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PRODIGY

Prodigy

04.19 Episode 85 (#6720)
Airdate: February 2, 2001

While lecturing at the Air Force Academy, Carter meets Jennifer Hailey, a young cadet. Hailey is a brilliant student, but she is also opinionated, resentful, and rebellious, and a confrontation with an upperclassman nearly results in her expulsion from the Academy. Major Carter, however, recognizes her brilliance and her potential to become a genuine asset to the SGC, and is determined to give her a taste of what her future could hold. She arranges for Cadet Hailey to join SG-1's mission to M4C-862, a moon orbiting a gas giant.

On M4C-862, Carter and Hailey join O'Neill and Teal'c, who have been providing security for a team of scientists at an off-world research base. The peaceful moon appears to have no indigenous threat, and the scientists resent the interference of the military, especially when they encounter an alien life form composed of pure energy. The tiny flying beings appear as small glowing lights and are entirely benign during the first encounter, but after one of them is captured, hundreds more attack the team, a threat made far more dangerous by their ability to pass through solid objects.

Cut off from the stargate and surrounded by beings able to penetrate the walls of their research station, the team struggles to determine the reason for the creatures' aggressive behavior and to find a means of escape. A makeshift electromagnetic field is their only protection against the glowing creatures, and O'Neill must rely on the residual charge from a zat gun and the energy field of the stargate itself, in a race to the gate that will secure a way home for the team.

Story by: Brad Wright, Joseph Mallozzi, and Paul Mullie
Teleplay by: Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie
Directed by: Peter DeLuise

Guest Starring: Elisabeth Rosen as Cadet Jennifer Hailey, Hrothgar Mathews as Dr. Hamilton, Bill Dow as Dr. Lee, General Ryan as Himself, Keith Martin Gordey as Professor Monroe, Michael Kopsa as General Kerrigan, Roger Haskett as Dr. Bill Thompson, Russell Ferrier as Major Griff, Ivon R. Bartok as Cadet

Reference: Samantha Carter, Energy Beings, Major Griff, Jennifer Hailey, Dr. Hamilton, Cadet Hess, General Kerrigan, Kerrigan Photo, Bill Lee, M4C-862, Professor Monroe, Michael E. Ryan, Bill Thompson, Zat'nik'tel

DESTINATIONS & INHABITANTS

Destinations & Inhabitants

M4C-862

Destinations & Inhabitants

Energy Beings

NOTES OF INTEREST

  • General Michael E. Ryan is the (real life) Chief of Staff of the US Air Force and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, DC.
  • M4C-862 is a moon orbiting a gas giant, 42,000 light years from Earth. A team of scientists had been doing research there for six weeks. The goal was to establish a permanent research station.
  • Carter was lecturing in theoretical astrophysics at the Air Force Academy. General Kerrigan and Professor Monroe at the Air Force Academy both remember Carter as a student there.
  • Daniel was off-world with SG-11.
  • The energy-based lifeforms could pass through matter. An electrical field could contain or repel them. Carter theorized that their behavior was retaliatory due to the capture of one of their own. Hailey's theory was that the moon was a rogue pulled into a highly eccentric polar orbit, and that the more intense magnetic field during the polar phase of orbit affected behavior.

MEMORABLE REMARKS

  • Shouldn't there have been a memo or something? [O'Neill]
  • Got your hands full with that one, eh, George? [General Ryan]
  • Colonel O'Neill is indeed qualified, Dr. Hamilton, having encountered many alien species, as have I, since long before you were born. I strongly suggest you do what Colonel O'Neill says. [Teal'c]
    Thank you, Rocco. [O'Neill]
  • Are you ready, O'Neill? [Teal'c]
    No. Give me a warning. [O'Neill]
    I am going to shoot you. [Teal'c]
  • Good luck, O'Neill. [Teal'c]
    Wish me luck. [O'Neill]
  • I'll never complain about mosquitoes again. [O'Neill]

FOR THE RECORD

  • Injuries:
    • O'Neill: shot once with a zat gun, and attacked by energy beings
  • Popular Culture References:
    • Star Trek
      • We'll hold them off with those phaser things.