their lives out as quietly as possible and just hope that they don't muck up the space-time continuum. This suggestion is greeted with very little enthusiasm by the guys. Cue the "where there's a will, there's an or" exchange. Teal'c points out that if they stay, he'll eventually be taken over by his symbiote. Since it latter becomes accepted that Jaffa cannot be taken as hosts, I'm guessing we should just ignore this and pretend he said something about dying after his symbiote matures and has to be killed.
The conversation is interrupted by a flat tire, which turns out to be the work of Baby Hammond, who is here (with a zat!) to save the day. After clarifying a few things, like who the heck they are and why they have a note addressed to him in his own handwriting, of course. Baby Hammond for the win! He un-cuffs them, apologizing to Sam (whom he adorably calls "miss") when he accidentally aggravates the cut on her hand.
They zat their compliment of berets, waylay a second truck, which contains all their toys, and zat those berets, too. Jack secures a GDO, then zats the rest of it into non-existence, because you can do that. Jack fleeces some cash off Baby Hammond, promising to pay him back with interest in the '90s. Baby Hammond gets sworn to secrecy, then promptly zatted, just to make sure he isn't suspected of anything. And with that, our heroes strike out into the woods.
More discussion of just what they're going to do, now. Jack is still very much on the "get back home" wagon, Daniel is concerned that Jack's plan of "find the Stargate" may be a little fuzzy
on the details, and Carter is still wearing the "wet blanket" hat, poor woman, because she's the one holding the note, so she gets to be the one to inform Jack that it does not, in fact, hold all the answers to their problems. Teal'c's contributions to this scene are mostly in the eyebrow department, but he does take one for the team by being the one to actually use the phrase "back to the future." Because someone had to.
Sometime later, the team attempts to hitch a ride, though they haven't decided where they're headed, just yet. Sam continues to argue with the rest of them while thumbing for a ride while the boys hide in a ditch. Daniel wants to hit New York and see if Catherine can help them. Sam objects (because it's increasingly clear that objecting is pretty much her job, in this ep). Daniel suggests that they avoid disruptions to the timeline by going in disguise.
Teal'c, who has been watching cars fly right by Sam without stopping, concludes that the whole thumb routine is not working. He climbs back up to the road and begins striding toward an oncoming VW bus, arms outstretched. Because Teal'c is Teal'c, and really, if it came down to a deathmatch between him and anything smaller than a semi, I'd put my money on Teal'c to be the one who walked away.
At any rate, the bus--which is painted very, um, whimsically--stops. It is being driven by the most adorable hippy couple in the history of ever, and they are more than happy to give the team a lift. Some truly hilarious conversation takes place between Teal'c and the hippy driver, Michael, whose chilled-outed-ness is proof even against extremely alarming pronouncements made in a scary Jaffa baritone.
Cue the Happy Musical Montage of Groovitude. Various shots of SG-1 driving, working on the bus, and purchasing various items of hippy drag with which to cleverly disguise themselves as Stereotypical Members of the Sixties Counter-Culture. Michael and Jenny really are just the cutest little things. Teal'c gets an inexplicable wig. Somewhere in here, Daniel teaches him how to drive.
Some indeterminate period of time later, the team sits around a fire in the woods, eating soup. A flare in the fire triggers a chain reaction of brilliant deductions in Sam's brain, and she exposites the following:
1. A solar flare was responsible for sending them back in time.
2. They can use another flare to get back to their own time.
3. General Hammond's note gives them the time and date of the next two flares.
4. General Hammond is awesome (she doesn't actually say this, but it's implied).
Michael and Jenny, having overheard much of this, demand to know what the heck they're talking about. Jack and Daniel totally tag-team them and convince them that they're all four aliens from another planet, mostly by dint of assuming a slightly formal cadence to their speech and quoting Star Wars. Just to make the point, Jack zats the fire, which flares again. Michael and Jenny prove how groovy they are by being completely mellow with the whole idea.
And off to the east coast, where the team splits up. Jack and Teal'c go break into an observatory to test this solar flare theory, Sam and Daniel go to visit Catherine and find out where the Stargate is.
You know Jack's totally geeking out on the inside at the opportunity to play with the giant telescope.
Daniel and Sam are shown into Catherine's home for tea. Catherine is wearing the necklace! I never noticed that before. Catherine's '60s self looks quite like her '90s self, but nothing like her '40s self in "Torment of Tantalus." Oh well, we won't have much time to take note of this fact, because we'll be busy laughing at Daniel's (truly appalling) German accent. Wow. And his actual German is even wonkier. It's like they wrote out the German in phonetic syllables and Michael Shanks proceeded to pronounce them as if they were English with a German accent. Or his rendition of German accent, anyway. Hee.
Anyway, both teams are successful: Jack and Teal'c confirm that the dates are flares they can use to get home. Daniel and Sam get the location of the Stargate. They start to say their goodbyes to Michael and Jenny, who unexpectedly ask to come with them because Michael's been drafted. Oh! Don't be sad, adorable hippy couple! I kind of want to know what happens to them, and sort of hope that there's fanfic out there where Teal'c looks Michael up after they get back to the '90s. I can't decide if I want this fanfic to be sad or happy. But moving on, the team say gently but firmly that no, the hippies cannot come. They wave farewell, and the last wee see of Michael and Jenny is the two of them hugging forlornly. Aw.
Inside the armory where the Stargate is being kept, the team is saved from having to discern where the Gate is by the fact that it's being kept upright, in the only big, flat crate in the room. How convenient. They get it un-crated, but there's still the question of how to power it. Jack has an idea! Next shot shows a few trucks hooked up to the Gate, which Daniel and Teal'c are dialing manually.
Seriously, trucks? Ooookay.
Also, somewhere in here it's explained that this flare will send them forward in time rather than further back because it'll be on the opposite side of the sun. DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY AT THE LOGIC.
Of course, it can't be that easy, so a few guards show up to shoot at the team just as the wormhole establishes. Thankfully, the guards are very poor shots. Our heroes wait around getting shot at for a few minutes, needing to jump through just at the right time for the solar flare to send them back to the future. Jack gets sick of being shot at and hustles them through a little earlier than Sam would like. Wheee!
They come out in the Gateroom, but it's looking suspiciously mothballed. Oz reference! An elegant older woman enters and starts speaking portentously to them. She clearly knows who they are, and after a minute Sam recognizes her, too: it's Cassandra! Who is here to tell them that they got it wrong and ended up waaaay in the future, and to send them back to their proper time by...well, she doesn't really say how, but anyway, who really cares, at this point, right? Hugs all 'round, and back through the wormhole we go.
And yay they're back in the '90s! Hammond (who is awesome) is happy to see them, and looks amused by his flagship team's less-than-regulation attire. He twinkles at them a bit while they discuss the finer intricacies of how what just happened were possible (more Ooookay) and then reminds Jack that he owes his CO a buttload of cash what with the interest that has accrued since 1969. There is grinning and more twinkling. Aaand roll credits.
Discussion points:
1. Exactly how awesome, on a scale of one to eleventy-billion and three, is General Hammond?
2. The wig: can it be explained?
3. Why didn't Cassandra have a hoverboard?
4. Disable missile. Disintegrate evidence. Do flashy things to campfires. How many more off-label uses does the zat have, do you think?
5. Y'all should probably discuss time-travel and the grandfather paradox and stuff. I don't know, near as I can tell, the whole point of the gag was to get the team into hippy drag, and considerations like whether or not the whole thing made any sort of sense were sort of secondary. I tried to come up with some serious thoughts on time-travel and I just got a headache. Thankfully, it looks like stargazercmc should be along shortly with some chewy meta on the subject, to make up for my complete lack of chewiness, here.