Fail Safe is episode 17 of season 5 of Stargate SG-1, first aired in 2001.
An asteroid the size of a small moon is hurtling toward Earth, and the Protected Planets Treaty doesn't cover natural disasters. SG-1 boards a patched-up cargo ship to plant a bomb on it, space-miner style. Once there, the mission goes off the rails one surprise after another, all the way to the discovery that changes everything: the asteroid's core is naquadah, and the explosion would vaporize the planet.
Why it matters to the mythology
A standalone episode, but the final solution, sending the asteroid into hyperspace THROUGH Earth, joins the pantheon of the franchise's craziest plans.
The review
Armageddon, Stargate-style, with a budget a thousand times smaller and twice as many ideas. The series piles on the setbacks with gleeful sadism, a breakdown, a leak, a countdown, a naquadah core, and the last-chance solution has a conceptual audacity that still makes me smile: sending a mountain through the planet via hyperspace. All without ever losing the team's sense of humor. Great entertainment.
Written by Sebastian
Founder and editor-in-chief of Stargate Initiative
Gallery · 3
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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