Brief Candle

Plot: SG-1 arrive on a planet with an ancient Greek type civilisation. The population have life spans of only one hundred days, when Jack is seduced by one of them, he too is condemned to a rapidly shortened life span. SG-1 and Dr. Frasier must race to save Jack's life, before it runs out.


So this is a little weird. This is the sixth episode on the DVD, but it's actually production number eight, meaning that there should've been a couple of episodes before this one. I've had a look at the episode guide that was bundled with the DVD and it seems that the episode order is a little different to the production order. Now, TV stations are known for screwing around with episodes, airing them in the wrong order. My assumption is that Showtime probably showed them in the wrong order in the first place and they were eventually put back in the right order for release on DVD. Nothing major, but it's interesting.

The episode itself was a great piece of science fiction. Dodgy experiments on people by higher beings, distorted sense of time, all good stuff. It's the kind of thing that made a good episode of Star Trek and it's nice to see the SG-1 writers trying some of that stuff out. There's a lot more of this sort of thing to come from SG-1 and Atlantis. Atlantis in particular has had a couple of good ones, especially the one in season three where Colonel Sheppard gets sucked in to a time dilation field where time is rapidly sped up. Loved that episode.

While on the planet, Argos, Jack develops a relationship with one of the women, Kynthia. It was a bit weak to begin, but really developed nicely as the episode went on. It wasn't quite up to the standard of the Shat tearing his womanising ways across the galaxy, but Jack is still the man, if you follow.

And I'm sure you're all wondering what the title is all about. I certainly didn't notice any candles of note in the episode. According to the entry on Wikipedia, it's a reference to the following line from Macbeth:

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Makes perfect sense now, right?

7 out of 10