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Stargate SG-1
Episode 5.17, "Fail Safe"
Original Air-Date: 4/5/02
Written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Millie
Directed by Andy Mikita
I'd like to say I'm the standard reviewer who can approach all episodes with an open mind, but quite honestly, I'm not. When I heard about the premise of this episode I started looking around to see if suddenly Bruce Willis was going to be guest starring on SG-1. The premise of a comet/asteroid hitting the Earth is nothing all that new, it happens all the time. The twist of it comes when it turns out to be a large enough rock to do some real damage.
The biggest thing in this episode that irritated me wasn't even really the fault of the episode. In the last scene of our previous episode we're left hearing footsteps of Goa'uld troops as they're approaching LT. Elliot. Elliot awaits them with the poison developed by the Tok'ra with the intention of being brought back to the stargate and sacrificing himself by releasing the poison. Do we find out what happens? NO! This episode picks up with SG-1 back at their base with no mention of Elliot's fate. What gives? We do find out that the Tok'ra are on the run after the Goa'uld destroyed their underground base but still no mention of Elliot's fate.
As for the episode itself? An amateur astronomer discovers an asteroid on a collision with Earth. Unfortunately, Ben Affleck is busy being Daredevil so what do we do? Get our little off-world allies to try and save our butts. O'Neill visits the Asgard and tries to get their help but that treaty doesn't let them interfere with natural extinction. The Tok'ra can't be found since their base was thrashed and time is ticking away. Jack suggests they nuke the rock themselves but they don't have a way to get to the rock, except for that broken down cargo ship from the previous episode... So everyone heads on back to Ravana and starts fixing the ship.
Now I can believe that we've acquired a better understanding of Goa'uld technology, but I honestly cannot believe we're advanced enough to fix this ship that fast. It crashed pretty hard into the planet and a few techies manage to repair this complex craft? Alrighty... So the rickety ship takes off with SG-1 onboard and a huge bomb made out of naquaada. Fast forward six days and SG-1 is coming out of hyperspace and approaching the asteroid. Their ship almost crashes into the asteroid as it takes them longer to slow down then they thought it would but they descend into a crater and manage to land on the surface. So Jack and Teal'c don some spacesuits and head out the airlock with the bomb. Although, why they wouldn't just use the rings to leave the ship is beyond me. Oh well.
While they're setting the bomb further down in a crater the ship is hit by some debris and loses the atmosphere so Sam and Daniel take some cover in the escape pods that look like sarcophagus. Or is that sarcophagi? Anyway, Teal'c and Jack come back to the ship and make some repairs and let the two of them out of the pods. Sam figures out the rock is actually composed largely of naquaada itself which doesn't bode too well for our planet. If they blow up the rock the shock-wave will destroy Earth anyway. Darned if you do, darned if you don't. Now we get the second biggest cliché of the show. If you're keeping track, number one is the asteroid/comet hitting the Earth. Turns out Jack has to disarm the bomb but doesn't know which wire to cut since they're all yellow. Will he blow himself up? What do you think.
Sam concocts a plan where they expand the hyperspace field from the ship to encompass the asteroid right before they smack into the Earth. In a very cool looking effect the ship and the rock hyperspace THROUGH the Earth and come out the other side. So SG-1 has saved the Earth but NASA, SG-Command and anyone else who knew the asteroid was coming has no idea how they did it, or what happened to them. They remain stranded on the rock and die after their Oxygen runs out.
Or until a little Tok'ra ship happens to come along after hearing the initial messages asking for help with the asteroid and plucks SG-1 off the asteroid. This scene disappointed me. It was like SG-1 showed that they were able to function without their little ally's help the entire episode but then still needed them to save their butts at the end. Despite all of that the episode still works. We see nice teamwork out of SG-1 as usual after they were split off in the past two episodes. We also begin to get an idea of just how much the technology level of our government in Stargate surpasses what we actually have here in the real world. I still don't really buy into them being able to fix that cargo ship though. The thing I love most about Stargate is even when we have this rehash of a sci-fi plot we still get the Stargate continuity thrown in. The Asgard are visited, we're reminded of the treaty and the previous Goa'uld violation of it, and we have them revisit the planet from the previous episode to get the ship that crashed. My guess is this was part of the solution Anubis had for eliminating the Tau'ri (That's us earthfolk).
Episode Rating: 6 out of 10
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