“Uncle Jack’s been like a father to me. You know, since my folks died.”
- Release Date: 20th June 2003
- Season 7
- Episode 3
- Director: Peter DeLuise
- Writers: Peter DeLuise & Michael Greenburg, Damian Kindler
Carter arrives at Stargate Command and Hammond wants to see her – an intruder entered the base using Jack’s keycard. When they took him into custody, he requested to see Carter. Hammond takes her to see the intruder, and it’s a teenage boy. He tries to get Carter to recognise him and he claims to be Jack O’Niell. Hammond says that they haven’t been able to get in touch with the actual Jack.
They bring him the drink he requested and Jack is annoyed that they’ve given him hot chocolate instead of coffee. He says he just went to bed the previous night and just what’s them to hurry up and get Dr Fraiser to run some tests so they can clear it up. Daniel arrives and Jack pleads with him to recognise him, but he doesn’t – although Jack’s angry response causes Daniel to mention that he does sound like Jack.
Jack mentions that Carter was blended with Jolonar, and that Daniel was ascended but got kicked out. Teal’c walks past and stares at Jack, but Jack doesn’t flinch and mentions Tetronin. Everyone exchanges confused glasses. The actor they chose to play the younger Jack does an amazing job with his mannerisms and speech.
They head out of the room and Hammond asks for ideas on how this kid could know so much,and Carter and Daniel says that it could be Jack, and stranger things have happened. Teal’c asks for examples so Daniel mentions Jack aging and getting better, turning into a caveman and when they all swapped bodies (his memory is completely back then). Hammond is ready to swiftly move on to testing.
In the briefing room, Fraiser says that the DNA is an almost exact match to Jack, with just a tiny abnormality that they need to look into. She needs specialists to look into it. Meanwhile, they decide to make Jack feel comfortable. Everyone seems to enjoy Jack being a child, with Carter saying he’s cute and Teal’c asking if he has increased vitality. Jack is not amused, and insists on being called sir while saying he doesn’t plan on staying how he is. Carter requests that he try to enjoy his situation as much as they are
SG-1, including the young Jack, head to his house to search for any clues. Carter wants the leftovers of his takeaway analysed, but they don’t really find anything – whatever happened likely happened after he fell asleep. Jack looks at light and gets a flashback: spinning gloves of light and an Asgard.
In the briefing room, they discuss why the Asgard would do this. While they’ve kept an eye on Earth in the past, they’re now allies and wouldn’t do something like this without asking. Daniel says the story matches some alien abduction stories, so he wants to check them out to see if there’s anything to connect to what happened to Jack. Hammond mentions about Carter doing a briefing about the F-302 she’s going to give, but Jack says he thought that was his job.
Jack visits Hammond in his office to protest. He still wants to give the briefing, but Hammond doesn’t think the pilots will listen to someone so young. Jack says he understands, but it feels like he’s up to something. Daniel and Teal’c search for alien abduction stories matching the four lights and find a few dozen matches, the most recent was 19 years ago. Daniel wants to try to speak to some of them.
Carter starts her briefing, but the pilots keep asking where Jack is, as he’s the one that flew the previous missions. Carter tries to push on when there’s a ruckus at the door. Carter opens it and finds Jack pinned by a guard. He tells the guard to release him and he enters the room. Everyone thinks it’s a joke, but Jack confidently says he’s Jack and when Carter nods, everyone immediately shuts up and listens as Jack starts giving advice.
Daniel and Teal’c visit a few of the people who claim to get abducted and they talk about a very similar story, with glowing orbs spinning around them and a description of an alien that matches the Asgard, but none of them were changed in any way. They report it to Hammond, and he says the Asgard have not responded. Fraiser enters with some bad news.
Carter visits Jack to let him know – his cells are degrading and he’s going to die. They visit the infirmary and Fraiser tries to explain in more detail, and that he’s got around a week left. Jacob visits Stargate Command to help and suggests putting Jack into stasis – although after the last time the Tok’ra helped him, he’s not willing to trust them again, but Jacob assures him that there will be no blending. He steps outside to think about it.
Carter and Daniel discuss if Jack will do it when they find a knocked out guard. They report the security breach, but it’s too late – Jack has already left the complex. They’ve asked the local police to look for him. Dr Frasier has even more information. We cut to Jack outside a liquor shop, where he spots someone he used to know from the army: Harlan Beck. He almost says that he is Jack, but decides to claim that he’s Jack’s nephew. He asks Beck to buy him some booze, but he’s not interested.
Back at Stargate command, Fraiser explains that Selmac looked at the results of Jack’s DNA and has discovered that he’s a clone. SG-1 speak to Hammond about how the Asgard clone themselves, but are now facing severe problems with deterioration. None of the other people abducted appear to be clones, so the Asgard likely took them, replaced them with a clone, and then swapped the clone for a real one. They suspect this Asgard is acting without permission from the others, so they want to apprehend him: so they need to be with the clone Jack when they swapped back around.
They managed to track down Jack – Beck had seemingly reported encountering Jack, and a fisherman said he recommended this location for fishing. Daniel and Sam struggle to tell him the truth, when Teal’c tells Jack that he’s a clone. He’s not happy, but is willing to help. In the briefing room, he says their plan of trying to intercept the Asgard beam is awful, and Jack wants to do more and asks for a gun – Hammond agrees to let him have a zat.
We cut to Jack’s house that night. Carter has given Clo’Neill instructions to operate Asgard technology, and everyone else waits for the shift. There’s a beam of light and the original Jack is back. They wake him and he’s very baffled. On the ship, the Asgard tells the clone Jack not to be afraid when Jack stuns him. He then beams the SG-1 up to the ship, with an increasingly baffled Jack. They tell Jack that the younger version of him is a clone, and that he’s been away for seven days.
The asgard wakes up and asks what is going on, and Jack yells at him for kidnapping him and making a clone. He says he is Loki, but he has nothing more to say. Jack asks if this is the thanks he gets for stopping the replicators when the young Jack reveals that he’s going to die. Loki says that this happens to all the clones he makes, and that he was stripped from his research position for experimenting on humans – he thinks he’s doing the right thing to save his people.
He thought humans, due to their similarity to ancient asgard, held the key to fixing their genetic structure. The experiment failed, but Loki thought that Jack specifically held the key, as he’s further ahead than other humans (Loki just missed out on Jonas Quinn, who is much further along than the humans of Earth). Loki says he doesn’t know how to fix the young Jack, or why he didn’t mature properly in the first place.
They contact Thor, but young Jack starts collapsing. Daniel wonders what they can do if he doesn’t show, but Thor beams in just as he’s finishing his sentence. Thor demands Loki tell him what he’s done. He says Loki will be punished, and that a marker was placed in Jack’s DNA to prevent manipulation (would have been nice to tell him), which is why the clone didn’t mature. His cells degrading, however, is a result of Loki’s inept methods – he defends himself by saying there was no need for the clones to die.
Jack asks Thor if he can do anything, and he’s surprised that Jack wants his clone to live. He says he’ll see what he can do and we cut to Jack dropping Young Jack off at high school. It seems the clone has decided that he wants to start again and have a new life – he’s his own person, not a copy. Jack asks if he’s sure when the younger kids spot some girls eyeing him up and he says definitely, and heads off to chat with them.
While the ending is a bit creepy (young Jack is still a mature adult), it’s a great episode. Michael Welch does an amazing job at playing Jack, which really sells the story. It’s a shame we never caught up with this younger version of Jack, as you’d expect someone to keep an eye on him due to how much he knows.
