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Synopsis (by "Sea Witch"): An unexpected off-world gate activation puts the SGC on alert.  SG-1’s GDO signal is received which causes General Hammond immediate concern.  SG-1 have only just embarked on a mission to P4A-771 and are not due to return for twenty-four hours.  The chief technician reports that the gate’s power output has gone crazy. Damage to vital electronic circuitry is anticipated, leading to the destabilization of the wormhole.

General Hammond, standing at the bottom of the gate room ramp, anxiously awaits the arrival of the incoming travelers. Daniel Jackson is the first to appear, thrown from the wormhole with such force that he lands, unconscious, at Hammond’s feet.  Teal’c is next.  He manages a more graceful--but nonetheless punishing--landing.  Scant seconds later, unable to channel the excessive energy, circuitry explodes and the wormhole disengages.  Hammond calls for a medical team to deal with Daniel and attends to Teal’c who is still conscious and able to make a report.  Teal’c, alarmed that neither Jack O’Neill nor Sam Carter emerged from the gate, tells Hammond the two missing SG-1 personnel were following close behind and should have made it back to the SGC.  Both Hammond and Teal’c turn their anxious gazes to the defunct Stargate.

Cut to a place eerily dim and covered in ice.  An unconscious Jack is lying near the base of an unknown Stargate and Sam is sprawled in a heap nearby.  She has a nasty facial abrasion.  As Sam comes to and staggers to her feet, we discover that our two lost explorers are inside a large cavern of ice.  Opening credits.

Daniel lies in the infirmary, hooked up to a machine monitoring his vital signs.  He has suffered a head injury and, although still unconscious, is expected to make a full recovery.  Both Hammond and Teal’c are visiting the young archaeologist.  Hammond learns from Teal’c that SG-1 came under heavy fire from unknown and unseen hostiles almost as soon as the team stepped through the gate.  Jack and Sam laid down cover fire whilst Daniel dialed home.  Both were right behind the Jaffa as he dived into the wormhole, and he does not understand why they did not return home.  Hammond agrees to send a probe to P4A-771 as soon as the Stargate is repaired.

Back in the ice cavern, Jack wakes up to excruciating pain.  Sam informs him that his leg is broken.  Neither of them have any idea as to their current location and Sam theorizes that Daniel must have accidentally misdialed.  She admits she has failed to locate either Daniel or Teal’c.  Having explored the immediate area while Jack was unconscious, Sam establishes they are in a natural cavern buried beneath a glacier. Ominous creaking and groaning sounds are due to the pressure of moving ice.  There is a dim source of light somewhere overhead indicating daylight filtering in from the surface.  Sam admits that she has not, as yet, located the DHD.  Unless the DHD is found, they are in serious trouble.

Teal’c stands in the gate room observing the ongoing repairs to the gate.  He is greatly concerned that the repairs are progressing too slowly.  Hammond orders the repairs speeded up but is told the work is progressing as swiftly as humanly possible and will take twenty-four hours to complete.  Teal’c points out that, in the event Jack and Sam have been injured, twenty-four hours may be too late to save them.

Back in the cavern, Sam is in the process of setting Jack’s broken leg.  By treating the injury she is distressingly aware that Jack is suffering terrible pain.  As she splints Jack’s leg she tries to distract him with conversation.  We learn that, while on an unofficial mission over the Iran/Iraq border sometime in the eighties, Jack’s parachute failed to open in time.  He landed hard and received various broken bones plus a fractured skull in the process.  To make matters worse, his mission’s covert status meant no officially sanctioned rescue would be forthcoming.  It took Jack nine agonizing days to drag himself to safety.  Only thoughts of his wife, Sara, sustained him throughout his ordeal.  Sam tallies their supplies.  They have flashlights, a small camping stove, thermal blankets and enough food to stretch to three days.  Water will not pose a problem because ice melts.  Jack tries to boost Sam’s morale by insisting he has absolutely no intention of dying in such a lonely place.  With Sam’s help he manages to stand and they both survey their surroundings.

Teal’c is seated beside Daniel’s bed and the Jaffa’s concerned expression is the first thing Daniel sees when he awakens.  Teal’c tells him about the gate malfunction and how Daniel was injured by emerging from the gate at too great a velocity.  He also talks of Jack’s and Sam’s apparent failure to escape through the Stargate.  Daniel does not share this opinion stating that Jack and Sam were following too closely to have been left behind.  The young archaeologist then learns of the mission to send a probe back to P4A-771 in order to initiate a search for SG-1’s missing personnel.

Sam is relieved to find the DHD buried in a huge block of ice.  The only implements useful for chipping away the ice are their combat knives.  As they work to excavate the DHD from the ice, Jack suddenly clutches his chest and doubles up in pain.  Sam is dismayed to learn Jack’s leg isn’t the only thing broken -- at least one rib is broken as well.  Unable to ease his pain, Sam continues to chip away at the ice.  Being an astrophysicist, she had brought all her considerable learning to bear upon the question of how they became stranded in such a desolate place.  She has come to three possible conclusions:

1. Daniel misdialed and the others are, “Here….somewhere.”  This theory is quickly discounted. 

2. Somehow the gate malfunctioned.  Daniel and Teal’c arrived home but she and Jack wound up in the ice cavern. 

3. The gate malfunctioned.  Daniel and Teal’c ended up on an alien world but not the one shared by Jack and herself. 

Sam voices her pessimism regarding an early rescue. Jack, however, refuses to consider such a negative idea and prompts Sam to concede, “Sometimes I think too much.”  They fall silent and continue to chip away the ice.

Twenty-four hours have elapsed and the repaired gate is being assessed for operational readiness.  To everyone’s relief the gate is declared functional.  In the control room, Hammond issues the order to send a MALP through the gate to search the last known location of the missing SG-1 members.  Teal’c and SG-3 are ready to embark on a rescue mission to P4A-771 but Hammond will not permit the search to go ahead if the probe is met with hostile force.  He is worried that the hostiles might have captured Jack and Sam and forced them to give up the iris code, but Teal’c does not believe either Jack or Sam would compromise the SGC in this way.  Teal’c watches as the MALP telemetry registers heavy hostile fire.  The probe is destroyed and Hammond scrubs the mission.  The risk to SGC personnel is too great.

Jack is preparing some hot soup, and the sound of ice being struck indicates that Sam is still working to free the DHD from its icy imprisonment.  Jack insists that she stop and eat.  As Sam complies she notices that Jack’s movements are guarded.  He shrugs off her offer to check his injuries by assuring her he is fine.  Reluctantly, Sam doesn’t press the matter.

Having had more time to think about the science of their predicament, Sam has refined one of her original theories.  Her latest opinion allows that the wormhole got redirected, probably as a direct result of the hostiles energy weapons creating a power surge.  As she outlines her theory it becomes apparent that Jack’s concentration is drifting.  He apologizes for his lapse and Sam continues her explanation.  Because Daniel and Teal’c did not arrive at the cave it seems reasonable to assume they made it back to Earth before the power surge interrupted the wormhole. Therefore it is also reasonable to assume that it jumped to a nearby gate allowing the wormhole to discharge itself and the two remaining travelers.  Sam believes she and Jack are stranded on a planet somewhere between P4A-771 and Earth, thus significantly narrowing down any proposed area of search.  There's only one catch -- someone back at the SGC needs to reach the same conclusion.  Having been offered a tangible hope of rescue, Jack tells Sam to, “Hold that thought.” 

Daniel is trying to work out a sensible theory that allows for the survival of his two missing teammates.  Teal’c suggests that their friends perished when the wormhole disengaged.  Daniel accepts the theory but does not share Teal’c’s fatalism.  With a remarkable leap of intuition Daniel arrives at the same conclusion as Sam -- that maybe the wormhole discharged at another gate.  All he has to do now is engage his intellect on precisely where a search should begin.

In the ice cave, Jack’s and Sam’s efforts are rewarded by the sight of the DHD gradually emerging from the ice.  Sam discovers the body of a serpent guard frozen to the DHD.

Daniel needs to confirm his theory.  However, he knows very little about Stargate science so he consults Sergeant Siler, the electronics engineer who supervised the repair of the gate.  He asks the sergeant if it is possible for an interrupted wormhole to discharge itself at a nearby gate.  The sergeant can’t answer the question but suggests it might be possible.  Daniel has all the encouragement he needs.  He has already plotted all the known gates between P4A-771 and Earth.  Hammond wants to know why, if Daniel is correct, Jack and Sam haven’t already gated home.  Daniel reasons that his friends may not be able to do so if they are injured.  Hammond accepts the validity of Daniel’s theory and sanctions a rescue mission to each world Daniel has plotted.

Sam and Jack have again been working hard. Brushing away shards from the newly excavated area reveals the encoded symbols of the DHD.  After examining the symbols, Sam identifies the one she believes depicts the point of origin, a symbol she is unfamiliar with.  The flashlight flickers and Sam expresses concern that the batteries will not last much longer.  To make matters worse, Jack begins to cough up blood, an indication that he is bleeding internally.  With assured precision, Sam dials the code for Earth.  The chevrons on the gate lock but the power dies before a wormhole can be formed.  They are still stranded.  Sam, already distressed by Jack’s condition, is appalled by this new turn of events.  Jack points out they are both exhausted and orders her to rest.  “It’ll still be there in the morning,” Jack assures her.  The gate might there in the morning but Sam isn’t sure Jack will be.

Daniel eliminates several worlds that do not possess a breathable atmosphere and concentrates his hopes on those that have.  Hammond officially announces Jack and Sam to be missing in action.  Daniel thinks Hammond is giving up hope of finding Jack and Sam alive but this is not the case.  However, Daniel believes that he, himself, is missing something.  Some vital clue.  Unfortunately, he has no idea what it might be.

Night has fallen.  Jack and Sam are huddled together beneath the thermal blankets.  It is vital to conserved body heat lest they both succumb to hypothermia and death.  Jack, having passed out earlier, awakens.  He is in excruciating pain because Sam is lying on his broken ribs.  She shifts to make him more comfortable and finds something poking into her.  Jack jokingly says, “It’s my sidearm, I swear.”  This causes Sam to giggle and Jack begs her to stop because it hurts.  Sam tells him she has no regrets.  Jack admits that he will regret dying.

Daniel is pacing to and fro in the control room.  Hammond is doing the same thing in his office.  Both are anxiously awaiting the return of Teal’c and the rescue team.  Finally the team arrives back at the SGC, but they have failed to find any trace of the MIA’s.

Sam is frustrated by the DHD’s failure to work.  She is under terrible pressure to get Jack home and is frantically trying to dig out the access panel to the DHD’s controls.  Jack calls her via the radio link and she immediately halts her work to attend him.  He is no longer able to physically assist her so she had renewed her assault on the ice-encrusted machine while he slept.  His condition has deteriorated and Sam feels helpless to prevent the inevitable.  She apologizes to Jack for her failure to get them both home; Jack, however, assures her that he does not hold her responsible for their predicament.  Sam is not mollified; she is convinced that she is missing something important.  Despite her scientific training, she is at a loss to understand why the gate will not work.  Jack, meanwhile, knows that he is dying.  He orders Sam to take what is left of the supplies and make for the surface.  Sam is horrified by his suggestion and refuses.  She is determined to make one last attempt to repair the DHD.  “Make it work,” Jack encourages her, and Sam returns to her task.

 Back on Earth, the search team returns from yet another mission.  This time there has been an accident and Teal’c is carrying the unconscious form of one of the would-be rescuers.  The hapless man fell from a rock ledge while searching a cave.  After handing his charge to the medics, Teal’c expresses to Hammond his readiness for the next mission.  Because this last failed mission completed Daniel’s list of proposed worlds, though, Hammond refuses to place anymore of his people at risk.  He dismisses Daniel’s request to widen the search and cancels the entire operation.

Sam crouches over the DHD, berating herself for forgetting the simple procedure of resetting the machine.  At this time Jack has once again slipped into unconsciousness and Sam’s state of mind is one of desperation.  She resets the machine and then dials home.  The desired wormhole fails to materialize but activation of the gate sets up a tremor that brings chunks of ice tumbling from the roof.  Everything becomes obscured by a blizzard of fine ice crystals.

Daniel, refusing to rest while his friends are still missing, is in the control room.  He feels a slight vibration and water in a drinking glass begins to form ripples.  Daniel looks expectantly through the window to the gate room below.  The chevrons on the gate are glowing feebly.

Back in the cavern the fall of the ice crystals has ceased.  Despite her best efforts, Sam has failed to dial home.  She becomes deeply despairing of saving Jack.

Teal’c joins Daniel in the control room.  Daniel asks him, “Did you see that?”  When the young archaeologist saw the chevrons glow, the final pieces of his impossible puzzle fell into place.  He informs Teal’c that he (Daniel) has ruled out a world he shouldn’t have.

Sam tells Jack the bad news.  Jack insists that, having exhausted all possibilities, she must gather up the remaining supplies and take her chances on the surface.  He begs her to follow his order and she complies reluctantly.  With the supplies stowed in a backpack, Sam begins the difficult climb towards the shaft of daylight far above.

In company with Teal’c, Daniel attends a meeting with Hammond.  Time is running out and Daniel desperately needs Hammond’s cooperation to prove his latest theory.  He begins by mentioning the puzzling anomaly of finding cultures taken from Earth after the Egyptian Stargate was buried.  He asks, “What if there is a second gate...here?”  He points to Earth’s centralized position on the gate map.  Teal’c confirms that the Goa’uld might replace a gate lost to them.  Daniel states that he does not believe the Egyptian gate to be the original Earth gate.

As Sam struggles to reach the surface, she pauses and gives Jack a situation report over the radio link.  Jack tells her it was an honor serving with her.  Close to tears, Sam forges on.

The location of SG-1’s missing team members and the second Stargate are now Hammond’s main priorities.  He orders the monitoring of the radio frequency used by SG-1.  Meanwhile, Daniel has made an inspired deduction.  He reminds Hammond how gate activation used to set up a tremor throughout the entire facility, and Hammond reminds him that they installed frequency dampeners to counteract the tremors.  He then goes on to suggest the second gate is unlikely to have these dampeners.  Having his deduction confirmed, Daniel asks if a tremor from an unmodified gate could be traceable on a seismometer. “Damn right it could!” Hammond declares.  The general orders a search of all recently recorded seismic events that coincide with the time of the gate’s malfunction and the vibration Daniel witnessed.  Daniel is certain that the vibration was caused by Jack and Sam trying to dial home.  They had failed because, using Daniel’s analogy, if you dial your own ‘phone number, all you’ll get is a busy signal.

Sam breaks through to the surface.  She informs Jack she will try and bring back help.  Worryingly, there is no reply.  She squeezes through the small hole in the ice and stands up to take a look around, appalled to find frozen desolation in every direction as far as the eye can see.  There is no hope of rescue for either of them.

Hammond receives the result of his ordered search of the seismic record.  Both events coincide with two tremors occurring some fifty miles outside McMurdo in the Antarctic.  The second gate has been located.  Hammond, Daniel, and Teal’c hastily scramble to get there.

Sam, exhausted and bitter with defeat, makes her way back to the cavern.  She reports her failure to Jack but the receiver remains ominously silent.  When she reaches the cavern, she lies down next to him and huddles close for warmth.  He whispers his wife’s name.  Even now he is drawing on his profound love for Sara to sustain him.  “I’m here, Jack,” Sam replies.  Jack tells her he is cold.  Sam comforts him by saying, “It’s all right.  You can sleep now.”  Before hypothermia overtakes her, she tells him, “It was an honor serving with you too, Colonel.”

A helicopter hovers over the hostile Antarctic terrain.  Rescuers are lowered into the cavern to find the huddled, unconscious forms of Jack and Sam.  Daniel manages to briefly rouse Sam and she opens her eyes to find Daniel, Hammond and Teal’c leading the search team.  Both Jack and Sam are wrapped in blankets and secured in litters so they can be winched aboard the helicopter and evacuated to the nearest base.  Sam reports on Jack’s condition but Hammond is already ahead of her.  Before she lapses into unconsciousness, Sam says, “General, you came through the Stargate for us.”  “Not exactly, Captain,” he replies.  Jack and Sam are taken to safety while Hammond orders the cave and its gate to be secured by SGC personnel.  Closing credits.

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Review: 8/10
Plot: Pretty good. Addresses one of those questions everybody wants to know--what happens to the traveler if something goes wrong with the Stargate's wormhole?

Realism: Pretty good. Everyone acts as I'd expect them to act, under the circumstances. O'Neill keeps up his sense of humor even when he's dying. Daniel can't sleep at night because he knows he's "missing something." Teal'c refuses to give up searching for his lost friends. Only two exceptions. On is when Carter is working on the DHD and doesn't think to reset it until hours later. She's not that stupid. She would've thought of that way earlier. Unless, of course, the cold and ice were affecting her thinking abilities, but I somehow doubt that. She's too smart to forget a little thing like that. Second exception is when Teal'c is walking around on the Stargate while they're trying to fix it. Sparks are flying everywhere, and he just keeps walking through it. Either fire doesn't affect him or the angle on the camera was wrong, making it look like all the sparks were landing on him!

Action: Not really an action-heavy episode, except when Daniel and Teal'c come flying through the Stargate at the beginning. But the suspense level is pretty high.

Angst Level: Really high. Daniel and Teal'c torture themselves trying to find their lost team mates, Carter tortures herself trying to get the Stargate to work, and O'Neill is just plain dying, making Carter even more miserable.

Special Effects: Not too many. But the energy surge on the Stargate was really cool.

Set and Costumes: They didn't get real fanciful with this episode, although the set for the ice cave was neat (or maybe I just have a fondness for snow and ice caves). Costumes were standard Stargate outfits, but I loved seeing Daniel and Teal'c in those bright orange/black snow suits at the end.

O'Neill factor: Wow. If this isn't an O'Neill episode, I don't know what is. He displays his humor even in the direst of situations, and refuses to give up. We also learn a lot about him and how his mind works. He once had 9 broken bones (including a skull fracture) from a parachuting mishap over Iran/Iraq in the '80s (he hit the ground before the parachute opened...ouch!). He also wasn't rescued from that incident since it wasn't an official mission, and therefore he had to make it out on his own. It took him 9 days, and the only reason he survived was his memories of his then-wife Sara (awww...isn't that so sad, knowing that they're separated now?) This episode also gives him a good chance to do some bonding with Carter.

Daniel factor: Important in his own way in this episode, even though he's not the main attraction (darn!). Poor guy...he gets flung out of the Stargate (getting knocked unconscious in the process), suffers nice little trying to figure out what he was missing, foregoes sleep just to figure it out, and endures a nice little cut on his forehead (ouch...that thing looked really nasty!). But in the end he's the one who figures out that there's another Stargate and that's where O'Neill and Carter were sent.

Carter factor: We see lots of her in this episode, and get a long-needed confession ("I think too much"). Of course, we really don't learn that much about her, except that she's never set bones before (thus making O'Neill suffer a lot while she's fixing his broken leg). She gets some nice bonding time with O'Neill, though, and shows off her courage and determination in trying to get the DHD fixed and exploring above the surface of the cave.

Teal'c factor: Not as important as he might have been. His determination to find O'Neill and Carter is admirable, and he lead a couple teams through to try to find them, but with no luck. Other than this, though, he doesn't do much.

Overall Team factor: Great, even when they're separated. Daniel and Teal'c's every thought are on O'Neill and Carter trying to get them home, refusing to believe they're "missing in action"; O'Neill and Carter work as a team trying to stay alive and somewhat healthy (Carter fixes the DHD while O'Neill melts the ice).

My Thoughts: Not my all-time favorite episode, and definitely not even up there in my top ten, but I still really liked it. In my biased opinion, there could've been more Daniel scenes, but you can't have everything. I loved the O'Neill/Carter bonding, and the premise of the story was interesting (whoa...a second Stargate!). I love how they continue the storyline in "Touchstone," as well...but I won't spoil that one (yet) for all the fans out there who haven't seen it!!!

Related Episodes: "Touchstone"

Daniel Jackson's History/Linguistic/Mythology Lesson: Nada. Zip. Zilch. He spends all his time trying to figure out how the Stargate works.

Sam Carter's Physics Lesson: See "Important Stargate Information" below.

Important Stargate Information (a.k.a. episode mythology stuff): We learn (or review) tons of stuff about the Stargate in this episode. 1. There's a second Stargate on Earth! If that's not important, nothing is! (Makes you wonder if this is the only extra Stargate sitting around Earth or if there's still more somewhere. Hmmmm....) 2. When the Stargate first began operation, it used to make the whole base shake. Now they've installed dampeners on it to prevent that. 3. Cultures on other worlds which parallel human cultures (like the Vikings on Cimmeria) which developed after the first Stargate in Egypt was buried might have ended up on those planets because of this second Stargate. 4. They Goa'uld didn't build the Stargate system (repeat from "Thor's Hammer"). 5. The Stargate creates an artificial wormhole which transmits an energized matter stream in one direction along an extra-dimensional conduit (Carter's description of how the Stargate works). 6. The combinations possible for the Stargate number in the millions.

Alien Species/Background: None. Except that SG-1 is definitely never going back to that planet since the natives are very hostile.

Important everyday life stuff we learn from Stargate: Ice melts. Duh. And, for those people who have never tried it before, dialing your own phone number (from the same phone) will get you a busy signal.

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Quotes:
Carter: "Try to stay put, Sir. I think you leg's broken."
O'Neill: "No, my leg's definitely broken."

O'Neill, about the ice cave: "Unless they've redecorated the Gate Room, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

O'Neill: "Ice. Nice."

O'Neill: "Ice melts." (Duh!)

O'Neill: "I'll be damned if I'm going to die on some God forsaken block of ice a million miles from home."

Carter: "I don't think you should move."
O'Neill: "Probably not, but my butt's freezing to the ground."

O'Neill: "Ah. A little paint, a couple of windows, maybe a fireplace in the corner, it'll be just like home."

O'Neill: "I think I cracked a rib, too."
Carter: "Why didn't you say something?"
O'Neill: "I was afraid you'd try to put a splint on it."

Carter: "I think too much." (Ya think? <g>)

O'Neill: "Soup's on."
Carter: "Just a little more, I'm almost through."
O'Neill: "You don't want it to get cold."
Carter: "I didn't know you could cook."
O'Neill: "I can't. But my melted ice is to die for."

Carter, seeing something frozen in the ice: "Serpent guard. I guess he didn't make it."
O'Neill: "Ya think?"

Carter, lying next to O'Neill for body heat and feeling something poking into her: "Sir?"
O'Neill: "It's my side arm, I swear."

Daniel to Teal'c, really excited: "What happens when you dial your own phone number?" Realizing Teal'c has no clue what he's talking about, he turns to Hammond. "Wrong person to ask. What happens when you dial your own phone number?"

Daniel and Teal'c: "General...perm..."
Hammond: "Granted."
(It's cute how excited they both get at the same time. <g>)

Enigma

Tin Man