Poor Jack (Richard Dean Anderson). O’Neill becomes infected with an alien database when they travel to one of the possible ally worlds of the five races allied against the goa’uld system lords.

Written by Robert C. Cooper, The Fifth Race first debuted on 22 January, 1999.

He begins to speak in an alien tongue, and Carter (Amanda Tapping), Teal’c (Christopher Judge), Jackson (Michael Shanks) and Hammond (Don S. Davis) all become concerned. Carter and Teal’c work on a solution, but have to travel off world to do it, becoming trapped on a planet that may kill them.

With all of this new knowledge in his head, O’Neill may be able to figure out a way home by designing a device to save them. But what does it do?

Jack has so much knowledge shoved into his head, that it’s beginning to take its toll, will SG-1 be able to save their leader before he is unable to communicate with anyone.

There are some wonderful character moments, Anderson shines, and the universe expands once again, and ties solidly into its continuity by calling back to the episode, The Torment of Tantalus, as well as the Asgardians. And who is the Fifth Race? There’s the Ancients, the Asgard, the Nox, and the Furlings, but humanity may be the Fifth Race in the alliance… one day.

I love that Anderson is really giving his all for this role, and is able to walk the balance between humor, action and drama. But he’s also eager to let the rest of the cast have their moments as well, it’s an ensemble show and he is leading them all.

This is a great episode and allows for character and mythology growth.

A Matter of Time was written by showrunner Brad Wright from a story by Misha Rashovich. It debuted on 29 January, 1999.

There’s lots of fun things about this episode, Siler’s (Dan Shea) big wrench shows up, Colin Cunningham shows up as Major Davis for the first time, and there’s one other thought that crossed my mind. Tobias Mehler’s Lt. Simmons is still around the SGC… is he embarrassed or uncomfortable at all with his feelings for Carter known?

The story follows the reveal that SG-10’s mission is in dire shape when one of the binary stars of the planet they are orbiting collapsed into a black hole. When the gates are connected, they cannot disengage it! SG-10 is stuck, in effect already dead, because of the time dilation, and now Stargate Command needs to find a way to disconnect the gates before the black hole can threaten Earth.

The time dilation effect begins to spread through the SGC and the military sends in a team to investigate as they think it’s an alien invasion. Also because of the dilation, they have more time outside to figure things out whats going on and how to help, if they can get the information back inside.

It’s going to lead to a dangerous mission, and reveals more about O’Neill’s service, and his belief in no man left behind.

Tightly paced, fun, and filled with the humor and adventure we’ve come to expect.