Stargate SG-1 Season 5 Highlights

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Stargate SG-1 Season Five

Conspiracies

This was the season of conspiracies, at home and off-world, and of difficult, murky politics and power-plays that took a heavy toll on the members of SG-1. It was also the time of greatest personal sacrifice and loss for the four friends.

The joyous reunion with Teal'c, alive and well, was cut short when he betrayed his jubilant teammates to his 'god' Apophis and their hard-won mothership was overrun with Replicators, which powered the ship back towards our own galaxy. O'Neill was forced to shoot Teal'c during the team's dramatic escape bid, which left Enemies Apophis and the Replicators crashing into the surface of his homeworld Delmak.

Teal'c's ordeal was only beginning. Master Bra'tac insisted he be allowed to guide Teal'c through the rite of M'al Sharran. It was said that at the Threshold of death, a Jaffa's life would pass before him and he could make a choice to free his soul. Bra'tac argued that in worshipping false god Apophis, Teal'c was as good as dead, and the anxious teammates stood vigil as their friend suffered and finally made the defining choice of his life - for freedom.

Sam Carter's claim to have gained an invisible friend was met by disbelief and pity. Only her new friend turned out to be one of the powerful ascended beings SG-1 had first met on Kheb and NID Colonel Simmons at least was keeping a close eye on the situation. Orlin's feelings for Sam were so strong he gave up his Ascension for her, and both the NID and the enigmatic Others closed in for the kill.

O'Neill had trouble with the natives in tricky encounters with two new cultures and had to tackle both Goa'uld and Asgard. First, trapped behind enemy lines with Jaffa closing in, he discovered SG-1's Fifth Man Lt. Tyler wasn't a man at all, while the rest of the team were confined at the SGC, battling to prove to Hammond and Simmons that Tyler existed and to give O'Neill a chance at rescue. Then, the religious beliefs of the K'Tau devotees of Asgard Freyr resulted in them tamely accepting annihilation as their god's will after a terrible error by Carter resulted in a Red Sky which would kill every living thing on their world.

Trouble hit closer to home when Cassie Fraiser collapsed during her 16th birthday celebrations. As her frantic mother Janet watched her body fail, Cassie began to exhibit extraordinary telekinetic abilities in a Rite Of Passage which SG-1 traced back to the genetic experiments of sinister Goa'uld Nirrti. O'Neill was forced to make a deal with the devil to save Cassie's life and had to watch Nirrti go free.

Daniel Jackson's bond with Chaka was tested to the limit when the Unas was captured by slave traders as a Beast Of Burden for their world. He and O'Neill went to the rescue only to find that the people who took Chaka were themselves slaves to the Unas before the Beast Wars overthrew their oppressors. There was no way to free Chaka without injuring innocent bystanders but then Daniel and Jack were captured by Burrock, determined to torture gate addresses from them, and the stakes grew much higher. The Unas wanted freedom…

O'Neill was harassed by politics from all angles and offered his own unique brand of 'diplomacy' in return… Discovery of an amazing Babylonian ziggurat saddled him with a Russian cohort on a shady rescue mission to recover a missing covert Russian team and a legendary artefact. When they became trapped in The Tomb, they found it was not only collapsing, but infested with something which killed - and ate - the Russians, and a brutal, desperate Goa'uld in need of a host.

Things were no easier off-world. The Tollan were inexplicably ready to offer up advanced weapons technology and Carter's suitor Narim was deeply troubled by the suspicious death of Omoc. SG-1 and the ethical Tollan found themselves caught Between Two Fires when a formidable new enemy, represented by the hateful Tanith, trapped Chancellor Travell into betraying Earth to the Goa'uld - or destroying it. Narim made a fateful stand and his people chose to fight.

Senator Kinsey took a keen interest in the 2001 negotiations with potential new benefactors the Aschen. O'Neill's instinctive suspicions of their too-good-to-be-true hosts were confirmed when Daniel discovered a recent city buried beneath crop-rich fields. After confronting the Aschen with their plans to annihilate Earth's population through sterilisation, Carter was forced to leave behind new beau Senator Joe Faxon as she escaped to warn the SGC of impending attack.

Carter's unique Tok'ra heritage made her a target for experimentation by dying billionaire Adrian Conrad, who wanted to implant a Goa'uld symbiote to cure him and then remove it successfully. With help from the incorrigible Harry Maybourne, SG-1 raced against the clock to save Carter, but it was too late for Conrad. O'Neill's Desperate Measures left him wounded, but who pulled the trigger? Maybourne? Or Simmons?

Martin Lloyd returned to haunt O'Neill when he became a writer on wacky cable show Wormhole X-Treme, which bore an uncanny resemblance to SG-1 and the Stargate programme. When O'Neill became Air Force adviser to the show, he found Marty back on his meds and oblivious both to his true identity and to the dangers posed by his very real fellow aliens.

A very bad year for O'Neill continued when SG-1 were roped in to train and assess the latest batch of gung-ho recruits on the SGC's Proving Ground. Elliot seemed too eager to please, Satterfield had a huge crush on Daniel and Grogan a positive genius for getting shot. Fortunately, they had Jennifer Hailey on their side as a dramatic foothold situation unfolded, giving them all a chance to show their true potential.

When Teal'c became trapped in the Stargate buffer, O'Neill had to accept Maybourne's help to beat Colonel Simmons and the NID at its own game, Carter clashed with the arrogant, antagonistic Dr. Rodney McKay who deemed her a dumb blonde, and Daniel had to negotiate with the sceptical, resistant Russians in an action-packed 48 Hours. So far as Teal'c was concerned, he had had his revenge on Tanith and all was well!

Daniel went undercover as Lord Yu's most trusted slave when the System Lords gathered for a crucial tactical Summit. The Tok'ra assassination plan he was recruited for immediately went awry as Osiris joined the summit, representing the absent Anubis, and demanding he be accepted back among the Goa'uld. While Daniel tried to discover what he could about the threat posed by Anubis, the rest of SG-1 was trapped in a devastating attack on the secret Tok'ra base. Sam Carter comforted the dying Elliot, now unwilling host to Martouf's symbiote Lantash. Daniel and Carter both faced ghosts from their pasts as he failed to free Sarah Gardner and she was forced to leave behind Elliot/Lantash in a Last Stand against the Goa'uld.

SG-1 felt they'd seen this movie before when they tried to stop an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. O'Neill and Teal'c ventured out onto the asteroid surface to arm a nuclear warhead, only for Carter to discover the core was naquadah and the resultant blast would engulf the Earth. Past the Failsafe point, the two were forced to race against time to disarm the device. Carter was out of options, but this particular Goa'uld ploy gave Daniel a brilliant idea…

Teal'c and Bra'tac were enthralled by the charismatic Warrior Kytano, leader of a motley band of Jaffa rebels who eagerly fought and died in his name. O'Neill was appalled at Kytano's ruthless disposal of his people in suicide missions and by Teal'c's defection to the man's cause. It was Lord Yu who showed Teal'c the true depth of Kytano's betrayal, but would the enraged Teal'c survive challenging the deceitful Goa'uld in a ritual leadership battle?

The answer to the origin of the Replicators was unexpectedly found in Reese, a child-like android who yearned to be loved and accepted. Refusing to accept her true nature, Reese clung to her 'human' identity. In apology for lashing out at him, she made Daniel a toy…a Replicator. Forced to face the fact that her toys were the Menace responsible for the deaths of all her people, Reese became distraught and her protective Replicators overran the SGC. Her terrible emotional confrontation with Daniel was ended tragically by O'Neill's dramatic rescue of his friend just as Daniel had convinced Reese to surrender.

Two former NID operatives were the only ones who could help SG-1 to gain access to The Sentinel, a powerful alien weapon failing for the first time in history to protect a peaceful world from the Goa'uld. When they learned that the true Sentinel was a man, not a machine, Colonel Grieves paid for the human life he took with his own, bonding with the weapon barely in time to stop a Goa'uld invasion and free O'Neill and the trapped SG-1 from the surrounding Jaffa.

Daniel Jackson returned to the SGC contaminated by a lethal dose of radiation. As he lay dying in the infirmary, O'Neill was determined to discover the truth of what had happened to his friend. He learned that Daniel gave his life to save the Kelownan people from their own naquadria-enhanced bomb and that scientist Jonas Quinn, who was with Daniel when he disarmed the malfunctioning weapon, was part of the cover-up conspiracy. After being confronted by the raging O'Neill, Quinn later sought refuge at the SGC, bringing a sample of the precious naquadria with him.

Daniel's grieving friends gathered to say their emotional goodbyes as Oma Desala appeared to Daniel to offer him another option: ascension. Daniel's life truly stood at a Meridian. He had to accept his efforts, not his losses, free himself from his feelings of grief and failure, and release his burdens.

In the end, Daniel made his choice and appeared in a vision to Jack, who asked on his behalf that Jacob Carter and Janet Fraiser cease in their attempts at healing him and let their friend go. Gathered around Daniel's bedside, the family of SG-1 watched stricken as their 'little brother' died and was transformed into blinding energy as he ascended to a higher plane of existence.

Alone in Daniel's vision, Jack was able to say his own private farewell as the emotional Daniel left through the Stargate to follow protective mentor Oma Desala.

A grieving SG-1 went to the rescue of Asgard scientist Heimdall only to discover the truth about Asgard cloning and how close the race stood to extinction as science and medicine failed them. This was only the first of their Revelations as they tried to rescue Thor from aboard Osiris' ship and new enemy Anubis finally emerged from the shadows. Human ingenuity and Asgard military might saved the day and the teammates returned home. Deep in the SGC, a soft breeze playing over Jack's face left him smiling, certain for the first time that Daniel was safe - and watching over them.

Article by Alison

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--Alison 14:57, 27 Jun 2004 (PDT)

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