“when we finally find the evidence to vindicate you to the entire archaeological community. you want to cover it up! What is going on?”
- Release Date: 22nd September 2000
- Season 4
- Episode 13
- Director: Andy Mikita
- Writers: Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
We open with a professor and one of his assistants. They’re investigating some historical artifacts on loan from Egypt, with plans to do a resonance scan on something called the “Osiris Jar” before they have to send it back. We cut to the SGC briefing room and Jack is reading a horoscope magazine – apparently Teal’c is interested. Daniel spots an article about a cursed find that has resulted in another death – his old professor.
Daniel heads to the funeral. After the service, the professor’s assistant – Steven – is quite mad. He felt like Daniel abandoned them after he made insane theories about ancient cultures being even older and having a shared connection, and his notion that aliens were somehow responsible. Sarah, another assistant and Daniel’s ex-girlfriend, is much friendlier and trying to figure out what he’s been up to as he hasn’t published anything in a long time.
At SGC, Hammond orders the rest of the team to have some time off. Jack invites Carter to do some fishing, but declines, saying she has something she wants to do at the SGC (which turns out to be working on a motorbike with engineer Siler), so he takes Teal’c instead. Daniel is shown the relics in the museum by Sarah and they discuss the curse, as mould spores caused the people who discovered it to die, and now the professor. Sarah says an object is missing, so Daniel looks into it.
Speaking to the curator in the storage room, Daniel finds out that the missing object was definitely sent to the professors room, but mentions an Isis Jar which was miscatalogued. He takes a look and spots Gou’ald symbols. He phones Sam and lets her know. He also phones Teal’c (Jack is very annoyed that he has a phone with him) and asks him for help with a translation – the words on the jar read “Banished to oblivion”. Jack takes the battery out of the phone so they can’t be disturbed.
Daniel takes the jar to SGC and Carter scans it. Daniel discusses an Egyptian story of Isis and Osiris being placed in a magic box and hidden as punishment by Seth (who was hiding on Earth until SG-1 killed him), so these two may have been Gou’ald. They seem to not remember about how they found Keb, as a Jaffa story about Seth hunting Osiris and Isis was also mentioned then. Daniel hasn’t seen the Osiris jar, so he heads back to the museum.
The storage room is dark, and Daniel finds Steven there. Daniel explains he’s looking for a jar (which Steven says was destroyed in the explosion) while Steven says he’s looking for the circuit breaker. When they turn the lights back on, they find the curator dead. The police say that it was an accident and that some bricks came loose and fell on her head. At SGC, the scan has finished and there’s a dead Gou’ald in the jar – although perfectly preserved. If the seal had been intact, then these jars could keep a Gou’ald alive for centuries.
Sarah and Daniel look into the issues surrounding it (with Sarah getting frustrated about Daniel not explaining how he knows things, such as the symbols on the jar). Sarah managed to restore some deleted emails and find out that the missing amulet is over 10,000 years old (proving Daniel’s theory, with Sarah suspicious about him not being excited). The results were also sent to Steven.
After discovering that Steven has vanished, she lets Daniel know, expressing her frustrations about Daniel not telling her what’s going on. He has evidence that he’s right, but doesn’t seem to care and won’t say where he’s been. Daniel leaves to look for Steven, with him and Sarah leaving on bad terms once again. He heads back to SGC where the base is put on alert in case the Gou’ald decides to head for the Stargate and they try to find Steven. Dr Fraiser, using the substance from the jar, created a tranquilliser that should work on the Gou’ald. They find out that Steven has gone to Egypt, so Daniel, Carter and Fraiser head over to stop him, suspecting he’s now Osiris.
They find Steven on the floor of a temple, bleeding internally. There’s clearly Gou’ald technology here and Steven (who doesn’t seem to be a Gou’ald) said he figured the amulet he stole was a key and wanted to discover it. Sarah then turns up and reveals herself to be Osiris, blasting Carter and Fraiser over and questioning Daniel over what he knows and where the Stargate is. He reveals that they’ve killed Setesh, Ra, Hathor and Sokar and Osiris is very happy.
She then questions him about Isis, asking where her jar is, using her hand device on him. He manages to get a dart and jab her with it, making her feel faint. She activates a device and gets transported to a ship that was hidden in the sand, flying off into space.
It’s a great episode, introducing a new Gou’ald into the mix. It was also an interesting idea to use Osiris (who had male hosts previously) instead of Isis. I do think that Steven could have been an interesting recurring character now that he knows more, but he was never seen again.
