Template:SG1-6 "Abyss" is the sixth episode of the sixth season of Stargate SG-1.
Synopsis
Colonel Jack O'Neill, who was implanted with a Tok'ra to cure him of the illness of Antarctica, has been captured by Ba'al. He is taken to Ba'al's outpost, where he is tortured for the whereabouts of his Lo'taur. He is repeatedly killed, and then brought back to life with a Sarcophagus. To help him cope until his team gives him an opportunity to escape is Dr. Daniel Jackson.
Previously on Stargate SG-1
During a mission to a research base in Antarctica, Colonel Jack O'Neill is exposed to an Ancient contagion. The only cure is a blending with the Tok'ra symbiote Kanan.
Plot
On an unknown planet, a man and a woman run away from a number of Jaffa. The man, a Tok'ra, tells the woman to hide, while he tries to reach the Stargate. However, before he can activate it, he is shot down with a Staff weapon and the symbiote leaves his body. The host, Colonel Jack O'Neill, is captured and later wakes up in a Sarcophagus. He is watched by a strange man in the shadows.
At Stargate Command the Tok'ra Thoran visits and tells Major General George S. Hammond and SG-1 that the Tok'ra Kanan (who had blended with a comatose O'Neill in a previous episode to save him from an Ancient contagion) left them on his own. The SG-1 thinks that he might have done this without O'Neill's approval, which angers Thoran. He later discusses Kanan's behavior with SG-1 but refuses to give them mission reports from Kanan. Because of this he isn't allowed to leave the base. Hammond and SG-1 explain that they only want the mission reports so that they can attempt to find O'Neill, so he finally agrees to give them to SG-1. The team then tries to find out why Kanan left, but cannot find any clues.
O'Neill talking to Jackson
Meanwhile in Ba'al's base, O'Neill is brought into a room and pinned to a wall with some kind of gravity device. He is then questioned by Ba'al who tortures him with knives, "dropping" them into the gravity field, and thus into O'Neill, who soon dies. He is then revived via the Sarcophagus and brought into a cell. After seeing a woman at the top/end of his cell (a similar gravity device to the one used by Ba'al to torture O'Neill redirects the gravity in his "cell" 90°, turning it into an oubliette when activated) he is visited by the ascended Dr. Daniel Jackson. Although O'Neill first thinks that he is a delusion, Daniel manages to convince O'Neill that he is real. They start to talk about what has happened to O'Neill and why he is imprisoned. Eventually, Jackson offers to help him ascend but O'Neill wants more information, which Daniel cannot give him. Instead, O'Neill wants Jackson to help him escape but he is unable to do this due to the Others' policy of non-interference.
Ba'al torturing O'Neill.
They are interrupted when two guards appear to take Jack back to Ba'al. O'Neill is again questioned by the System Lord, this time being tortured by acid. After some time, O'Neill finally gives him the name of his symbiote. Ba'al heals O'Neill once more and sends him back to his cell. O'Neill is later brought back into his cell where he again sees the woman from before. Daniel appears shortly thereafter and they continue their discussion. While Daniel tries to explain to him what a person he is, O'Neill gets angry with Daniel's refusal to interfere. Jack is taken away once again for another torture session.
Back at the SGC, Major Samantha Carter points out that during Kanan's mission to get information about Ba'al's base, the Tok'ra used the System Lord's lo'taur, Shallan (his personal slave) to get the information. She concludes that perhaps he had an affair with the female lo'taur and that he wanted to rescue her, using O'Neill's body to do so while he still had the chance. They tell Hammond about what they discovered, but he won't allow a rescue mission since Ba'al's base is a veritable fortress.
Back in Ba'al's base, O'Neill sees the woman again while being tortured by Ba'al. O'Neill can't answer Ba'al's questions but the System Lord nevertheless tries to get the information. O'Neill is later brought back to the cell where he nearly breaks down, this time Daniel does not appear to comfort him. He is soon questioned again but his mind is too weak to give clear answers and he only mumbles Daniel's name.
At SGC, Teal'c, after his kelno'reem during which the ascended Daniel has lead him to understand that they would be able to rescue O'Neill if they only had a Ha'tak, so they make a temporary alliance with the System Lord Yu and give him the plans of the base so that he can destroy its power generator.
Back in O'Neill's cell, Daniel once again visits O'Neill, explaining his absence as having had something to do elsewhere is visiting Teal'c in his meditation, but the Colonel is too weak to fight on. However Daniel, confident in Teal'c and the rest of the SGC's abilities, tells him that it will soon be over but their conversation is interrupted by explosions. It turns out that Yu is attacking, giving O'Neill the chance to flee. He finds Ba'al's lo'taur (the woman he had seen many times previously) and they both escape. He later wakes up in the infirmary of SGC, where he thanks his friends. After they leave, Daniel appears and they have a short discussion. Daniel leaves just before Carter returns.
References
Ancient contagion; Ascension; Asdad; Asgard; Ba'al's capture of Jack O'Neill; Ba'al's torture chamber; Jacob Carter; Christmas; Goa'uld; Gravitation chamber; Ha'tak; Kanan; Lo'taur; Oma Desala; O'Neill; Others; Revanna; Sarcophagus; System Lords; Tal'vak acid; Tok'ra; Tok'ra High Council; Yu; Zat'nik'tel; Zipacna
Notable Quotes
Thoran: The Tok'ra council accepts that Kanan may be lost to us.
Hammond: That's the big difference between us, Counselor. We don't leave our people behind.
Ba'al: Who are you?
O'Neill: You go first.
Ba'al: You claim you do not know me.
O'Neill: Well. Take no offense there, Skippy. I'm sure you're a real hot, important Goa'uld. I've just always been kinda out of the loop with the snake thing.
Ba'al: My name is Ba'al.
O'Neill: That's it? Ball? As in bocce?
Ba'al: Do you not know the pain you will suffer for this impudence?
O'Neill: I don't know the meaning of the word. (pause). Seriously, "impudence," what does that mean?
Ba'al: But it is also true that Tok'ra share body and mind equally, you will know all that it knew.
O'Neill: I think I know less than you think I know.
O'Neill: (to Jackson) You know what it's like coming back from the dead. Takes a while to get the color back in your cheeks.
O'Neil: (to Jackson) What good's the power to make the wind blow or toss lightning around if you can't use it to spring an old friend outta jail?
O'Neill: So… you want to be my Oma?
Jackson: You could put it that way. I mean, I wouldn’t, but maybe that’s just me.
O'Neill: And then what?
Jackson: Then, then I don’t know.
O'Neill: You don’t know?
Jackson: No, no... ascension doesn’t make you all-knowing. I mean, I really don’t know.
O'Neill: If I’m catching the next plane of existence out of here, you’ve got to give me something.
Jackson: It’s your journey. No one but you can choose what you become, or the path you take. All I can promise you is it will be an amazing journey…
O'Neill: (scoff)
Jackson: Once you release your burden.
O'Neill: Daniel, so help me, if you start talking like Oma…
Jackson: I am not talking like Oma Desala.
O'Neill: Sounds like Oma to me.
Jackson: No, no, no, no… see, Oma Desala would say something like, uh, uh, uh... “If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago,” or something like that.
O'Neill: Why?
Jackson: To open your mind.
O'Neill: Though a candle burns in my house, there's nobody home.
Jackson: The hardest part of being who or what I am is having the power to change things I want to change and knowing that I can't.
Jackson: Now please, just try to open your mind.
O'Neill: Oh... stop it, will you?
Jackson: Come on, Jack!! Do you think the Asgard named a ship after you because they thought it was a cool name? Now is not the time to play dumb. You're a lot smarter than that.
Jackson: I always seem to be saying goodbye to you.
O'Neill: Yeah. I noticed that. Why don't you stick around for awhile?
Jackson: I can't really.
O'Neill: You just did.
Jackson: Special occasion.
O'Neill: Christmas?
Jackson: No.
O'Neill: Groundhog Day?
Jackson: No.
O'Neill: I've got my journey and you've got yours?
Jackson: Something like that, yeah.
Notes
- According to the audio commentary, in most of the shots where Ba'al is talking to Colonel Jack O'Neill, Cliff Simon is actually talking to a stand-in for O'Neill and not Richard Dean Anderson.
- In the season 10 episode "The Quest, Part 1", when SG-1 and Adria (although in disguise) meet up with Ba'al, and each are forced to give up a possession, Ba'al unwillingly gives up one of the knives that he tortured O'Neill with, saying "that particular item holds great sentimental value."
- When O'Neill is first shown in the Sarcophagus, his shirt already has the knife-wound hole, in the left shoulder, that he receives in the first torture sequence. (Although, this may or may not be the first time he was tortured)
- This is the first episode since Dr. Daniel Jackson ascended that he has appeared. Since he is no longer a member of the cast, Michael Shanks is listed as a special guest star.
- When O'Neill asks Jackson if he will return on special occasions, he mentions Groundhog Day, which is a reference to the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. Where Bill Murray's character relives the same day over and over, often ending with death. Much like O'Neill relives the torture.
- In "A Matter of Honor," SG-1 returns to Ba'al's outpost to find it not completely destroyed but heavily damaged with a Jaffa presence to protect against the other System Lords raiding it, though otherwise abandoned by Ba'al. SG-1 raids it for technology that later allows them to rescue SG-10 from P3W-451 and the outpost is completely destroyed in the process. Its also revealed that the memory of trying to help O'Neill Ascend here is one of the memories Daniel possesses of his time Ascended.
Goofs
- When O'Neill tries to dial the gate at the start of the episode, when the first staff blast hits him, he falls into the Dial Home Device, three of the buttons on the right side come loose, and one of them falls completely off.
Awards
Nominations
- Nominated Leo for "Best Male Guest Performance" (Michael Shanks)
In other languages
- French: Abysse (Abyss)
- Italian: L'Abisso (The Abyss)
- Spanish: Abismo (Abyss)
- Czech: Kobka (Cell)
- German: Am Abgrund (On the Brink)
External links
- Template:SciFi
- Abyss on the official MGM website. (backup link)
- Abyss on GateWorld. (backup link)
- Abyss article on Stargate SG-1 Solutions' The StargateWiki
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