This episode owes more than a little of its plot to the third season original "Star Trek" episode "The Paradise Syndrome," in which Capt. Kirk gets trapped on a planet with a tribe similar to American Indians and -- with the Enterprise conveniently stuck a long way off and Kirk also conveniently beset by amnesia --- falls in love with a member of the tribe. But "One Hundred Days" is a superior updating of this storyline, which begins with Col. O'Neill and the other members of SG-1 apparently having already become good friends with the simple, pre-industrial people of the planet Eudora.
In another eerie echo of "The Paradise Syndrome," the complication driving the plot is a meteor shower that periodically strikes the planet with potentially lethal consequences. One of them apparently destroys Eudora's stargate when O'Neill has strayed away to help a young widow, Laira (the lovely Michele Greene) find her teenage son who has disappeared just as the meteor shower begins in earnest.
Back at Cheyenne Mountain, however, Teal'c, Maj. Carter and the rest of them have discovered that while the stargate can still be activated at Eudora's end, something is preventing anything that goes through from surviving -- suggesting that the gate is buried in such a way that it cannot safely be used. Not knowing even if O'Neill is still alive, it is left to Maj. Carter to devise a way to resurrect the non-functioning gate at Earth's end, or possibly to wait for assistance from an interstellar race that can make the journey in real space to check on O'Neill's status.
Thus, without the use of a hackneyed plot device like amnesia, "One Hundred Days" realistically postulates that O'Neill could find himself evidently trapped for good on another world with no way to return to or even to communicate with his home world. And so begins his gradual submersion into the lives and culture of Eudora's people, with his trademark side-shielded sunglasses his only remaining trinket from his home as the story unfolds. Richard Dean Anderson and Michele Greene have a pleasant chemistry, as she encourages him to mourn the loss of his former life with stories of her own gradual acceptance of her widowhood -- while also letting him know less than subtly that she would like to do more than comfort him as a friend.
Of course, given that this is series television, it's foregone that he is not likely to take up the simple life as a farmer and woodcutter voluntarily, Ms. Greene's charms notwithstanding. The producers did manage to find an idyllic setting for the story on the edge of a lake surrounded by green fields and mountains, making this a grassier and more sunlit setting than a lot of the thick British Columbia forest seen in many of the other episodes.
This might have been an interesting storyline to experiment with as either a two-parter -- or even an end-of-season cliff-hanger, thus allowing more of the Laira-O'Neill relationship to have been explored. As a season-ending story, it would have at least allowed for the possibility that O'Neill might not have continued with the show, making his romance with Laira seem more plausible. It also would have allowed the producers not to truncate the story to fit the 48-minute time frame; at one point, a scene transition is introduced with "Three Months Later," cutting out most of what could have been further character exposition.
Still, within those limitations, the budding romance combined with the apparent loss/mourning allows Anderson to play O'Neill gentle and serious, as he struggles with his feelings for Laira and then must come to terms with her likely loss at the end. Anderson plays these scenes just right, for once shedding his usually sarcastic persona. The episode also boasts a short but telling scene between Dr. Frasier (Teryl Rothery) and Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), in which Carter acknowledges her own sense of loss for her wisecracking field commander, while also letting the two women share a moment, in which what is not said is just as powerful as what is.
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