Window of Opportunity

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S4 (Window of Opportunity)

Every once in a while everything comes together to create a really good, solid episode with a story that features hilarity and sadness, and which really draws you in. 'Stargate' does 'Groundhog Day' and it's pretty much as good as that sounds (the film even gets a reference by O'Neill at one point). Many science fiction series' have tackled the time loop episode, successful versions coming from 'TNG' and '7 Days' to name two, simply because it's a delightful premise. Yes, there's danger in the fact that anyone who was experiencing the same events over and over would turn gradually insane, but there's also great freedom in a universe in which the 'looper' can do anything without any consequences.

It actually takes quite a while before O'Neill realises this freedom and begins to take advantage, whether that's cycling round the base out of uniform, playing golf with the 'gate as the hole, or kissing Major Carter. Obviously there are limitations to the series, so that Jack wasn't likely to step into the White House and give the President a piece of his mind, or jet off to some desert island, so playing golf and learning to juggle are realistic, if not that great a payoff for the situation. On the other hand he was supposed to be learning how to read the time loop machine's instructions in order to shut it off, but very few episodes of anything make me laugh out loud and this is one of them.

I was primed with the loop after loop of Jack getting bored in Daniel's lecture and juggling with bits of paper, then juggling more confidently like he'd really picked it up while Teal'c looks on disapprovingly, then finally both of them are juggling in tandem! But it was Jack's assertion that he was 'taking this loop off' that really got me going - it's such a brilliant concept and very true to the character. The planet scenes, though filmed on a tight set, are opened up by the gorgeous molten orange sky-scape that bathed their desert combats in its light and made their scenes there so much sharper and brighter than in the dull base lighting.

Even when I thought things were going to descend into cliche (in the confines of a time loop episode), Malachi, the instigator of the machine turns out not to be power-hungry, or even wanting to travel back in time to save his dead wife. All he wants is to see his wife again for the short time she had left, and once O'Neill manages to break through his single-mindedness and point out the illogic of his wish, he stops the machine. Otherwise he'd be in a constant loop himself: going back to his wife, seeing her die, then learning to operate the machine again. Jack brings in the death of his son, a rarely mentioned event that defined him, and such tying together of established facts only enhances this thoroughly enjoyable episode and makes us think about the prison we'd find ourselves in if we could relive the same moments over and over. And over.

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