You know, because I’m not as clever as my mouth sometimes talks, I started tonight’s episode thinking that guest star Robert Foxworth might be the only Columbo villain to appear on Stargate, but that’s certainly not true. Ian Buchanan had been here before him, just eight episodes previously. Well, shucks.
Anyway, back when we were watching the episode with Buchanan a month ago, I had grumbled, good-naturedly I hope, about Earth having a big flying battleship. But here’s a story that wouldn’t have been able to have been told without it, and it’s a pretty good one. The Prometheus is on a training run and is crippled when its hyperspace engines fail. They are able to make their way to a planet listed in their original “cartouche” of addresses but have never been able to reach, indicating that the planet’s gate had been destroyed or buried. So it’s an interesting story of first contact for the people of Tagrea, who are technologically about on par with Earth, but don’t have any records of their history prior to three hundred years before. The gate, like their past, genuinely has been buried, and most of the Tagrean people are just fine with that, but without the gate to dial home for help and repairs, they will be stranded.
All is resolved in the end, but our son surprised us by thinking this was going to be a two-parter. He was reading all the Tagrean stuff as a side story from the actual mission to break in the Prometheus. We joked about what could possibly end up happening in a supposed second half of this tale, and he eventually concluded that it would mainly be Jack and Teal’c being so bored that they started knocking their heads against the walls.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 
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