Daniel (Micheal Shanks) has been watching his Unas friend, Chaka (Dion Johnstone) only to discover that he’s been captured and made a slave.

Beast of Burden was written by Peter DeLuise, and first aired on 10 August, 2001.

Daniel and the rest of SG-1 go to investigate, and discover that Burrock (Larry Drake) and the planet he comes from, have been capturing Unas, ‘domesticating’ them, and making them slaves. O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) agrees to the assignment when he sees Burrock and his men using Goa’uld weaponry to carry out their will.

When Daniel and O’Neill attempt to rescue Chaka, they end up caught by Burrock, Teal’c (Christopher Judge) and Carter (Amanda Tapping) are trying to figure out the best way to help, and whether or not they can free the Unas and stop Burrock’s slave trade in its tracks.

Through their time together, Daniel is able to demonstrate to all of SG-1 that the Unas are sentient and intelligent creatures, and they are able to help most of them escape through the stargate. But what’s to stop Burrock and his men from doing the same again?

Chaka leaves a violent message of his own, and will lead the struggle for freedom for all his people from Burrock’s people.

It’s a solid tale, DeLuise has a talent for writing these characters, and definitely tells a good story with this episode. It’s not all happiness and winning out there in the Stargate Universe, and this one shows that things have to be fought for.

The Tomb was directed by DeLuise (so his cameo this time is as a Russian soldier, we see his dossier) and was written by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie and was first broadcast on 17 August, 2001.

It seems a Russian team had become trapped inside an alien ziggurat on P2X-338, and were killed by a Goa’uld controlled being. O’Neill and his team pair up with a Russian team led by Zukhov (Earl Pastko), against O’Neill’s wishes, and to survive, once they get trapped in the ziggurat as well, means they have to trust one another, though the Russians are keeping some secrets.

It’s a haunted house in space story (see Alien) tied into the mythology of the series, and with some nice conflict between the American and Russian teams.

It’s fun and clever, and shows that O’Neill is so much smarter than he pretends to be. Something the character does intentionally.

It’s a little bit Alien, a little bit The Thing, and set in an alien ziggurat on an alien world makes this one creepy and entertaining.

I like this one. It’s a fun adventure tale. So far season five hasn’t been my favorite, but they are still doing solid work, and I can’t help but keep tuning in and going on the journey with the characters I love.