There’s a fun opener with O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson), Hammond (Don S. Davis) and the actual Air Force Chief of Staff at the time, Micheal E. Ryan. And then the story dives into a fun Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) story.

Prodigy was written by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie from a story by Mallozzi, Mullie, and one of the series showrunners, Brad Wright. It first debuted on 2 February, 2001.

SG-1 gets a new temporary member, when Carter encounters a brilliant, but difficult cadet, Jennifer Hailey (Elizabeth Rosen). Carter decides that the best way for Hailey to change some of her attitudes, and get the chip off her shoulder, is to have a little expedition… through the stargate.

She joins the team on a remote moon, that has a scientific outpost. The scientists, including Dr. Lee (Bill Dow), there have been bumping heads with the SG teams, and O’Neill is tiring of it (and he just got there). He and Teal’c (Christopher Judge) are working to keep the scientists safe, whether they think they need it or not.

Course a new life form may cause some problems. It’s a good thing Carter and Hailey are there. Of course, it’s not going to be that easy, because they both have different ideas of how to proceed, and only one of them can be right.

With Hailey’s future and lives in the balance, how will things play out?

Despite directing this episode, Peter DeLuise doesn’t seem to have a cameo in this one.

Entity first aired on 9 February, 2001. It was written, but not directed, by Peter DeLuise. There are some great character moments, and the story is all stargate, but it also has been done before, not only on other sci-fi shows, but on this one as well.

When a probe sent by Stargate Command is suddenly taken over by an alien force, it causes a massive energy spike in the SGC’s computers. But it is more than a spike, it’s an energy-based entity, that after exploring the computers and accessing countless files, it finds a new home in a self-created mainframe that it creates from computers and pieces around the base.

Realizing it’s a life form, they look for a way to communicate with it. And it wants Carter. It recognizes she has the most potential for helping it return home, and staying in her will keep it safe, because humanity values lives.

Can Fraiser (Teryl Rothery) and the rest of the SGC find a way to get the entity out of Carter? What will the entity do to save itself and protect its world? Sam’s life hangs in the balance through it all, and O’Neill is troubled by the decisions he may have to make, or have taken away from him because Carter has a living will.

Both Harriman (Gary Jones) and Siler (Dan Shea) get some fun moments, I do love how the continuity of the series allows for the growth of secondary and minor characters. Hammond and Fraiser have both become incredibly important to the series.

It’s a solid episode, and despite having been done before, this one works really well. Next time, we finish up season four!