Tin Man is episode 18 of season 1 of Stargate SG-1, first aired in 1997.
On a deserted industrial world, SG-1 wakes up... in machine bodies. Harlan, the cheerful last survivor of his people, has copied their minds into androids to save himself from loneliness. The dilemma is cruel: the copies are as real as the originals, and someone is going to have to stay.
Why it matters to the mythology
The robot doubles will return for one last stand. The episode raises a question of identity that the franchise will revisit often.
First appearance
Harlan and SG-1's android doubles
The review
The premise is scary, robot copies of our heroes, and yet the episode avoids every gimmick trap. Harlan, an exhausting and endearing ball of enthusiasm, casually raises a pretty dizzying philosophical question: if the copy has the same memories, the same loves and the same fears, which one is the original? The scene where the two SG-1s split the world between them, the real ones outside, the doubles condemned to eternity underground, is more melancholy than it has any right to be. A pleasant surprise.
Written by Sebastian
Founder and editor-in-chief of Stargate Initiative
Gallery · 2
Stills from the episode, via TMDb.
The community watches the episode
Creators watch it, react to it, break it down. We're just the bridge: the views stay on their channels.
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