“You are an idiot every day of the week. Why couldn’t you have just taken one day off?”
- Release Date: 5th November 1999
- Season 3
- Episode 14
- Director: Andy Mikita
- Writers: Heather E. Ash
SG-1 return from a mission to find a ton of guards. Hammond says that they are to report to an infirmary immediately and that the base is on high alert due to a chemical spill on level 23. Dr Fraiser gives them what should be their usual shots, but sedates them instead. Teal’c gains consciousness and spots Frasier and Hammond alongside two aliens mentioning how Teal’c is different due to a parasite and they’re not sure about why Carter seems different.
Teal’c pretends to be unconscious as he gets wheeled into a secure location. He knocks out his guard then frees Carter when she Syler brings her down, explaining the aliens he saw. For some strange reason, Teal’c puts Syler and the guard in the lift so they get discovered quite quickly, but Teal’c buys time for Carter to escape, getting captured in the process. Carter gets on the phone and speaks to Maybourne, telling him that there’s a foothold situation.
She meets him in a cafe in Washington where he seems a bit on edge, asking her to return to Stargate Command with him. Jack and Daniel are also there, not acting fully like themselves. They all tell her that she was exposed to a substance which can cause paranoid delusions, and with her still feeling the effects of the sedative, she agrees to return, although not without telling Maybourne how much of an idiot he is for not following protocol.
She’s still on edge during the plane ride back to SGC, eyeing up Maybourne’s gun. When Jack temporarily flickers away she grabs it and shoots him, with purple blood flying out, followed by Major Davis, who enters the cabin to investigate. As they didn’t show him at SGC earlier, I was really confused that she didn’t contact Davis (she has better ties with the Pentagon), but she must have found out that he was there. They question the alien posing as Daniel, who reveals nothing. Maybourne also proves he’s not an alien by cutting himself.
Carter removes a device from Daniel’s chest and discovers that it’s a device capable of changing someone’s appearance completely. There’s also a device on their head which seems to connect to the mind of the original person – which also means that the original must still be alive for the connection. Carter suspects that a specific frequency of sound caused by the engines disrupted the holographic technology.
Back at the base, Jack and Davies wake up, suspended from the ceiling alongside others. They observe a copy or Dr Fraiser scans someone else with a device and string them up. After she leaves, they escape and take off the headset from the real Dr Fraiser, which causes an alarm. They quickly replace it and hide, with Jack knocking out the fake Frasier and feeling really uncomfortable frisking her, but he finds the mobile emitter and takes it off, revealing the alien. Daniel enters the room, with a confusing exchange until “Daniel” takes off the device to reveal that it’s Sam. Jack is miffed that she contacted Maybourne.
Carter manages to find the sound and broadcast it over the base’s tannoy. With Maybourne’s forces now here, they flee through the Stargate, with Jack closing the Iris as they have a ton of confidential knowledge. Trapped, the leader screams and they all explode, with Jack quickly realising what they’re about to do and closing the blast doors. In the debriefing, it’s explained that it all started when SG-6 returned, and everyone – Jack included – thanks Maybourne.
