A very clever episode. It starts out as an investigation to discover who might have been manipulated by the Goau'ld to become an assassin. But when the Tok'ra machine supposed to detect false memories blames O'Neill and Carter, everything becomes suspect.
Is Anise (the seriously under-dressed Tok'ra from Upgrades) really trying to help or does she have her own agenda? Is the Za'tarc detector another technological screwup? Are O'Neill and Carter really compromised? Could *we* all have missed something when we last watched "Upgrades"? Or was it already part of the lie?
So once again, a piece of alien technology that was supposed to help really makes the situation more confused as we start suspecting everybody. And ironically, it turns out that there IS a lie... only it's such an obvious one that we didn't even notice it. So once again, the episode stresses the fact that nothing can replace human intelligence and sensibility, which is always a nice point to make.
Of course, that is only one part of the story, and it turns out that the Goa'uld did have a plot prepared. A shocking, unpleasant one, as far as I'm concerned. (Is it me,or has the characters' death rate hit the ceiling recently?)
To finish, despite a few short action scenes, most of the episode is slow, devoted to introspection and reminiscence, but we still get some good scenes. Nevertheless, the focus is clearly on Carter and O'Neill, to such extent that I cannot even remember what Teal'c does in this episode. As usual, O'Neill gets the best moments, both the funny ones and the serious ones.
Is Anise (the seriously under-dressed Tok'ra from Upgrades) really trying to help or does she have her own agenda? Is the Za'tarc detector another technological screwup? Are O'Neill and Carter really compromised? Could *we* all have missed something when we last watched "Upgrades"? Or was it already part of the lie?
So once again, a piece of alien technology that was supposed to help really makes the situation more confused as we start suspecting everybody. And ironically, it turns out that there IS a lie... only it's such an obvious one that we didn't even notice it. So once again, the episode stresses the fact that nothing can replace human intelligence and sensibility, which is always a nice point to make.
Of course, that is only one part of the story, and it turns out that the Goa'uld did have a plot prepared. A shocking, unpleasant one, as far as I'm concerned. (Is it me,or has the characters' death rate hit the ceiling recently?)
To finish, despite a few short action scenes, most of the episode is slow, devoted to introspection and reminiscence, but we still get some good scenes. Nevertheless, the focus is clearly on Carter and O'Neill, to such extent that I cannot even remember what Teal'c does in this episode. As usual, O'Neill gets the best moments, both the funny ones and the serious ones.