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Stargate SG-1
Episode 6.11, "Prometheus"
Original Air-Date: 8/23/02
Director: Peter Woeste
Writers: Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
Well here we are with the final episode of the season, time just flies by, doesn't it kids? It seems like it's only been 10 or 11 weeks since the premiere of Stargate on the SCI FI channel after all... Sure, we all like to poke fun at the SCI FI channel from time to time, but stating this was the season finale was pretty lame. Sure they eventually changed it to "summer finale", but that's not much better. At least we know for sure Stargate will resume airing episodes in January. Last year Showtime continued to drag it's heels on when we'd finally see the remaining episodes and didn't give much notice.
The episode picks up with Sam (in civilian dress), being approached by a reporter as she gets in her jeep. She's asked about the money being sent to a "Project Prometheus", which is the government code name for where the money for the Stargate program is sent. She blows off the reporter and General Hammond decides to try to cut her off by sending Major Davis to speak with her. After Davis doesn't have much luck they decide to speak with her producer.
The reporter, Julia, and her producer tell them that they'll hold off on the story until the military decides to disclose, if they let them have an exclusive tour of the project. The military would hold all tapes until full disclosure, but their station would have the scoop when it does come out. Hammond reluctantly agrees and dispatches Carter and Jonas to give them the tour.
We're introduced to a building not much larger then a shack on a secure military base (my guess is Area 51 or thereabouts), and see Sam & Jonas escort the news team into an elevator within the shed that takes them underground. Sam shows them "Prometheus" and it's the X-303! Or as Jack would say "A big honkin' spaceship." Except this bad boy has US of A slapped on it and is home grown (for the most part). Apparently they're going to pass this off as the project instead of the Stargate, and I can understand why the reporters believe them, this thing is tight. The ship is huge; it's no X-301 or X-302. It's quite larger then the Goa'Uld cargo-ships that SG-1 has captured or flown with the Tok'Ra and probably around half the size of the Goa'Uld mother-ship they once captured.
The news team are given the tour and the inside of the ship looks very much like the USS Saratoga from Space: Above & Beyond. Which means to say it has a very US military look to it, be-it submarine or aircraft carrier like. The producer remarks that it would take about a thousand Saturn rockets to launch this thing, but Sam tells him it's able to take off. I can't believe they've managed to put together such a large ship in a short amount of time, even if we believe this has been worked on before we saw the X-302, it still probably has two to three years maximum in development. The ship isn't totally functional though, it's hyper-drive is offline and some other systems need to be installed.
The problems begin to start when the camera crew manages to subdue the guards using Zat guns. They also manage to trap Sam in a storage area and then capture Jonas, Julia, and the producer in the engine room. The fake camera crew manages to activate the hyper-drive and rig it so that it will explode and take Nevada with it. I got $100 riding on the Eagles winning the Super Bowl this year so they gotta keep Vegas intact.
Jack & Teal'c arrive on the scene and survey the situation. The X-303 is under the control of the fake camera crew, who are requesting the return of Colonel Frank Simmons and Adrian Conrad (who's a Goa'Uld) or they will detonate the hyper-drive. Carter "Macguyvers" a radio and contacts Jack who's outside and tells him of her situation. They advise her to get free and to try to ground the ship so it can't leave orbit. She just happens to be in a storage room with a blowtorch and is able to cut through the door. That's pretty convenient… The prisoners are let onto the ship and the X-303 begins to lift-off with Carter in danger because the deck she's on isn't pressurized. She manages to cut through the door and escape into the "jeffries tubes" of the X-303 where she disables the engines, leaving the ship dead in space.
Jack & Teal'c use one of the gliders they've gathered on their adventures and fly up to the ship and dock, while Carter manages to subdue the fake camera crew, but not before Adrian Conrad is killed and his Goa'Uld takes up residence in Simmons. The Goa'Uld Simmons proceeds to smack around Teal'c and Jack in a pretty cheesy looking fight sequence so don't expect John DeLancie to be in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 2. Jack hits the control panel and the pressurized door opens and sucks Simmons out into space, apparently to his death. SG-1 gathers together and looks at their situation, they're in the X-303, which isn't completely finished, and now they're in an unknown region of space. The X-303's hyper-drive is powered by naquadria, like the X-302. So the Goa'Uld didn't take that into account, meaning they've gone off course from his original destination.
Just when you think this is going to be like the season finale from a few years back when SG-1 was stranded on a mother-ship with no idea where they were, an Asgard ship suddenly appears and Thor transports onto the bridge of the X-303. Thor tells them he's tracked them from Earth and needs their help because the replicators are thrashing them rather soundly and taken over the Asgard home world. I thought that cute android would have helped them out, maybe we'll see her in the next episode.
The next episode in January… So the wait is on for the conclusion to the last half of season 6, and probably the last eleven episodes of the series. As of this writing a few of the producers continue to speak of a seven 7 being possible and the ratings for this episode were the highest ever for an original hour of programming on the Sci-Fi channel so I'm sure Sci-Fi channel wants it back. Everything seems to rest mainly on Richard Dean Anderson who has said he doesn't want to come back for another year. So stay tuned.
My quick recap of the first half of this season? Well the season started off really weak with some truly horrible episodes like "Nightwalkers"(pukes), and a letdown of a return by Daniel Jackson. However, the show really picked it up over the past five or six episodes and has had some strong shows during that run. Also if you need something to get a Stargate fix, the Stargate cartoon called "Infinity" will begin airing Saturday, September 14th on Fox. It's set about twenty years in the future. I'll probably watch it and may wind up doing some reviews if it doesn't turn me off. Also, some happy news for those of you who need to catch up on previous seasons, Sci-Fi channel will begin airing Stargate starting with the first episode of season 1, sometime this fall. They plan to air 4 episodes on Monday nights (7PM, 8PM, 9PM, 10PM) which I don't really like. I'd rather they just go 7PM each night, but at least it's airing.
Episode Rating: 9 out of 10
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