Stargate: SG-1 Re-Watch: The Broca Divide (Season 1 Episode 5)

Oh the perils of gate travel! Not only can you end up with a snake in your head but you can also possibly bring back a plague that will revert most of the human race back to pre-stone age.

With Stargate: SG-1 Season 1 Episode 5 “The Broca Divide” the series starts to hit its stride. The team is more relaxed with each other, there’s more humor in the dialogue, and the world is starting to grow organically.

This episode was written by series co-creator Jonathan Glassner and directed by William Gereghty.

“The Broca Divide” starts off in the SGC where General Hammond tells SG-1 that they’re going to visit P3X-797. This world matches one of the sets of symbols on the Abydos cartouche and is believed to be where Apophis escaped to along with Sha’re and Ska’ra at the end of “Children of the Gods.”

They sent a MALP through the gate, but there’s no playback because it’s dark. But, SG-1 should still go check it out, but they aren’t going alone—the SG-3 marines have got their back!

On the other side of the gate, they encounter a tribe of early man who immediately attack them. They observe the behavior of these primitive humans with Dr. Jackson making note of where they fall on the evolutionary chain.

It’s times like these when I really wish Daniel got a chance to geek out more.  This kind of study goes away about as quickly as it’s approved in this episode, but much like the Mongols in “Emancipation,” it feels like they should be leaning on Daniel’s observations a little more. After all, he did live with the Abydonians for a year and he is the expert in ancient cultures.

While SG-1 is watching, they meet some people who call themselves the Untouched. They are unaffected by a disease that only afflicts a certain part of the population, but they think it’s a curse. They live in the Land of the Light and banish those that get afflicted by this disease to the Land of the Dark.

This scene also touches on the recurring theme of false gods when the untouched start kneeling and thanking them for blessing them with a return visit. O’Neill quickly corrects them:

DANIEL:  Only the gods come through the stargate, I think they’re talking about us. We should probably start getting used to this kind of treatment.
O’NEILL: Oh for crying out loud! We’re not gods!

The untouched don’t accept this and instead infer that the “SG-1 Gods” are testing them. So they continue to treat SG-1 as if they’re mortals.

I have to hand it to Glassner, this is a great way to get out of the Untouched just accepting what O’Neill says as fact. We’ve seen the hold the Goa’uld had on Abydos and Chulak, and it would be hard to believe a sudden acceptance of O’Neill’s pronouncement.

After they meet with the Untouched, they deduce that the Goa’uld haven’t been there for some time. O’Neill wants to move out but Daniel wants to study the society. Daniel is ready to go through a song and dance about the cultural value of this planet in regards to Minoan culture and primitive man.

But he’s already won. Hammond says that President agrees with Daniel and wants them to evaluate the scientific and cultural value of each mission from now on–so we will be getting more of Daniel’s anthropological insights!

The thing is that while this makes for good television, I have to wonder how frustrating it must be to collect this information and not be able to write papers and publish. Daniel was always on the fringe of his field, but he’s still an academic, and since the Stargate Program is “need to know” he can’t exactly put his observations about Minoan culture out there.

But, we’re only about halfway through the episode so of course, something else is going on!

During the debriefing, one of the marines confronts Teal’c and it turns out SG-1 unknowingly brought the disease back with them and members of the SGC are starting to act strangely. Before long, other members of SG-3 are picking fights and Sam is coming onto O’Neill in the locker room.

O’Neill drags her off to the infirmary where we’re introduced to Dr. Janet Fraiser, played by Teryl Rothery. This is her first appearance on the series and it won’t be her last. She talks about how this is the strangest thing she’s ever seen. The thing is that while she’s trying to make sense of what she’s seeing, this is spreading until eventually almost everyone is affected except Teal’c,  Daniel, and Dr. Fraiser.

Because of their immunity, General Hammond decides that Teal’c and Daniel should go through the gate alone to try to get a blood sample from the Untouched. In the process, Teal’c loses Daniel on the Dark Side of the planet and comes back sad to have failed at keeping him safe.

The scenes between Jack and Teal’c are some of the strongest of the episode. It was clear in “The Enemy Within” that Jack trusted Teal’c but aside from helping them break out, we haven’t really seen that relationship grow.

Yes, this is only the fifth episode, but there is so much added to this friendship’s foundation! Even when O’Neill can’t respond to Teal’c’s words, Richard Dean Anderson and Christopher Judge play that moment off so beautifully.

While this is happening, General Hammond has to face the fact that there is likely a new plague on planet earth and orders Cheyenne Mountain sealed, recommending that anyone attempting to leave be shot on site and their body burned.

This storyline has the same atmosphere of “The Enemy Within” but instead of the threat being extremely personal it has the potential to spread across the rest of the population. Hammond’s order sounds extreme, but it’s also prudent and shows Hammond’s decision-making process.

Remember, they do have a self-destruct set in place if it ever got the point where they have no hope someone could activate it. Not immediately jumping to that means that he has hope that they can find a cure and resolve this. This is important as the show starts to grow and each of these characters start to come into their own.

Fortunately, we never get to the point of seeing people try to break out of Cheyenne Mountain because Dr. Fraiser has figured out what it is thanks to the blood sample from the Untouched. She’s able to conclude that the organism in the infected SGC personnel’s bloodstream is feeding off histamine.

Daniel and Dr. Fraiser aren’t affected because they both have allergies.  (Teal’c’s not affected thanks to his symbiote.) Dr. Fraiser guesses that if they load someone full of an antihistamine it should starve the virus, and her first test subject is O’Neill.

The treatment works and O’Neill is soon feeling back to his old self.  He even has a little fun with Teal’c when he opens his door:

O’NEILL: Lucy! I’m home!
TEAL’C: I am not Lucy.
O’NEILL: I know that. It’s a reference from an old TV—never mind, open the door.
TEAL’C: I will summon the doctor.
O’NEILL: No. no, c’mon I’m fine, back to being myself. Just open up!
TEAL’C: I cannot be certain you are back to being yourself. You referred to me as “Lucy.”
O’NEILL: Oh for crying out loud, just open the door!

When you see SG-1 together, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Teal’c is an alien and pop culture is a good way to remind the audience of that. We got a little bit of this with the “What is an Oprah?” line at the end of the last episode, but this takes it a little further and starts an interesting thread for Teal’c’s development.

But, right now there’s no time to explain Lucy Ricardo and her dreams of fame! Daniel Jackson is lost on The Dark Side of the planet and they got people to cure!

Now that they know the antihistamine works they can load up all of the infected and starve out the disease. Dr. Fraiser has also made tranquilizer darts to treat the Touched. So, SG-1 goes through the gate again and they are able to tranquilize the Touched in order to get to Daniel.

Then they convince the Untouched that the curse is actually a disease. The Touched start coming back to the Land of the Light and everything is okay for now.

Oh, but things are kind of awkward between Jack and Sam, but Jack’s a professional so he shrugs it off instead asking how her stab wound is healing up, because if it doesn’t heal she’ll never wear that top again!

What do you think of this episode of Stargate SG-1? Let us know in the comments below.

All ten seasons of Stargate: SG-1 are currently available on Hulu.

Follow us on Twitter @telltaleTV_

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!

Jodi Lynn Thomas Talks ‘Preacher,’ Sci-Fi, and the Acting Game [Exclusive Interview]