Stargate SG-1: "Moebius, Parts 1 & 2"

For the 42 Challenge
(TV Series)
Season 8, Episode #173/174 (819/820)
First aired March 18 and 25, 2005
Written by: Joseph Mallozzi, Paul Mullie, Brad Wright, and Robert C. Cooper
Directed by: Peter DeLuise
Cast: Richard Dean Anderson (General Jack O'Neill), Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson), Christopher Judge (Teal'c), Amanda Tapping (Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter), Peter Williams (Apophis), Jay Acovone (Major Charles Kawalski), David Hewlett (Dr. Rodney McKay), Don S. Davis (Brigadier General George S. Hammond)

SG-1 and General O'Neill use the time-puddle jumper to go to Ancient Egypt to recover a ZPM. They successfully steal it but they find Jaffa surrounding the cloaked jumper. The future is altered and SG-1 never existed - Daniel teaches English as a second language, Carter proofreads astrophysics papers, and Jack retired from the Air Force and became a charter boat captain. Archaeologists find the video camera Daniel took with them with instructions to find the stargate, find Teal'c, and return to the past to correct the future. [TV.com]

The SG-1 team engages in some "Back to the Future" shenanigans. I frequently have trouble with these stories about returning to the past to save the future (or the present, whatever). There's usually so much of it that just doesn't seem to hold together. And frankly, this one left me scratching my head a bit and mumbling, "What just happened here?"

Of course, I'm really just getting started on the Stargate saga, and by this point in the series a lot has happened that I don't know about. So I realize there were probably things I didn't pick up on. Maybe a second viewing is in order. And I know I really should go back and start at the very beginning. Maybe after I've seen a few more episodes, things will become clearer. After all, the show ran for something like 20 years, right?

But even though I wasn't able to grok all the nuances of this double episode, I still enjoyed it. It gave the three stars an opportunity to ham it up a little, and play strictly for laughs. Usually only Richard Dean Anderson gets to do that. And I loved Jackson's and Carter's geeky counterparts – they even seemed to be a few pounds tubbier than their Stargate selves.