(NB This was written when I had seen all of S1 but no other seasons.)

When we first see Jack he is gazing through a telescope at the stars and it seems likely he is thinking of his 'satisfactory' surrogate son, Skaara, and his '(slightly less!) satisfactory' surrogate son, Daniel, and is taking comfort from the thought that they are alive and hopefully well on the other side of the galaxy. However he doesn't look that happy and we never really find out how he has been filling his time. When he is looking through the telescope is he wondering if maybe he too should have stayed on Abydos and made a completely new life for himself, and would have done if he'd known Sarah wouldn't take him back? Does he envy Daniel more than worry about him at this point or has he been worrying about him for the past year and wondering if he did the wrong thing in leaving him on Abydos?

His comment to Samuels about NASA is also suggestive as he seems to be implying that he now wishes he'd been involved with them rather than the Air Force, making one wonder if the trip to Abydos has left him unsatisfied with 'ordinary' Air Force Missions and that is partly why he retired, because nothing now was going to live up to the ride of going through the Stargate and taking on living gods?

Jack is brought out of retirement to go and investigate an attack by Ra look-alike. We don't know how glad he is to be back in the loop; he makes a point of reminding everyone that he's retired, pointing it out to Samuels and Kawalsky, but peps up very quickly once he's back in uniform and certainly doesn't seem unhappy about being back in the Air Force. (Nor does he mention retirement again until 'Fire & Water', suggesting that 'retirement' represents escape to Jack, rather than a solution. When Hammond is mentioning the formation of SG-1, Jack very emphatically does not mention that he wants to go back to his retirement; the thought doesn't even seem to cross his mind.) Confesses to General Hammond that he was economical with the truth in his earlier report and Daniel is still alive. Is sent back to Abydos to bring Daniel home. Seems happy to go with Kawalsky and Ferretti but shows initial resistance to Sam. We don't know if this is because she was a woman (as Sam assumes), because she was a scientist (as Jack says), or because he just doesn't want anyone along who wasn't on the last mission in case he has to implement some fancy footwork to cover up for Daniel. Was he, perhaps, even planning to stay on Abydos himself, and intended to send the other's home and close the gate behind them? 

COTG doesn't really have enough interaction between Jack and Sam for one to see if there is any difference in his attitude towards her before and after Sha're and Skaara have been taken and any chance of him or Daniel staying on Abydos has been thwarted. He never really acts like someone sexist (except at the end of the 'Broca Divide' and that might just have been his inappropriate humour problem coming to the fore), so one does wonder if his resistance to Sam never had anything to do with her being a woman. For instance, he automatically passes the moonshine onto her without even thinking about it, which seems to suggest that he doesn't have a problem with working with women, although he does seem to be 'siding' with Daniel when Sam and Daniel are initially opposed in the room with all the Stargate destinations on the walls and looks slightly ticked off when Sam and Daniel go into scientist speak and effectively shut him out. And one never feels that Jack is taking Daniel home with him because he has his orders, but because he had been uneasy about leaving him behind the first time but had possibly done so on the understanding that Daniel was madly in love and had a wife to look after him, not to mention Skaara to look after him, who Jack also seemed to have a lot of faith in. 

His irritation when Daniel acts like he is staying behind seems to suggest that the idea is completely ludicrous and that only Daniel could possibly imagine for a minute that he was going to leave him behind there a second time when there was no one around to keep an eye on him. One wonders how worried about Daniel Jack has been in the intervening year and how often he might have wondered if he did the right thing leaving him there. The fact that Jack is so protective of Daniel in the series, does seem to suggest that he has had doubts about the wisdom of leaving him behind on a place with primitive medicine etc. If he has had a year of worrying about Daniel in absentia before the series even begins that might also go towards explaining why he is so protective of him from day one. Perhaps Jack has even had nightmares about Daniel dying of fever or from falling down and hurting himself badly on a planet with no medical doctors and feeling that if Daniel has this would have been all Jack's fault. However, it could also just be a reaction to the way Daniel is, given that in COTG, Daniel first runs off to speak to a bunch of possibly hostile natives, then gets himself thrown across the room by a ribbon device blast, then has to be grabbed by Jack or he would have done the same thing again despite having barely regained consciousness, and then when he does get loose promptly offers himself up as a host. So, it could just be that to know Daniel is to decide he isn't safe to be let out with a keeper and that to know him well is to decide that he isn't safe to be let out without several keepers and a leash.

It would be nice if someone had asked Jack about this at some point.

Once on Abydos, Jack greets Skaara at once but is a bit off-hand with Daniel, possibly because he confided in him on the first mission and is now a bit embarrassed about it, or just because he doesn't know how he feels about him as he can't imagine how he can have been worrying about someone so annoying. I still can't make up my mind about Jack's reaction to Daniel here; he bumps Daniel's shoulder in quite a friendly way, but Daniel doesn't take it in a particularly kindly way and obviously thinks Jack is snubbing him on purpose and is miffed about it. Sha're kisses Daniel in front of everyone in a way that suggests either overwhelming passion or a bit of insecurity about him possibly wanting to return to Earth; both of which suggests that their marriage is in pretty good shape and she certainly isn't fed up with him in anyway. Daniel and Sam hit it off at once and in a way that suggests both have not been having too many conversations like this; the relief comes off them in waves as they find someone they can communicate with. One can't help wondering how Sha're would have felt if she had witnessed this scene; as things are Kawalsky is the one who does the sulking (and that only seems to be because the conversation is way over his head rather than because Daniel is talking to the girly).

Apophis comes along, injures Ferretti and snatches Skaara and Sha're. Jack only mentions his orders to bring Daniel home once Skaara and Sha're have been taken when Daniel seems to expect to stay on Abydos. In his anxiety for Skaara and his injured men Jack is initially a bit impatient with Daniel but his attitude visibly alters in the moment when Daniel bids an emotional farewell to the people of Abydos; after this Jack takes Daniel home with him and looks after him very considerately and compassionately, asking sensible questions about what happened on Abydos after he left him there. We learn at this point that Sarah had left Jack before he came back so any new insights he might have got into his own behaviour are not something he's ever had a chance to try out in repairing his marriage. He doesn't seem bitter about this at all and clearly thinks all the faults were on his side. He says that he thinks she has forgiven him and that though Jack can't forgive himself for Charlie's death, he can forget at times. (We also learn that Daniel can't hold his liquor, suggesting that although he may have taught Skaara to make moonshine, he probably didn't drink it himself.) 

Initially, Jack seems confident they will be able to rescue Skaara and Sha're. On Chulak, says 'the man has not changed' of Daniel with more pride than irritation and Sam is already showing 'looking after Daniel' skills as she pulls him gently out of the line of fire and then looks after him when they are in the prison.

Daniel is devastated by Sha're's transformation into Amaunet and physically injured when Apophis hits him with the ribbon device. He wakes up and Jack is not there, it is Sam who is looking after him but Jack comes over as Daniel wakes up and helps look after him; Jack is ebullient at having found Skaara and still seems confident that they can work something out and escape despite being in a prison, however he is not willing to commit himself when Skaara says that he will get Sha're back and it is obvious that Jack's priority at this time is getting his team out of prison and back home before their time is up.

(One feels that he would never have bonded with Sam while Kawalsky was around and never bonded with Daniel while Skaara was around, although, ironically, the relationship he has with these two 'substitutes' is much deeper and more complex than anything one feels he would have been capable of with his first choices.) 

He never expresses any sympathy for Sha're herself (which is not to say he doesn't feel any) and one does wonder if as far as he is concerned at this point, she is unsalvageable; although it's not her fault, she is now one of the enemy, and there is nothing that can be done for her. He is clearly worried about the effects of Sha're's transformation on Daniel and Skaara, not just because of how upset they are, but because her situation might encourage them to run off and do something silly that will get them hurt or killed. He says 'Don't, Daniel,' when Daniel is only halfway through asking him for his help and is very unwilling to promise Skaara anything either. At this point, rescuing Sha're no longer seems to be any kind of priority for Jack and he is only prepared to promise Skaara that 'they'll try'. This is not necessarily because he is under-motivated to rescue her at a later date, but because he has realised that given their current situation they have enough to do trying to save themselves. However, one can't help contrasting that with his reaction in WTSG when, despite the fact there are only four of them to save the entire world, he still decides that his first priority is trying to grab Skaara. When Daniel says, "Help me, Jack," when he sees Sha're again, Jack gives him the only help he can by grabbing him and stopping him running to her and getting hurt again. 

Our previous glimpses of Teal'c have revealed him to be someone who clearly has doubts about the rightness of what is being done all around him. He is clearly unhappy about the death of the Air Force officer whom he had helped to kidnap. On Teal'c's first meeting with Jack and Daniel, Jack shows no fear of him and Daniel makes an effort to communicate with him, also revealing that they are from Earth, and are Tau'ri; this combination seems to give Teal'c pause for thought, and he is clearly moved by Daniel's obvious distress at his wife's indifference to him. When Daniel asks the Goa'uld to take him as one of the 'children of the gods', saying 'something of the host must survive', Teal'c shakes his head either because it doesn't or because the whole system he is a part of sickens him and he no longer wants to collude with it. The loss of Skaara clearly hits Jack very hard and Teal'c is a witness to this as well. This combination of courage and compassion for one another seems to be what he responds to as much as where Jack and Co are from.

Jack shows himself as someone willing to trust his gut instinct over even his commonsense when he says to Teal'c, 'I can save these people. Help me.' Despite his occasional appearance of cynicism, he clearly has retained his belief that there is good in people as this is almost a total leap in the dark to ask this of an enemy. It also shows that his instincts are dead-on and that his observational skills are pretty damned hot as well, because how many people would have noticed those virtues in an enemy? Although one feels that Teal'c agrees to help them as much because of Daniel (and his guilt) as Jack that doesn't alter the fact that it is Jack who makes that apparently irrational appeal to his better nature, not Daniel; Daniel is still punch-drunk from the loss of Sha're at this moment and seems fairly indifferent to whether or not they are all slaughtered; Jack however is desperate to save not just himself, Daniel and Sam, but everyone in the room, and is perfectly willing to ask an enemy for help in doing it if there is even the sniff of a chance he might help him. (Admittedly he has nothing to lose, but it does make one wonder if this is part of the reason why he responds so well to Daniel. He wants someone on his team who has faith in humanity because even if his own faith has been a little chipped over the years Jack is clearly a long way from being a total cynic.) 

He is clearly also someone who has enough faith in his own judgement to make snap decisions and one feels that he is fairly black and white in the way he sees most people. He decides that Teal'c is a good guy and from then on trusts him implicitly. He never shows a moment's doubt about Teal'c's loyalty. Perhaps part of his resistance to too much intellectual debate is to do with his need to be in touch with his instincts, and his need to be able to rely on those instincts to help him make snap decisions in difficult situations. He clearly not only doesn't understand many of the things Sam and Daniel tell him, but doesn't want to understand them, perhaps because he feels too much intellectual baggage cuts a man off from his instincts and clogs up his brain with useless information. He uses Sam and Daniel as databases he can refer to, confident that they will have the knowledge he needs when he needs it, but shows no interest in absorbing any of their knowledge himself. He very rarely pretends to understand them when he doesn't, or to know more than he does, again suggesting that he is fairly confident about who he is, thank you very much. When Daniel tries to explain to him what he is doing with the DHD, he cuts him off, checks that Kawalsky's team have the information they need to dial home and then heads off; he is clearly trying to re-educate Daniel to grasp the idea of delegation, which means that he doesn't need to know what Daniel is doing, he just needs to know that Daniel can do it. One feels that he does try to handle this tactfully at least at first, by offering Daniel praise as a means to shut him up:

Daniel: "It must be some sort of ceremonial place. The Gate is, has to be an integral part of their spiritual culture. I'd say this place was built for worshippers." 
O'Neill: "Well, let's just try to be out of here before the worshipees show up, huh? You figure out yet how to align this gate to get back home?" 
Daniel: "Yeah. The device is the same as the one on Abydos. This symbol represents the..." 
O'Neill: "You brief Kawalsky's team yet?" 
Daniel: "Yes. This symbol represents the..." 
O'Neill: (patting Daniel on the shoulder) "Good job." 

But clearly finds it annoying that Daniel can't get his head around the fact that Jack DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW WHY he only needs to know the short version. His patience on this point seems to be fraying even by the next time and he is a lot less tactful when they meet the people from Chulak:

Daniel: "'Lasla"...choose. They want to know if we're here to choose." (O'Neill shrugs.) "Ah, sure. We can choose. Choosing is good." (He turns back to O'Neill.) "It's a derivation of Arabic combined with..." 
O'Neill: "Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

As an academic interested in the pooling of knowledge, Daniel clearly finds this very irritating and even by Season 3 it is not clear if either of them have ever been able to see the other man's point of view on this one or that they ever will. Both seem to feel that the other is being deliberately obtuse.

Once Skaara has been taken, Jack's attitude towards those taken as hosts definitely seems to alter. When Teal'c tells him that Skaara is no longer who he was, one feels that Jack speaks no more than the truth when he says, 'I don't want to hear that.' Jack never wants to hear anything that means a problem cannot be solved, a situation cannot be escaped from. What we don't know is if he was like this before his son's death and its aftermath. He has had to look himself in the eye as someone responsible for his own child's death and the consequence of this seemed to be that he no longer wanted to live. After Skaara and Daniel between them have persuaded Jack that there is life even after such a terrible death, he has presumably had to take a long hard look at himself. One wonders if this Jack O'Neill is a very different man from the one poor Sarah was married to. This seems to be a Jack O'Neill who has an unsquashably optimistic streak – something noticeably absent in the movie Jack; someone perhaps who has really learnt the value of life. Or perhaps Jack always was an optimist and it was only his son's death that stopped him being one temporarily and he is now becoming more like the person he was before? This is a difficult one to know.

By the end of COTG he does seem absolutely determined that they are going to get Skaara and Sha're back. Although one feels he might have been prepared to give up on Sha're and to put his energies into trying to persuade Daniel that she couldn't be saved and that he ought to try and rebuild his life (we'll never know this, I guess) once Skaara has also been taken, Jack seems absolutely convinced that there must be a way to reverse what has been done to them because no way is Skaara going to spend the rest of his life as a host. 

Interestingly, Daniel is clearly worried that Jack is going to 'revert' to his suicidal behaviour after Skaara is taken as a host. And, again, one does wonder here if Daniel feels about Skaara as Jack feels about Sha're, that it's a terrible tragedy but he is clearly changed beyond recognition. After all, Daniel sees Skaara zap Jack with the ribbon device, but he doesn't see Sha're go and stand in front of Apophis. Jack affords Skaara the same privileges he does a son, which means you don't give up on him, come what may. He is terribly upset by Skaara's transformation but still believes that he can be saved; Daniel, however, seems (to me) to think Skaara is clearly unreachable and thinking that Jack will see this too is afraid that losing another 'son' is going to be too much for him. When Jack says that he is going to be the last man out, Daniel looks very anxious and clearly hesitates before doing as Jack tells him and going through the wormhole. One feels that as he does so he is seriously worried that Jack is going to get himself killed because he no longer cares enough to live. (My interpretation anyway.)

I'm not sure how real Daniel's grief over Sha're is for Jack at this point. So much happens so quickly, and he has never really had a chance to see them together as a married couple; nor, apart from The Broca Divide, (as far as I can remember) does he ever bring Sha're up in Season 1. When Daniel mentions her and Skaara in Thor's Hammer, Jack says 'Teal'c's here now" and one does wonder if by that point, Jack had pretty much resigned himself to the fact that Skaara and Sha're were gone for good and wouldn't have minded Daniel resigning himself to it as well.

I think that although he starts off determined that they will get them back and convinced that they will, reality intrudes a lot sooner with him than it does with Daniel. By the time we get to the end of Season 1 he has clearly made his decision: if it comes down to Daniel or Skaara, then terrible though it is, he has to choose Daniel. One feels very emphatically that this is not the decision he would have made in COTG, and perhaps never could have made if it hadn't been for the events of 'Fire & Water'.

However, the Jack I see at the end of COTG, seems to be a fairly relaxed character, who has been through hell and come out the other side, knows he doesn't want to die (even if Daniel isn't so sure about that yet where he's concerned), believes (probably due to Daniel) that people are basically not too bad, that a man has to trust his gut instinct on whether someone's a reasonable human being or not and that too much thinking never did anyone any good. He is clearly very loyal – Daniel saved his life on Abydos, therefore Daniel can be on his team to look for his wife even though he knows better than anyone that Daniel is not a good soldier; and Teal'c saved their lives therefore he's okay and the fact that he used to serve Apophis, has a Goa'uld in his guts, and is an alien is neither here nor there, he's on Jack's team and that's all there is to it. This maddening simplicity of Jack's therefore, is also one of the things that makes him so loyal and decent. One can see that the equation he applies to Teal'c here:

Hammond, about Teal'c: "What's he doing here?" 
O'Neill: "General Hammond. This is Teal'c. He helped us." 
Hammond: "Do you know what he is?" 
O'Neill: "Yes, Sir. I do. He's the man who saved our lives. And if you accept my recommendation, Sir, he'll join SG-1." 

Probably also holds good for Daniel, to whom Jack seems to apply the same criteria earlier:

Hammond: "You didn't like Daniel Jackson, did you?" 
O'Neill: "Daniel was a scientist. He sneezed a lot. Basically he was a geek, Sir." 
Samuels: "So you didn't have a lot of time for him." 
O'Neill: "I didn't say that. He also saved my life and found the way home for my men and me. A little thing like that kinda makes a person grow on you, if you know what I mean."

Basically if you save Jack's life, it doesn't matter what the hell you are, you’re all right with him and he'll make room for you on his team. This might be a simple philosophy but it stops life getting too complicated (and we all know how Jack hates complications) and makes him an admirably loyal person. This simplicity is also very comforting to someone like Daniel one feels at times like this: 

Daniel: "She's out there somewhere, Jack." 
O'Neill: "I know. So's Skaara." 
Daniel: "So what do we do?" 
O'Neill: "We find them." 

At the time that he says this at the end of COTG, one feels that Jack believes it absolutely and this belief is contagious. However, one also suspects that Jack's belief in his ability to find Skaara and Sha're and get the Goa'uld out of them probably lessens as time goes on, Kawalsky dies, he has more conversations with Teal'c and gets a clearer idea of what they're up against. Daniel however knows that Jack told him they'd find them and he believes Jack. I think only if Daniel came to believe that Jack no longer believed it, would he stop believing it. Or, if he came to believe that Jack was a relentless optimist who sometimes told him what he wanted to hear or told himself what he wanted to hear however inherently unlikely it might be, would it dawn on Daniel that maybe they weren't going to get his wife back after all. At the end of COTG, however, I think they both believe, absolutely, that they are going to get Sha're and Skaara back, Jack because he believes it and Daniel because Jack believes it. 

Lori