“Surely you’ve never seen anything quite so beautiful. We call them trees.”
- Release Date: 24th July 1998
- Season 2
- Episode 5
- Director: David Warry-Smith
- Writers: Robert C. Cooper & Damian Kindler
SG-1 spy on a group of people sending naquadah through the Stargate. A woman splits from the group and heads into the forest. Following her, Daniel ends up saving her life by preventing her from throwing herself off a cliff. They get arrested by some Jaffa that look a little odd and taken to their ruler, Pyrus. The princess Daniel saved, called Shyla, refuses to tell her father the truth, so they get sentenced to work in a mine for the rest of their lives.
Carter reveals that she can seemingly tell that there was no Gou’ald present, something she can now feel due to Jolinar blending with her. Teal’c says the same thing, which makes some of his earlier interactions (such as when Carter was taken by Jolinar) a bit odd, I think they should have kept this ability to Carter with Teal’c commencing on their behaviour instead. As the mines are brutal, they try to escape, but a rock fall severely injures Daniel.
He wakes up in a Sarcophacus, now perfectly healthy. Shyla tells him that he is her destiny, that her mother said a traveller would one day be her true love – and that Daniel will need to work with her to earn her father’s trust. He lets the starving and falling apart SG-1 know that he’s alive and living a life of luxury, but to not escape again as he needs time to let them out. In further manipulation of Daniel, Shyla gets him to use the Sarcophacus while healthy – which produces intoxicating effects.
After many more uses, and future visits to SG-1, Daniel’s personality changes considerably. He decides to not mention his wife to Shyla and gets aggressive to SG-1. It seems that continued use of the Sarcophacus has disastrous effects on the mind – it takes the soul away. This is a brilliant way to make the Sarcophacus into something that’s not regularly used. Daniel also keeps Hammond at bay by sending messages to say that everything is under control and sending more people would mess it up.
Eventually, Daniel agrees to marry Shyla, although he doesn’t plan to follow through – he says he needs to be with his people and get SG-1 back before he can do so. Shyla decides to trust Daniel, releasing a nearly dead SG-1 from the mines (if they’re that bad, how is there anyone left in this village). They all head back, but Daniel is definitely not the same, getting more and more aggressive over time.
Dr. Fraiser diagnoses it as an extreme withdrawal, but they can’t let Jackson return in case the changes to his mind become permanent. The withdrawal is immensely painful, with Jackson even getting out of restraints and knocking out the doctor. Jack finds him in a supply closet and they have a heart-to-heart, with Jack telling Daniel that he has gone through a withdrawal himself. They embrace.
Once Daniel has recovered, they go back as Daniel wants to do one last thing. Shyla is now in charge after he father’s death and he tells her about the dangers of the Sarcophacus and that she doesn’t need to torture her people to get enough naquadah to send to wherever the gou’ald they defeated sent it, and that SCG can help mine. She ends up destroying the Sarcophacus – she won’t be like her father.
While it’s very soon after the previous “life imprisonment for helping a random person” episode, it’s a good episode that gives a lot more meaning to the Sarcophacus. I would have liked some mention of checking the planet the naquadah was being sent to (the Gou’ald have abandoned many planets, there might just a a massive pile of it), but it’s still a meaningful episode.
