Stargate SG-1 Began a Long-Running Series and a Fan-Favorite Running Comedy
Posted by Jonathan Klotz | Published
One thing you will notice when (and) watching Stargate SG-1that Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) dies a lot. When he dies in episode 12, “Fire and Water,” his death count reaches three (film, and “Nox”), which is slightly higher than a normal person. Then again, he doesn’t really die in “Fire and Water,” so should that even count? Stargate Command gives him a full funeral with military honors so in my mind, it counts as another “Daniel Jackson is Dead” note.
Daniel Jackson is dead. Again. The third time.
“Fire and Water” opens with SG-1 returning earlier than expected from their latest mission, looking dejected and dejected as Hammond asks what went wrong, and learns that “Jackson’s dead.” Before the opening credits we see an entire military funeral, with O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) giving a moving eulogy in which he acknowledges that Jackson is the heart of the group. Out of anger, O’Neill, possibly a little drunk at Molson’s, smashes out the car window with a hockey stick (look quickly and you’ll notice it says “Anderson”) and angrily demands that they watch it. It’s Hammond’s car, which makes O’Neill calm enough to tell his manager that he needs to replace that window.
The SG-1 team slowly realizes that Daniel is not dead. Something distracted them from thinking that it was him. It turns out, Daniel is alive, underwater in the aquatic merman Nem to help solve the thousand-year mystery of what happened to his partner, Omoroca. We learn that Omoroca and Nem helped educate the ancient Babylonians until Belus, the former System Lord of the Goa’uld, was killed. It all goes back to the Goa’uld.
Statistics Are Not Statistics
The merman-like Nem is played by Gerard Plunkett, who made his first appearance Stargate SG-1 as Councilor Tuplo in “The Broca Divide,” starting a trend of actors playing multiple aliens during the show’s decade. Nem never appears again, and neither he nor Omoroca are mentioned again, possibly because someone in the scenes did the math and realized the involvement of the two ancient Babylonians and the Goa’uld broke the timeline.
Jackson tells Nem that Omoroca helped inspire the rebellion of the Tau’ri against the Goa’uld. That happened in 3000 BCE in Egypt, however Jackson says Nem was on Earth 4,000 years ago working with the Babylonians. Those figures reached about 2000 BCE, or a thousand years after the rebellion. The Goa’uld’s work on Earth and acting as Gods past that point is no longer valid during the Stargate burial.
“Fire and Water” is one in a long line of episodes that introduce a developed genre with deep ties to the roots of human civilization that we will never see again. Get used to it, I mean Stargate Atlantis this after years. And it won’t be the last time Jackson is killed in the line of duty. On its own, it’s an empty episode that means big things, although we get a little credit for Nem’s planet Oannes that doesn’t look like Vancouver’s forest once.
