Enigma

MAYBOURNE!

Ahem, sorry. Not sure where that came from.

When SG-1 rescue a group of technologically advanced aliens from a massive volcanic eruption on their world, it creates problems both for the offworlders - the Tollans - and the SGC. Because of their obviously powerful technology, the NID (National Intelligence Department) send colonel Harry Maybourne to take the Tollans from the SGC to a similarly secret facility elsewhere in the Rockies to learn what they can from them. General Hammond and SG-1 do their best to stop this from happening and while Sam and the Tollan Narim are busy fluttering their eyelashes at each other, Daniel helps their leader Omoc send a signal across (or perhaps through?) space to the Nox, who come to their aid.

In this, his first episode, col. Maybourne is basically just a replacement for colonel Kennedy (who appeared in The Enemy Within) and is just shown as a bit of a tool. Throughout the years he'll be brought back a number of the times and - as you may have guessed by my outburst above - becomes one of my favourite recurring characters.

The Tollans also come back a couple of times in the future, along with Narim's new pet cat, Schroedinger. There's obviously a mutual attraction between Narim and Sam in this episode, but due to them having to part ways at the end of the episode, not much happens. Narim does give Sam a 'recording' of his emotions and feelings about her, and then they kiss a couple of times before being interrupted by Daniel (which is hilarious). It's the first relationship-stuff we've seen for Sam since her ex-fiancé was killed in The First Commandment, but we'll see more soon enough - in the next episode, in fact (Solitudes).

P.S. As an update to the note in Singularity, I noticed in this episode that gen. Hammond started wearing his trademark short-sleeved dress shirt. Now he's really general Hammond!

The Nox

This is a planet-of-the-week episode, but contains elements that will later become part of the larger stargate mythos. We see the Nox for the first time, a race of beings with superior technology to the goa'uld, but who are a peaceful, enigmatic people. They are able to hide themselves and other things, to the point that even the goa'uld, who have been coming to the planet for over 400 years, do not know of their existence. They also have amazing healing powers, and can bring people back from death. The team go to their planet in search of a flying creature with the power of invisibility and run into their old pal Apophis and his small personal guard. It's the first time the show's primary antagonists have shown up since The enemy Within and despite seeming quite weak (only 3 jaffa following Apophis) they still manage to kill the human members of SG-1, who are then reanimated by the Nox.

In my mind, the Nox are one of the most cryptic groups of aliens to feature in the stargate world, as we never find much out about them other than that they're incredibly advanced compared to us. It's nice to see an advanced race of pacifists, too - often in science fiction, advanced races are shown either as aggressive towards us or as benefactors. The Nox, on the other hand, just want to be left alone.

Not much else happens in the episode - the dangers of 'meddling' with other cultures and the naïveté of children are shown - the Nox had gone undetected for hundreds of years before SG-1 visited their planet and started a fight (yes, Han Teal'c shot first) and then because of a talk with Jack, the young nox Nafrayu confronts Apophis and is injured or killed (but returned to life by his fellows). At the end of the episode Jack repeats what the old nox told him - "The very young do not always do as they are told," referring to both Nafrayu and the human race.