Forever In A Day

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S3 (Forever In A Day)

With a title like that, and an opening that featured a mind-controlling device, this was never going to be straightforward. I wondered from the start if it was all happening in his mind, and while I got to the point during the episode that I assumed it was now true, I was proved wrong by the final scene in which Sharray dies. It's sad to see a character that appeared sporadically from the first episode written out (although that hasn't stopped Apophis yet!), and for Daniel's main quest to fail like that, but having seen later episodes with no reference to Sharray I should have expected a sad ending to the arc at some point, and Daniel now has a new purpose - to find the son of Sharray and Heruer (I think it was he who did the deed).

Knowing what was to come with Michael Shanks' departure and return in the middle seasons, this storyline pre-empts real events as Daniel leaves the Stargate programme, only to come back at the prompting of Sharray, though of course it never really happened in the first place! The opening battle was spectacular and CGI is increasingly being used for more than a focus for a creature or space ships - the number of troops signified its use here (along with the slightly altered look to those scenes) as was done in the previous episode, and colour manipulation was used at the end to produce the purple plant planet.

I really thought the episode was about to end with Jackson settling back into his role so the twist worked when suddenly we're back at the beginning again. I only wish the rubbish replacement for Daniel was real as he was quite funny! I also like the fact that Daniel's now played out the events and gone through some of the grief before the real death of his wife occurred, and so learned to forgive Teal'c, who knows from his own experience what Daniel must feel like. Kasuf also returns as Sharray's Father and it was most incongruous to see him in the real world (or so I thought) in Daniel's place. I like it when big plots are followed up so this made an effective conclusion to another of the dangling threads while setting up a new quest.

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