Stargate SG-1--"Fire and Water"

“Fire and Water” helps establish that Daniel, who is not comfortably a part of the military culture, is nevertheless considered an integral part of SG-1. The episode also offers up the opportunity to introduce another weird alien. Since I am struggling to come up with anything else to add as part of an introduction, how about we get on with it?

Jack, Sam, and Teal’c return through the stargate hours ahead of schedule, in shock, and without Daniel. They report that Daniel is dead. He was burned in a fire. The only way they survived is by submerging themselves in a nearby ocean. Daniel is given a memorial service with full military honors. The rest of the team is taken off active duty for a week while they deal with their grief. They continue to feel a nagging suspicion that Daniel is still alive, with the notion becoming much stronger around water.

It is not until the second act we learn Daniel is alive. He is being held captive by an aquatic alien named Nem. Nem forces Daniel to translate some cuneiform fron ancient Babylon in an effort to uncover what happened to his wife, Omoroca. Daniel has no way of doing that, as he futilely explains to Nem. Much of ancient history has been lost to time and fate. It takes time to even get from nem what Omoroca even is. When he does learn Omoroca is Nem’s wife, empathy renews his dedication, particularly as it becomes more Omoroca opposed a goa’uld in Babylon and was killed for it.

Back on earth, it is slowly but surely established the remainder of SG-1 are suffering from repressed memories. Under hypnosis, Sam recalls meeting Nem on the planet, them being captured to implant false memories of Daniel burning to death, and a mental prohibition to never return. Knowing all this to be true, they do. In the interim, Daniel has given up believing all the knowledge he can recall off the top of his head can help determine Omoroca’s fate, so he agrees to submit to the memory device in order to dig it out. The procedure is risky enough for Nem to not want to do it, but Daniel insists. The procedure extracts the knowledge that Omoroca did die at the hands of a goa’uld. The SG-1 team arrives shortly thereafter to retrieve Daniel. They leave in peace with nem.

I liked the emphasis through on memory and emotional connection. Nem has been waiting 4,000 years to learn what happened to his wife. He knows good and well she is dead, but he needs closure even after all this time. All that time not having dulled his love for her. Daniel is willing to risk using the memory extracting device, something even Nem does not want to do, because he empathizes with Nem. His wife, Sha’re, has suffered an as yet unknown fate by the Goa’uld, too. In many ways, SG-1’s reaction to Daniel’s ‘death” is even more poignant. Jack in particular is interesting. All three have supposedly been conditioned to not want to return to the planet, and when he suggests it, Sam and Teal’c forcefully and in unison insist no to a return trip. Jack overcomes the conditioning, though it is unspoken, because of his connection to Daniel. Sam does not come around until hypnosis brings out the truth and she breaks down when she realizes they left Daniel behind.

“Fire and Water” is quite good. I knew good and well daniel was not dead throughout the first act, yet I was drawn into the idea anyway because of how well the characters’ grief was presented. These days, I look back on the fad of “retrieving” repressed memories as a pop psychology fad from the ’90’s, but I can appreciate nostalgia for the dumb stuff, too. While repressed memories are a major plot element, it does not detract much from the story.

Rating: *** (out of 5)