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Stargate SG-1
Episode 6.06, "Abyss"
Original Air-Date: 7/19/02
Director: Martin Wood
Writers: Brad Wright
Well, this episode was certainly much easier to stomach then the debacle of the previous week, although it seemed more pandering to the fans then anything else. Whenever a main character leaves a show there are the inevitable rumors of a return episode. Sometimes it happens in a peculiar way, like with Tasha Yar showing up as her own Romulan daughter, or maybe it's just a simple cameo like with George Clooney returning to ER for the last minute of an episode when Juliana Marguiles left. Most of the time the episode comes off shallow, and most of the time the producers have enough sense to not do a return until the audience has actually had time to miss the character.
Oh, the character I'm talking about is Dr. Daniel Jackson who has been gone from the show for a whopping 7 episodes! Which actually translates into just around three months since Sci-Fi channel started the season without much delay from Showtime. So we're already off to a bad start in my mind, since I'm of the belief the return should have come later in the season. Now we get to the storyline and once again Stargate seems to be ignoring certain rules or standards regarding the Goa'uld and Tok'ra.
We start off seeing O'Neill and a woman fleeing from the Goa'uld, as Jack tries to engage the dialing device on some Stargate. He's hit by a staff blast and falls to the ground, the Tok'ra symbiote he had squirms out of his body and goes away. It should be dead since they can't survive outside a host, but who knows what Stargate is going to do in a future episode. Maybe it found a rabbit. So O'Neill's taken prisoner by the Goa'uld and sent to a cell.
It turns out that the System Lord Ba'al is the one holding O'Neill captive and that he believes Jack's a Tok'ra operative who previously infiltrated his fortress. We see some nifty effects since it appears Ba'al is working on various gravity-manipulated weapons and uses. One of these is a cell, which changes gravity so that the wall becomes the floor. Another is a torture-device which holds the victim in place by gravity. Ba'al questions Jack, and since Jack has no answers he lets the gravity pull several daggers into him.
Jack wakes up in a sarcophagus and is then escorted back to that gravity prison cell. So then we get the re-appearance of Daniel Jackson. We know he's from the 'higher plane' cause he's wearing white cotton clothing you see… He and Daniel exchange some rather forced banter to remind us all of how it used to be. Daniel tries to get Jack to realize the severity of the situation he's in. That he has no way out and that he wants him to prepare himself to rise to Daniel's plane of existence (umm, I doubt that could happen.)
The guards re-appear and take Jack back to Ba'al who tortures him with gravity pulled drops of acid, until Jack does remember the name of the symbiote and gives it to him. This torture, questioning, healing, etc… cycle seems to progress quite often. It begins to take a toll on Jack and we know prolonged use of a sarcophagus begins to permanently brainwash a person. Jack tries to get Daniel to help him but you know those strict rules of non-interference with other planes of existence...
We find out back at SGC that they're none too happy about O'Neill not returning and even less happy when a Tok'ra Ambassador tells them that he's gone missing. They manage to look at the mission reports of the Tok'ra symbiote who was in O'Neill and "figure out" that he's in Ba'al's base because he went back for the woman he loved who's Ba'al's personal slave. They try to spin a story that somehow Jack in his delirious state managed to unconsciously force the Tok'ra symbiote to act honorably and rescue the woman who helped him and that he loved. It all seemed pretty far-fetched and against all we've learned of Tok'ra symbiote/human relationships though.
Teal'c comes up with a plan to give Jack a chance to escape by leaking the location of Ba'al's base to Master Yu. Yu and Ba'al have been at odds with each other and have recently been involved in attacks so it's believed if Yu attacked the base that Jack might be able to escape. Meanwhile Jack is still in his cell back at Ba'al's base and keeps seeing visions of that slave, which appear to be hallucinations or residual memory from the symbiote.
Daniel appears to Jack and tells him that Jack was right and he does have another way to escape since Sam, Teal'c, and Jonas figured out something. He'll need to be ready to move because the base is going to be attacked. Jack escapes the cell when the power fails during the attack and subdues a guard. He finds the woman who had helped his Tok'ra symbiote and convinces her to escape. Daniel tells him that he's going to be all right as they flee the compound.
This episode was a somewhat of a letdown because of the hype of the "return" factor. I didn't particularly care for how Daniel Jackson was used, but it appears this might have been set-up to possibly lay a foundation on how Daniel would be in a SG-1 movie. Michael Shanks has agreed to be in another episode later this season. Some speculation is that since it looks like Daniel interfered by giving "insight" to Jonas, Sam, and Teal'c. They all had sudden and unexpected bits of revelation and hunches as to where O'Neill was and how to get him out. This may lead to the higher order casting Daniel out and him ending up back to mortal status later in the season and then appear in the movie. Although like I said that's all just speculation. Richard Dean Anderson really portrayed the torture quite convincingly, maybe not in the same league as Captain Picard with the Cardies, but not bad.
Episode Rating: 7.5 out of 10
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