“Uh, Colonel. This Gate is plastic.”
- Release Date: 30th October 1998
- Season 2
- Episode 14
- Director: Brad Turner
- Writers: Sam Egan
SG-1 want to study a device called a Touchstone – a small device on the planet Madrona that can seemingly control the weather of the entire planet. They can’t remove it without destroying the planet’s climate, so Hammond lets them return to the planet. When they arrive, the planet is stormy and SG-1 are branded as thieves – it seems that someone from Earth has stolen the device. After some threats and gun pointing, the Princess convinces the Elder to give SG-1 the chance to find the device.
Back on earth, Hammond says that nobody goes through the Stargate without his knowledge, and nobody has been to that planet since SG-1 weren’t there. That said, a rogue team could go on a mission, then dial out from there, but I think Hammond trusts all the SG teams so doesn’t think of that possibility. He allows Carter to check the computer just in case. She finds a strange energy spike at the same time as another team returning that matches when she and Jack were sent to the second gate on Earth, and it seems that strange weather is being reported across America – the Touchstone may have been brought to Earth via the second stargate.
Hammond tries to contact the President, but someone seems to me making sure he can’t be contacted, but Carter does manage to analyse the weather and pinpoint the location to Nevada. Hammond reveals that that is indeed where the second stargate is, so there’s no denying that it has been used to steal the Touchstone. What’s more is that Mayborne recently got assigned to the facility there, the one that any tech is sent to: Area 51.
They check in on Madrona and discover that a blizzard has started. It’s freezing and everyone is cooped up in the temple. For some utterly strange reason, they don’t send any supplies to the planet – they just let them suffer. It’s even stranger because SGC are fighting other parts of the US government to save these people. Anyway, with it being so bad, Hammond sends SG-1 to Area 51 to deliver some paperwork.
After being shown a few things that Area 51 are working on, SG-1 get to Maybourne. Teal’c tells him that, after the stunt he pulled when Teal’c was infected by a bug, he would be in his rights to dismember him. He denies anything about the Touchstone and the second stargate and take SG-1 to look at it, still in its box. The plastic replica inside does not fool Carter, though. Maybourne says that the moving of the stargate is classified and not a military operation.
In order to find the second gate, Carter comes up with a new plan – if they overload the gate returning to Earth, they should come out though the second gate. They decide to send a MALP through. For some reason, Jack and Teal’c head to the blizzardy Madrona (where the villagers are still angry and nag them) instead of any safe planet. It gets sent through, but can only get a partial location before it gets destroyed.
Hammond calls in a favour with a spy contact and manages to get a location, and a large cargo plane has been commissioned at an airfield in the area Carter found. This has to be the place. Hammond sends SG-1 to stop the gate being moved, but forbids them from shooting anyone – these are under orders of someone in the US government. They go there and enter a warehouse and pretty much mess up completely.
SG-1 hold up the mysterious people with the stargate at gunpoint, while another dials out (with the unstable vortex bursting through the box), allowing them to flee. Jack shoots near them, but they all escape. Teal’c even has a Zat gun on him, but doesn’t stun any of the people fleeing. They do secure the second gate and the Touchstone, at least, and the stargate is placed under Hammond’s jurisdiction and the Tocuhstone returned to allow Madrona’s climate to be restored.
There’s lots of good revelations this episode, with lots of stuff being done on the sly, but there’s just also a lot of messy things that get in the way of enjoying it properly.
