Stargate SG-1 (TV Series) The Curse (2000) User Reviews

Returning to the Origins

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 7 July 2016]

Daniel reads on the newspaper that his former professor Dr. David Jordan has passed away in an explosion of his laboratory and he travels to Chicago to attend the funeral. Daniel encounters his former love Dr. Sarah Gardner and Dr. Jordan's assistant and rival Dr. Steven Rayner and learns that they are studying ancient Egyptians pieces that have been borrowed from the Egypt government. Daniel finds that two pieces are missing and the hieroglyphs are written in Goa'uld. He keeps secret about his work at the Stargate but translate the language and leans that a symbiont is kept in a sealed jar. When Steven disappears with a golden amulet, Daniel suspects that he might have killed Dr. Jordan and he follows him to Egypt with Sam and Dr. Fraiser trying to solve the mystery.

"The Curse" is an episode entirely based on Daniel return to his origins with his professor and his love. Jack and Teal'c have minor but funny participation and Dr. Fraiser is becoming more important as a support characters teaming-up Sam. The conclusion is well-resolved. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "The Curse"

Back to Egypt...

[robrosenberger · 8/10 · 21 July 2012]

Will you STOP IT with this unending run of episodes above 2 stars? You've accustomed me to a certain level of crap, SG1, and you're failing to deliver. We're at around twenty solidly good episodes in a row. This one is a treat for Egyptologists who may have loved the movie for that reason, and been understandably disappointed by the series thus far. Daniel learns that the archaeology professor who trained him has suddenly died. He returns for the funeral, and picks up the abandoned research thread with the help (and antipathy) of two formerly close research assistants. This episode touches on how achingly hard it must sometimes be for the Stargate crew to never tell anyone in the outside world about what they do. This idea needs to be explored further...

Whose who?

[Calicodreamin · 6/10 · 21 February 2022]

A lot of names being thrown in this episode but I think I figured out whose who. Decent storyline though a definite lack of effects. Weird to see the team working separately and the doctor going out into the field.

Marry me, Sarah!

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 13 September 2014]

Anna-Louise Plowman (the tall woman in the bed from the film "Shanghai Knights") makes her first appearance here as Dr Sarah Gardner, Daniel's former Love interest. And what an interest! Although I really like this actress, this is the episode where she looked the best.

This is a woman who Daniel could have done something with; probably would have done something with if Shar'e had not been taken from him recently- he is still recovering from those wounds, but you can see he is slightly interested in Sarah.

We know from historical fact that curses like the one that was allegedly on King Tut's tomb were usually the result of something more on the mundane side. Consequently here, people seem to be dropping like flies due to a curse on "the Osiris Jar" and other objects in this find. When the alleged curse takes Daniel's former professor, He has to go back to Chicago and look into it. And the first thing he sees when he gets there is the form of Sarah.

But these deaths are just too convenient to be accidents. As Daniel tries to make sense of some Goa'Uld writing that is on the jars- more people are dying.

SG-1 gets to do an autopsy on a 10,000-year-old Goa'Uld corpse, but usually these kinds of artifacts come in pairs, so where is the other jar, the one that had Osiris in it?

There was one interesting thing in here regarding information technology. As Sarah and Daniel try to get into the professors files, it seems like they have all been deleted. Sarah talks about a technology called "tombstone" - at the time this episode was made that was a viable technology used in server systems to make sure important files were not completely deleted. And it works exactly as Sarah describes in this episode, the file may have been deleted, but the tombstone values left in the system allow for reconstruction of the deleted items.

I was very impressed, this is the first time in any TV show where any Technobabble was used correctly. This is another reason why I really enjoy Carter's Technobabble in the series, it is usually used more correctly than in other franchises.

So the question is, what happened to that second jar and are the contents still intact? If they are, it is going to be a lot of trouble and a world of hurt for Daniel.

There is a very interesting variation on an Alkesh Bomber in this episode, this one has a huge spike that extends from the bottom- but that is only natural seeing as where this bomber had been stored for the last 10,000 years.

A breath of fresh air

[dasmith-06216 · 9/10 · 7 May 2022]

A terrific story centred around Daniel involving Egyptian artefacts, Daniel's former mentor, former colleagues and an old flame. After reading that his former mentor has died Daniel travels to Chicago to attend his funeral. There , he meets an old flame, Dr Sarah Gardner and Dr Steven Rayner. Sarah is puzzled as to why Daniel seems to have dropped off the map, he has not had any papers published, in fact he has not been heard of, Dr Rayner, is angry that Daniel has only turned up for Dr Jordan's funeral, where was he when Dr Jordan was alive? Daniel is aching to tell particularly Sarah the truth but is obviously unable to, a part of the storyline that could have been explored a little more. The story involves Egyptian artefacts, a Gou'ald symbiote, and a Gou'ald spaceship that never appear again and terrific action sequences involving Samantha Carter and the very welcome involvement of Dr Janet Frasier. The story is so fast moving, that the forty five minutes just fly by, for me this episode could easily have been expanded to a two part episode, the ending(like so many SG-1 episodes), is a little rushed, and should have been visited again.

Quite Good; However

[Easygoer10 · 7/10 · 31 July 2020]

This is the umpteenth episode in which a SG1 member coul easily not break any laws by simply admitting employment by the US Government. This gets quite old after do may times. Instead, the writer(s) choose to stretch out what is basically 10 minutes with if a show into 40+ minutes. Ironically, one canister is called the "ISIS" jar. Little could people have guessed...