Stargate SG-1 Season 4 Highlights

Stargate SG-1 Season Four

Conflict

This is the season of conflicts, both with the Goa'uld and within the SG-1 team as exploration gives way to militaristic missions off-world and political power plays at home.

The Replicators continued to trouble both the Asgard and SG-1 as Thor arrived on base to request Sam Carter's help in formulating a "stupid idea" to defeat their latest attack, and O'Neill, Daniel and Teal'c tackled a technobug-infested nuclear submarine. A Russian sub. Both battles were won, but turned out to be Small Victories as the Replicator advance continued unabated in the Asgard galaxy.

O'Neill and Daniel clashed ideologically over providing aid to one of two warring factions on the poisoned world of Euronda. Daniel's aid was humanitarian, O'Neill's ultimately military, Daniel asked questions - and O'Neill hated what he learned of The Other Side. The enemy were called 'breeders', came in all shapes, sizes and colours, and Teal'c was deemed…"different" by leader Alar.

Beautiful, dispassionate Tok'ra scientist Anise arrived at the SGC to use O'Neill, Daniel and Carter in an experiment. Her long-sought legendary armbands made our heroes immensely strong and quick as well as honing their senses. Unfortunately, their Upgrades also boosted aggression and, according to the unimpressed General Hammond, stupidity. When the enhanced, testosterone-fuelled trio learned of Apophis' new super-ship, all hell broke loose.

Tragedy struck the teammates when Teal'c's lost love Shan'auc came to him with a unique proposition: she had learned to communicate with her Goa'uld symbiote and asked his help to teach her methods to their people. Teal'c stood at a Crossroads in his life and chose to leave SG-1 to be with her. Only Shan'auc trusted the symbiote Tanith and she paid for that error with her life. Teal'c swore vengeance on Tanith but was thwarted by the Tok'ra, who were using Tanith to plant disinformation.

Then Sam Carter's intimate ties with Jolinar's mate Martouf were severed when sophisticated brain-washing turned him into a helpless assassin as the Goa'uld attempted to Divide And Conquer humans and Tok'ra on the eve of signing a new treaty between their two peoples. Martouf pleaded with Sam to be the one to take his life, to grant him that dignity, leaving her grieving his sacrifice for Jolinar's sake and for her own.

Daniel too suffered personal losses. Investigating the origins of The First Ones, the aboriginal Unas, with friend Robert Rothman, Daniel was kidnapped by young male Unas Chaka in his rite of passage to adulthood. While Daniel attempted to communicate and ultimately to bond with Chaka, O'Neill was forced to kill Rothman when he was taken as host by one the Goa'uld symbiotes teeming in the nearby waters. Daniel could be forgiven for thinking it was he The Curse applied to, not the discovery of ancient Egyptian artefacts which resulted in the deaths of his mentor, Professor Jordan, a museum curator and a technician who'd obtained proof that Daniel's theories on the age of the pyramids were correct. Old rival Steven Rayner went to Egypt to steal Daniel's credit and the Goa'uld Osiris stole an old girlfriend's soul. With the loss of Sarah Gardner as a host, it seemed all of Daniel's ties to the past were severed.

O'Neill had his own trials and tribulations. First, he and Teal'c were locked into endless time loops and had to learn Latin and Ancient and all this sciencey stuff about magnets to find the Window Of Opportunity which finally broke the loop. Then it was a case of "Holy Frozen Bad Guys!" as he was forced to thaw out aggravating arch-nemesis Harry Maybourne when Daniel, Carter and brilliant Russian scientist Dr. Svetlana Markov took a mini-sub through their own Watergate and Teal'c learned the hard way there was something in the water.

Next, seemingly harmless nutjob and bizarre-conspiracy freak Martin Lloyd's claims of being an alien turned out to be *true*. Daniel and Carter went missing, Teal'c became addicted to the Magic Fingers in the motel room and Marty was Not Alone. Jack - and the aliens - rapidly reached the Point Of No Return. As if all of this weren't enough, he and Teal'c were catapulted off at a Tangent into deep space in a DIY Death Glider which former owner Apophis wanted back. Daniel, Jacob and Sam Carter raced to their rescue in a *bad* part of space. Daniel's Great And Powerful Oz act embarrassed Jacob in front of Heru'ur and in the final insult, the dying O'Neill complained their ship was bigger than his…

The SG-1 team learned that appearances were deceptive - and deadly. With one alien race seeming hell-bent on planetary destruction and vulnerable, newly-settled Enkaran friends in the way of the vast ship's Scorched Earth, O'Neill was in no doubt of his response to the attack. Daniel doubted that it *was* an attack. Seeking other options for his friend led him onto the ship to communicate with its avatar, Lotan. O'Neill had to choose between saving all the Enkarans and killing Daniel. Fortunately, Daniel's true function on SG-1 was finding those other options.

Carlin, Jonah and Therra were somewhat combative teammates slaving in a power plant in a desperate bid to save their people from an ice age. Despite the deprivation, it was their honour to serve overseer Brenna. Beneath The Surface, though, doubts and dreams surfaced. Night-sick teammate Tor first demanded they remembered they were friends and then after he was 'cured' seemed not to know them at all. Carlin dreamed of a shimmering puddle of water, Jonah of mining naked and a man named Homer, and Therra's mind was filled with letters and numbers - DHD, GDO, SG-1…

Politics were even murkier. O'Neill started digging when General Hammond retired without warning, his team was broken up and reassigned, and his bullet point summaries - and attitude - fell short of the mark where new commander General Bauer was concerned. When O'Neill learned Hammond's young granddaughters were in danger, a Chain Reaction began which broke Harry Maybourne out of Death Row and could still end with scheming Senator Kinsey in the White House. And back at base, a reluctant Sam Carter was forced into building a powerful nuclear weapon.

Sam Carter and Daniel both experienced very different lives than their own. In 2010, Sam was a colonel and the wife of Senator Joe Faxon, pet astrophysicist of Earth's saviours the Aschen and one of the national heroes of SG-1. Grieved at her inability to conceive a child, Sam and Janet Fraiser discovered the Aschen were systematically wiping out the world's population by rendering them sterile. Worse, Sam's husband Joe was in on the conspiracy. Could Sam convince old C.O. Jack O'Neill and Joe to help her and SG-1 stop the Aschen before it was too late for everyone? Could they change the future by going into their past?

Daniel was summoned to Abydos by Kasuf, where he met Sha'uri's son Shifu, who wanted to learn more of his mother. Shifu shared Oma Desala's awesome powers and when he saw the life path Daniel had taken, decided to teach him a lesson. Daniel desired the knowledge of the Harsesis contained within Shifu, but the evil was too strong to resist. Dreams teach - and in his dream, Daniel gained all the knowledge of the Harsesis and Absolute Power. Only after he had disposed of Teal'c and Carter, defeated O'Neill and began to destroy the world he was supposed to save, did he finally understand Shifu…and himself.

Science and nature could be equally deadly. A Goa'uld pleasure palace contained an archaeological treasure trove for Daniel and a beautiful addiction in The Light. Back on Earth, Daniel's behaviour was increasingly erratic and when O'Neill went in search of him, he found him poised on his balcony ready to jump. Looking for answers to Daniel's terrible, terminal illness back in the palace, SG-1 found a lonely boy - and the Light. With his friend Daniel lying on his deathbed, the enraged, grieving O'Neill discovered his own addiction and that the only cure was returning to the planet. Permanently.

A team of SGC scientists captured an alien 'light bee' and triggered a deadly swarm, trapping them along with O'Neill and Teal'c. Sam Carter took brilliant, embittered scientific Prodigy Cadet Jennifer Hailey under her wing and off-world, into the path of the swarm. Hailey found that in the Stargate programme, the Air Force had more to offer her than she had ever imagined and that science was very different when lives depended on it, not grades.

When an alien electronic signal invaded the SGC computer mainframe, no one was prepared to find it was a sentient Entity intent on destroying what it perceived to be a hostile threat to its world. Daniel and Carter attempted to communicate, only to have the Entity download itself into Carter's brain. As its power grew exponentially, O'Neill was forced to kill it - and Carter along with it.

The Goa'uld remained a threat to Earth, sometimes insidious, sometimes overt, and Apophis continued to be the worst thorn in SG-1's side. Teal'c's attempt to recruit fellow rebels on Chulak resulted in his capture and torture while Jacob needed linguist Daniel and daughter Sam to re-program a deadly mine with which to destroy Apophis and Heru'ur before they could reach a threatening alliance. They were not expecting to find Teal'c prisoner aboard one of the ships or for the Serpent's Venom as Apophis callously sacrificed an entire fleet to annihilate Heru'ur, leaving him the most powerful System Lord in the galaxy.

System Lord Cronus warned SG-1 after their treaty negotiations with the Asgard that if he ever had them within his power, he would not be merciful. When Daniel, Carter and Teal'c were captured by his forces, they were stunned to be blamed for the enslavement of the people of Juna. Before the assembled warriors, Cronus demanded that Darian, their leader, execute Daniel Jackson in a show of loyalty to him or have his own people executed. But the 'god' was as shaken as any man when 'Daniel' was revealed to be a robot. With the penitent Darian's help, robot Jack set about clearing up the mess left by the real O'Neill and SG-1 on a previous mission. It was Double Jeopardy right down the line as Jack and Jack clashed, Teal'c and Teal'c took on Cronus in revenge for killing their father, and the Carters covered everyone's six.

Revenge was still on the brooding Teal'c's mind as the treacherous Tanith, murderer of his love Shan'auc, was finally judged to be no longer of use to the cynical Tok'ra once they had possession of Cronus' ship, courtesy of a triumphant O'Neill and SG-1. When Tanith escaped from the Tok'ra tunnels, Teal'c obsessed on his vengeance despite the imminent arrival of Apophis' vast fleet. Jacob and Sam Carter had a plan to destroy Apophis for once and for all, though O'Neill and Daniel felt blowing up the sun was ambitious…

While Carter sent a Black Hole-engaged Stargate on a collision course for the sun, Teal'c and O'Neill pursued Tanith's rescue ship back down to the planet only to have Tanith find them first. Teal'c was shot and fell dying, Tanith taking his body to Apophis as O'Neill was forced to retreat and wait for rescue from his teammates. Caught in the sun's blast wave, SG-1's ship was catapulted across the galaxy into unknown space, a vast vessel suddenly looming over them as Apophis joined their explosive Exodus.

Article by Alison

Stargate SG-1 Season 4 Highlights

Stargate SG-1 Season Four

Conflict

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Stargate SG-1 Season 4 Highlights

Stargate SG-1 Season Four

Conflict

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