Stargate SG-1 Season 3 Highlights

Stargate SG-1 Season Three

Alliances

This is the season of forging alliances, both political and personal, of losses, gains and compromises, and of deepening friendships and caring between all the increasingly tight-knit members of SG-1.

O'Neill had no hesitation stepping Into The Fire to save Daniel and Carter from implantation with a Goa'uld symbiote, realising his own worst nightmare. Help came from unexpected quarters: from an undercover Tok'ra operative, from Col. Robert Makepeace and the tough marines of SG-3, and from Hammond and Teal'c, joining forces on Chulak to launch a daring rescue attempt while O'Neill finally defeated Hathor.

The Goa'uld in fact turned out to be uncomfortably close to home. The charismatic Seth - the 'god' Setesh - was sequestered in North America with his heavily armed and devoted cult followers, forcing O'Neill, Daniel and Carter to infiltrate his group. Sam Carter learned more about the special gifts her symbiote Jolinar left her with. Not only could she sense the presence of Goa'uld, but they could sense she once was a host. Ultimately, she was forced to kill Seth using a Goa'uld ribbon device - yet more proof she was forever changed by her blending with Jolinar.

Then the SGC was forced to play host to the System Lords Cronus, Nirrti and Lord Yu as the Asgard commander Thor embroiled O'Neill in a difficult treaty negotiation which would give Earth Protected Planet status. Faced with surrendering their Stargate or attack as Fair Game for the Goa'uld, their dilemma was worsened when Cronus was brutally assaulted and it appeared Teal'c was responsible.

The dilemma was personal for O'Neill and the others when Daniel became infected with a deadly parasite which drove him seemingly insane. Hallucinating and hearing voices, Daniel was drugged and incarcerated in Mental Health and it was only he who realised he was affected by Ma'chello's Legacy: his Goa'uld-killing inventions. When his parasite attacked Teal'c, the distressed Daniel was forced to fight his way alone back to sanity to save his friend.

A man who lost his wife and family, Jack O'Neill was faced with a child prodigy he helped through a unique Learning Curve. Young Marrin was determined to do her duty for her people at the cost of her own identity, the fate of all the advanced child scholars of Orban. O'Neill kidnapped her from the SGC and put her into school for a day, teaching her to see the world through very different eyes. Then, when an alternate reality Dr. Carter and Major Kawalsky came through the quantum mirror Daniel had discovered, an uncomfortable O'Neill was left fielding two Sams, one his second-in-command, the other his wife. Or rather, the wife of his alternate, killed in an attack by Apophis on their Earth. SG-1 went through the mirror to get help from the Asgard there and Sam Carter learned her Point Of View was flawed. This Jack was not her Jack and it was not the same for them here.

Villains abounded in the form of Aris Boch, the brash and annoying bounty hunter who effortlessly captured SG-1 before discovering an inconvenient conscience in Deadman's Switch, and an Unas, mistaken for a minion of Satan by the first Christian people the team had encountered. Teal'c too was judged by the superstitious priest to be one of the Demons and condemned to death. The Unas was in fact a minion of Sokar intent on harvesting hosts. Sokar had killed Apophis, whose malign influence still lingered on in a group of young warriors abandoned by their Jaffa masters but still following the ritual Rules Of Engagement. The boys were training to pose as SGC soldiers, frustrating O'Neill and Teal'c in their determination to die for their 'god'.

Daniel's quest for his wife Sha're reached a tragic conclusion when Teal'c was forced to kill Amaunet to save Daniel's life. Sha're reached out to Daniel through the ribbon device Amaunet was using on her husband, communicating to him her desire that he both save her son and forgive Teal'c for killing her. It seemed to Daniel the two of them lived Forever In A Day and he found a kind of peace with his grief to be truly with Sha're as she died beside him, free at last.

Past And Present collided for Daniel soon after, when the charming and dedicated scientist Ke'ra was revealed as the sinister Destroyer Of Worlds, Linea, made youthful along with her fellow Vyans by an experiment gone terribly wrong. Left without memories, the Vyans were struggling merely to survive. Daniel's tentative romance with Ke'ra was ended abruptly when she took her own cure and learned her true identity. He fought for a second chance for compassionate Ke'ra and all memory of Linea was buried along with the feelings Ke'ra and he had shared.

Sam Carter faced traumas of her own when Jacob was captured by Sokar and sent to a literal Hell. Only Jolinar's Memories could save Jacob as only she had ever escaped the prison on Netu. Carter learned the horrible truth of Jolinar's escape almost too late to help Jacob, O'Neill, Daniel and Martouf when one of the damned inmates revealed himself to be The Devil You Know: Apophis, intent on torturing SGC and Tok'ra secrets out of them to buy his freedom from Sokar. Their escape was not without cost: Apophis killed Sokar and took his place commanding his vast fleet and armies, with more power than ever before.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Carter was then forced to team up with Col. Harry Maybourne to defeat a Foothold situation when the SGC was infiltrated by shape-shifting aliens. Even Carter was doubting the evidence of her own eyes by the time Maybourne had done 'helping' her.

Daniel and O'Neill were overjoyed to be reunited with Skaara on Tollana, where they defended him in his fight for sovereignty over his own body while the Goa'uld Zipacna spoke for Klorel. Lya of the Nox, now friends to the Tollan, was the voice of objectivity and the casting vote in the trial. Her neutrality and pacifism were challenged by the Pretense of the Goa'uld using the trial as a cover to launch a sneak attack.

The team then encountered a being even more aggravating than Harlan. Urgo was a sprite, a computer generated program which developed awareness and met all the criteria for sentient life, frustrating the infuriated O'Neill's fervent desire to flush Urgo - and his notions of fun - right out of their heads.

Life became intolerable for O'Neill when a meteorite strike stranded him for A Hundred Days with the simple rural people of Edora. Long enough for him to grow to accept his new life and even to begin a relationship with the widowed Laira. He gave up on rescue just as it arrived, leaving O'Neill unable to stay and Laira unable to leave.

O'Neill then stunned his team by blatantly stealing technology from the Tollan. Forced to retire and painfully rejecting Daniel's friendship and empathy, he seemed easy meat to Col. Maybourne, looking to recruit personnel to his illicit NID operations through the Stargate. Appearances soon proved deceptive, with what looked to be black and white on the surface turning out to be Shades Of Grey. With Maybourne's off-world team, the techno-horde and the SGC's inside man located, O'Neill was back, bigger and bolder than ever, and grovelling to a unreceptive Daniel.

Archaeological excitement gave way to religious fanaticism as Daniel and SG-1 found themselves on New Ground in the middle of a high-tech holy war, their very existence challenging the beliefs of their chilling captor. As living proof his enemies were right, Commander Rigar elected to torture and then kill them to bury their 'heresy' forever. It was up to the blinded Teal'c and earnest scientist Nyan to thwart Rigar and free O'Neill, Daniel and Carter.

Family intruded on the orphaned Daniel's life in unexpected ways. Master Bra'tac came to the SGC to warn them of a brutal attack on Chulak by the armies of Apophis, looking for his son, the Harsesis. Their quest to save Sha're's son from Apophis led them to the mythical Kheb, home to Oma Desala, the mother, an immensely powerful and wise energy being. Daniel found enlightenment and a new life path as well as the child and the Goa'uld learned to their cost not to challenge Oma's Maternal Instinct. Daniel did what was best to protect Sha're's son and gave him up to the care of Mother Nature herself, earning Oma's friendship.

A vast pyramid revealed the existence of a beautiful Crystal Skull, the lifelong obsession of Daniel's grandfather, Nicholas Ballard. Nick claimed to have been transported by the crystal skull he found in a temple in Belize to another place where he met giant aliens, something Daniel discovered to be true when the crystal skull transported him out of phase with reality. As a literal 'ghost' he could only watch as his friends tried to find him and figure out the skull. Clutching at the last straw led O'Neill and the others to Nick, Nick to the crystal skull at the SGC and all of them to Daniel and the really cool giant Aztec aliens. Nick and Daniel's newfound scholarly accord was cut short when Nick elected to stay with the aliens and learn about their history and culture. Daniel found his grandfather only to lose him again.

Nemesis met Daniel the form of a burst appendix and O'Neill in the form of Thor, alone aboard a crippled space ship infested with destructive techno-bugs called Replicators. With Daniel out of action and his fishing trip off the cards, aided by Carter and Teal'c, O'Neill did battle with an enemy even worse than the Goa'uld. He really, really hated bugs, and his mood wasn't helped by the Replicators consuming the ship like an all-you-can-eat-buffet. Primitive Earth firepower kicked Replicator ass long enough to retrieve Thor, beam up the Stargate and effect an 11th-hour escape as the ship crashed into the Pacific Ocean while at the SGC, Hammond and Daniel could only wait helplessly.

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--Alison 14:56, 27 Jun 2004 (PDT)