Summary

The episode starts out with General Landry and SG-1, minus Daniel, but plus Vala, in the briefing room discussing the situation with the search for Merlin's anti-Ascended being weapon on the two planets identified by Morgan le Fay in last week's "The Pegasus Project" (which is not going well), and explaining that Daniel, convinced that the answer to the question is in Merlin's library, is off visiting Camelot.

The briefing is interrupted with a report that an Al'kesh bomber has entered the Earth's atmosphere and is en route for Cheyenne Mountain. On Landry's orders, the Goa'uld vessel is forced down, and SG-1 is dispatched to investigate. Upon arriving, they discover that the Al'kesh was being piloted by none other than Baal, the former Goa'uld System Lord.

"None other" being something of a misnomer, as we all known that Baal has recently cloned himself. This particular Baal claims to be the real deal, and offers the SGC assistance with finding Merlin's weapon (claiming that Anubis had told him of the weapon and its power) in exchange for their assistance in eliminating his clones, who have apparently rebelled.

Our heroes are understandably sceptical, but when Baal gives them information that would allow them to track down the clones, they decide to investigate. Shortly afterwards, N.I.D. agent Malcolm Barrett arrives, explaining that the N.I.D. would like Baal to be transferred into their custody in order to assist with their efforts to bring down the Trust. Landry, however, refuses to turn him over at the moment, as the SGC has "bigger fish to fry".

As SG-1 and other SG teams scour the galaxy capturing Baals by the bucket, bringing them all back to the SGC, Agent Barrett becomes increasingly vociferous in his attempts to gain access to Baal, finally taking matters into his own hands and speaking with the "original" without permission.

Baal quickly incapacitates the N.I.D. agent and takes his weapon, and in a short space of time frees the other Baals and takes several hostages, including Carter, whom he forces to a copy of the new gate addresses added to the system by Colonel O'Neill back in "The Fifth Race" by threatening the execute the other hostages, starting with Agent Barrett. Carter complies, believing that it is impossible for Baal to escape, as the level he and his clones have occupied will doubtlessly have been sealed off, and beaming from the SGC is prevented by jammers installed after the Trust stole the Stargate in "Endgame".

As Mitchell, Teal'c, Vala, and SGC security teams gradually close in on the Baals, forcing them to withdraw, Dr. Lee and Sergeant Siler work on a plan to deploy symbiote poison to end the crisis.

Carter is rescued just as the surviving Baals fall back to the room the first Baal was being held in, and as the gas is released, Carter realizes what Baal is up to. Our heroes reach the room just in time to see the Baals beamed away, the combined signal from the tracking device in each one having proven to be powerful enough to cut through the jamming.

Baal is now lose with a list of all the Stargates the Goa'uld never knew about. And it turns out that he had brainwashed Barrett, just as one of his clones had brainwashed members of the Jaffa High Council in "Stronghold", in order to assure that he would be able to escape from custody.

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Review

"Insiders" is not without its flaws, and it's entertaining and manages to keep you guessing right up until the end when the viewer, or at least this viewer, reaches the same conclusion as Carter at just about the same time.

However, for all that, it suffers, as would just about any episode, from being the follow-up to last week's "The Pegasus Project". Not just in that "The Pegasus Project" was among the best episodes of the entire series, but because we are barely even given any insight into the impact of the information that Daniel and Vala (and Atlantis's Dr. Weir) were able to obtain from Morgan le Fay.

It's not surprising to me that the information turned out to be, at least at this point, a dead end. I rather expected that, since it would be far too easy for Merlin's weapon to be in the first place the SGC looked. But what bothers me is how little mention it was given, basically, it seemed to me, that it was used merely as a way to explain why Daniel wasn't around (for those interested, "Insiders" is the first of four episodes from which Daniel will be absent as actor Michael Shanks spends time with his family).

And speaking of Daniel, while Landry may not have been entirely right about him being the only one Vala listens to, Shanks is the only one Claudia Black really has any chemistry with. To be fair, Black plays well off Amanda Tapping and Christopher Judge (the scene with Vala trying to "arm wrestle" Teal'c in the briefing room was a classic); and no one who has seen an episode of Farscape can doubt the chemistry between Black and Ben Browder, but because we have barely seen Vala outside of Daniel's company her relationships with the other members of SG-1 are sadly underdeveloped.

On the subject of Vala, I also have to ask why she was leading the group of soldiers she was with during the attempt to rescue Carter and Barrett from the Baals. She's not a member of SG-1 (notice that she was not wearing an SG-1 shoulder patch), nor, according to "Morpheus", is she even a full-fledged member of the SGC. I can understand that Vala's personality might make her assume she ought to be in charge and that she would behave as such, but that does not explain why the soldiers (or airmen or Marines) would listen to her. But I digress…

The one aspect of "Insiders" that I cannot decide if I liked or not were the repeated Baal-ball jokes. Don't misunderstand me, they were funny (though, personally, I preferred Mitchell's "Let's go, Spartacus"), but there were just too many. It was not unexpected, given the number of jokes that have been made about Lord Yu over the years, but it was still getting awfully close to being too much.

Ultimately, "Insiders" is a good episode, because of its perceived weaknesses it losses points, but in the end, it does add a new wrinkle to the fabric of the conflict with the Ori, taking Baal from basically an annoying distraction to a legitimate threat, now that he may have the heads up on acquiring Merlin's weapon.

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Grade: 8/10 (A)

Cast:

Michael Shanks as Dr. Daniel Jackson
Amanda Tapping as Samantha "Sam" Carter
Christopher Judge as Teal'c
Ben Browder as Cameron Mitchell
Claudia Black as Vala Mal Doran
Beau Bridges as Hank Landry

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Guest Cast:

Cliff Simon as Baal
Peter Flemming as N.I.D. Agent Malcolm Barrett
Bill Dow as Dr. Lee
Lesley Ewen as SGC Geneticist
Gary Jones as Sgt. Walter Harriman
Dan Shea as Sgt. Siler
Paul Christie as Caffey

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Creative Staff:

Written by Alan McCullough
Directed by Peter F. Woeste

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