10.12 "Line In The Sand" Episode Guide

Précis

Carter uses Merlin’s technology to move an entire village into another dimension to save them from an imminent Ori attack, but the village soon comes under danger when the technology fails and the villagers are faced with capitulating to the Ori or being destroyed.

Guide | Transcript

SciFi.com Official Summary

Daniel is missing, presumably a prisoner of Adria, but his worried teammates have no time to lose in the fight against the Ori. Carter has been modifying the invisibility device known as Arthur's Mantle until it can shift large objects into a neighboring dimension, hiding them from enemy eyes. Now, over her objections, Gen. Landry insists that the highly experimental device be pressed into service for a life-or-death crisis: the natives of P9C–882, inspired by their leader Thilana, have refused a Prior's call to convert to Origin. Without help from Earth, they will face terrible retribution when the Prior returns to their village in three days.

The team travels to P9C–882. At first, Carter's device works perfectly: the entire village, with SG-1 inside, vanishes from the face of the planet. Unfortunately, the dimensional displacement field then collapses prematurely, rendering the village and its people visible again. Before Carter can fix it, the Prior arrives — with an army.

SG-1 and the villagers fight a losing battle against the superior force of crusaders. Carter, defending the device in the village library, is shot. Mitchell, finding her, activates the damaged device as a last-ditch effort to save the village, but it has barely enough power to cloak the library. Only Carter and Mitchell are hidden from their enemies' eyes, and Carter's wound is serious. As time passes, she urges Mitchell to accept the inevitability of her death, but he refuses to give up, searching doggedly for hope.

Outside, the triumphant invaders capture Vala. To her horror, their brutal commander is Tomin, the once-kindly man she married in the Ori galaxy. Tomin transports Vala to a warship in orbit, where he tries to convert her with stories from the Book of Origin. Hoping to remind him of his gentler past, Vala stubbornly points out the contradictions between the Book's compassionate words and the Priors' bloody crusade.

On the planet, having seen the library vanish, Tomin's soldiers suspect that infidel magic is at work. They demand that the guilty parties confess. Teal'c has been biding his time undercover among the villagers, but soon some of them, frightened and angry, betray him to the soldiers. He remains silent under torture, but Thilana eventually breaks and describes Carter's device. Even then, the Prior himself still fails to expose the library. Infuriated, he orders that the village be bombed to oblivion from orbit. Now, only Carter's scientific brilliance can save the day — if Mitchell can keep her alive.

Cast

• Ben Browder as Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell
• Amanda Tapping as Lt. Col. Samantha Carter
• Christopher Judge as Teal'c
• Claudia Black as Vala Mal Doran
• With Beau Bridges as Maj. Gen. Hank Landry
• And Michael Shanks as Dr. Daniel Jackson

Guest Stars

SGC:

• Eric Breker as Col. Reynolds

Villagers:

• Aisha Hinds as Thilana
• Aaron Craven as Matar

Ori:

• Tim Guinee as Tomin
• Greg Anderson as Prior
• Sean Tyson as Ori Firstman

Production

• Written by Alan McCullough
• Directed by Peter DeLuise

Related Articles

Keywords

• Adria
• Arthur's Mantle
• Merlin
• Ori
• Ori Army
• Ori Warship
• P9C-882
• Priors of the Ori
• SG-1
• SG-3

Other

• Season Ten Episode Guides
• Episode Guides
• Transcripts
• 10.12 "Line In The Sand" Transcript
• Previous: 10.11 "The Quest Part 2" Episode Guide
• Next: 10.13 "The Road Not Taken" Episode Guide

Related Links

Official

• Official MGM Stargate SG-1 Website
• SciFi Channel 10.12 "Line In The Sand" Episode Guide

Fan

• Solutions On-Site Forum: Season Ten Discussion Board
• Solutions LJ Companion Site
• Stargatefan Season Ten (Episode Guides, Transcripts, Multimedia, Missing Scenes)
• SG-1Web: Nitpicker's NetGuide Season Ten
• Stargate Screencaps: Season Ten

Production Notes

• "I'm contracted for 16 episodes this season," Shanks says. "I'll probably be out of the fourth and fifth episodes and two others later on." — Michael Shanks, Michael Shanks Online Interview with Michael Shanks, January 2006.
• Casting for this episode is to be completed by June 28 and filming is scheduled for July 31 to August 9.
• "Michael stated that as far as he recollected, the four episodes he will be absent from are the 4th, 5th, 12th and 13th episodes. (At this stage not sure if he was talking about shooting order or airing order, but he did confirm he is not appearing in the episode "Lines In The Sand")." — Michael Shanks Online: TT20 2006 Update, July 9, 2006. (As far as is known, "Line in the Sand" is the 14th episode in production order, scheduled to be before cameras July 31 through August 9, but is most likely to be aired as either the 12th or 13th episode to account for Daniel's two-episode absence.)
• "Also, in case you’re wondering why nary a word is mentioned about the fact that Daniel is missing in this episode, the teaser (the first scene before the title) dealt specifically with Daniel’s absence, but had to be cut for time." — Alex Levine, script coordinator, Scifi.com blog, April 18, 2007.

Further Reading

• Michael Shanks Online Interview with Michael Shanks, January 2006.
• Michael Shanks Online: TT20 2006 Update, July 9, 2006.
• Alex Levine's blog at scifi.com, April 2007.

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--DeeKayP 17:44, 22 June 2006 (PDT)