I am rewatching Stargate SG1.
It only took it 6 episodes to get the water works going.
This episode, 'Cold Lazarus' from August of 1997 was very emotional back then. We came very close to losing our son in 2007, the emotional impact of this episode hits way above its weight now.
On to Episode 7 of Season 1 of Stargate - Cold Lazarus. Despite writing a lot about it, I’m not sure how I felt about this one.
SG1 are on a planet with bright yellow sand and broken blue crystals scattered around. While Sam and Daniel are examining the crystals, Jack walks a bit further away, takes a closer look at one intact crystal, and gets zapped! And a copy of him returns through the Stargate to earth.
There’s not much to report about the crystals so SG1 are on downtime until their next mission. The copy looks through some photos and letters in Jack’s locker, and we see it has some of Jack’s memories, before it goes to Sara’s house ‘to find Charlie’. Sara (and her dad, who is at the house because Sara is fixing his car) interpret this as Jack struggling with his grief. The copy eventually collapses after some awkward conversations with Sara, though I get the sense that the conversations help Sara as Jack has never talked about it before.
Meanwhile, Sam and Daniel have stayed on base and Sam is investigating the crystals. She realises the blast marks look like staff weapon blasts, so they get Teal’c to shoot one of the crystals with his staff weapon. In the gate room. Without asking permission 😀 Eventually they’re able to communicate with the crystal entity. Meanwhile, the real Jack returns through the gate and is not happy about being locked up.
Janet confirms Jack is really Jack, the crystal explains that the Goa’uld destroyed them after an Goa’uld was accidentally killed on the planet, and Sam realises that the crystal is emitting dangerous radiation, and the copy will be doing the same. They track the copy down to the hospital, and SG1 go in to recover it, meaning that Sara, who brought the copy to the hospital, realises what’s going on.
The copy explains it was trying to heal Jack, but ‘your deepest pain was not physical’ and takes the form of Charlie. SG1 take it back to the SGC, and Jack takes it back through the gate.
Further Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about this episode. It’s interesting to see a truly ‘alien’ species, and the plot gives viewers more background to Jack’s character, especially if they haven’t seen the film. We find out how Jack closed himself off after Charlie’s death, and how that affected his relationship with Sara. The line about Jack’s deepest pain not being physical was really moving. But in some ways the episode feels ‘off’ and the issue of how it’s all explained to Sara is never explained.
It’s also annoying that when they realise the copy came through the gate, they search the base for it, but don’t bother to check the security logs to see if the copy left the base, even though we know from Children of the Gods that the base is high security and you have to sign in and out. Continuity, what continuity!
Some interesting points I noticed
- SG1 are checked for radiation after they’ve come through the gate - did that continue? The reaction to an unauthorised off-world activation is intense. But there were no checks that identified that the copy wasn’t the real Jack?
- They still have a shared locker room (surely there’s space for a separate women’s locker room!). I assume this is military only. Ferreti’s name is on the locker next to Jack’s.
- Sam talks about her brother and his family, and that she misses seeing them as they’re in San Diego. But I’ve read that later in the series she says they’re not close.
- Sam doesn’t know that Jack has a family, and says to Daniel that she’s worked with Jack for months but knows nothing about him. Daniel then explains what happened to Charlie.
- Downtime for SG1 is mentioned for the first time, but Sam and Daniel stay on the base to research the crystals. Them staying on-base during downtime happens in various fics too, so it seemed like a cliche to see it.
- Teal’c asks Jack (actually the copy) to show him more of earth, as Jack has promised to do this. We see his quarters (very empty ☹️) and see him watching TV (riots on the news and heavy metal music). Not the best impression of earth!
- Daniel calls Sam ‘Captain Carter’ when they’re investigating the crystals, so they’re still quite formal with each other at this point.
- Sam says ‘Holy Hannah!’ when the crystal first moves, which I think is the first time we hear her say it. It crops up a lot in fanfic.
- When the real Jack is in the holding cell and talking to the camera, we see Sam smiling at his antics 🥰
- Teal’c wants to take his staff weapon with him when they go to the hospital, based on his TV viewing, but Hammond gently takes the staff weapon away from Teal’c and gives him a baseball cap to wear 😀
- In the hospital, SG1 have torches just like the torches Mulder and Scully used to use in The X Files - very bright beams that illuminate nothing 😀
I still can’t decide if I liked the episode. Onto episode 8 next - The Nox.
