“Oh, so you want, what, a klutz bonus?”
- Release Date: 16th November 2002
- Season 1
- Episode 10
- Director: Will Meugniot
- Writers: Michel Trouillet, Paul Francis
The team arrives on a planet with a road leading to the mountains. Stacey’s quad bike drives through some goo, so they toss it aside and head on though, but after they leave, it dials the stargate. The team head over some bridges, with one collapsing on Stacey. Harrison helps her up and a rock is knocked out – it turns out to be a giant diamond.
They argue over it until Bonner mentions that Draga found it first (and she has no concept of money or worth). They realise that it likely came from upscreen. Bonner mentions that Stargate regulations forbid teams from taking souvenirs home, but they point out that they’re not an official mission and, technically, he’s been court martialled so he has zero authority. They all rush off, leaving Bonner and Draga to set up camp..
They find the mines and there are loads of skeletons, it seemed the miners all fought to the death for the diamonds. The team all start mining, acting like utter idiots. We do get a flashback of Seattle thinking her family is poor because they live in an apartment in a city (I think we’re supposed to feel sympathy for her parents), while everyone else just wants to make themselves rich.
It turns out the strange goo as an alert system for a gang of bounty hunters, clearly designed with action figures in mind. The leader has a dragon-like head, while another is a centaur with a big-like head, a buff version of the Trolls from the 80s, a robot and a floating jellyfish. As Bonner lectures Draga about money and greed, the bounty hunters kidnap them. The leader says he’ll have enough money to buy a planet, but when Bonner mentions the reward needs to be split between them, he attacks the jellyfish to increase his share.
With a sack full of diamonds (and them still arguing about how to split them), the team realise that the others have been taken and give chase. Bonner manages to get another bounty hunter killed, but this also destroys a bridge, so Harrison is sent ahead as a decoy. At the stargate, the bounty hunter leader takes out the bug-centaur, and reveals the robot is his anyway. A fight breaks out but it turns out to be fruitless.
The rest of the team arrives and the bounty hunter threatens Bonner (he doesn’t need to be brought back alive). When they realise he’s a bounty hunter, they offer him all the diamonds they found, and he accepts. As he goes through the stargate, the bug-centaur gets up and chases him, with Bonner saying they’ll probably fight over them for the rest of their lives.
It turns out the team are completely cured of their greed and don’t even want to go back to the mine to get more diamonds. It’s a very sudden switch and it isn’t earned in any way. As they leave the planet, Draga sneaks the diamond she found (no idea where she hid it while captured) into Seattle’s backpack, telepathically telling her it’s for her family.
This episode is quite atrocious. While other episodes have had lessons or morals, they’ve been alongside stores that don’t make them just about the subject. This one was entirely about money, and it doesn’t even do it that well.
