You all know the moments we’re talking about here.
THAT moment.
That moment when there’s a massive reveal, our beloved heroes are in peril, all seems
lost, and then ... the camera fades to black.
How are they possibly going to get out of this one?!
The cliffhanger is a tried-and-true staple of dramatic television.
It’s high-stakes, and it gets us tuning in again for the next week’s episode.
Stargate SG-1 did some great cliffhangers over its 10-year run.
Here we’re going to run down the Top 10 greatest cliffhanger moments from the show
– the indisputably accurate BEST cliffhangers as ranked by ... just me as my opinion.
So if you disagree, watch all the way to the end and then post your list below.
Let’s get started!
Now I want to see your list, but let’s make sure we’re all on the same page here.
A cliffhanger means something very specific in TV writing.
It’s a particular dramatic device: a moment that leaves you on the edge of your seat and
that comes at the very end of the episode – the very last scene or two.
Act-outs are designed to get you to come back after the commercial.
Cliffhangers are meant to get you speculating all week (or sometimes all summer) about how
this story could possibly be resolved, and then come back for the next episode.
Now, let’s add one more very important qualification: to count as a cliffhanger the dramatic moment
has to be resolved at the start of the next episode.
If it’s just a gobsmacking plot development that sets up the season or is paid off way
down the line, it doesn’t meet our definition of a cliffhanger.
That’s just a good old fashioned plot twist.
Oh, and of course there will be tons of spoilers here.
So if you’re still watching SG-1 for the first time, enjoy the ride, finish the show,
and come back to this video later.
Starting with Number 10: The Enemy Within “Children of the Gods” (Season 1)
What better place to start than at the very beginning?
The Goa’uld Apophis pays a visit to Earth and then to Abydos, Sha’re and Skaara are
taken as hosts, and SG-1 is officially formed after Teal’c defects and helps a dungeon
full of prisoners to escape.
But as the team steps down off the gate ramp, the audience sees that one of their own has
secretly been taken over by a Goa’uld.
It’s none other than Charles Kawalsky, another character held over from the movie.
It was a great way to end the pilot episode of a new TV show.
If the leader of SG-2 and a movie character isn’t safe, maybe no one is!
Could the Goa’uld inside Kawalsky be removed?
And how much damage would he do before he was discovered?
Ironically, this cliffhanger was cut out when co-creator Brad Wright returned to the pilot
12 years later with "Children of the Gods: Final Cut."
The scene was removed not because Wright didn’t like it, but because the Final Cut was being
released on DVD.
It was intended to stand alone as a movie rather than setting up the next episode.
So, no cliffhanger was required.
Number 9: An Old Girlfriend “Summit” (Season 5)
Daniel has gone undercover to infiltrate a meeting of the most powerful Goa’uld in
the galaxy: the System Lords, who are gathering on a space station in the Hasara system to
learn who has been attacking them all – and ultimately grant Anubis entry into their ranks.
Daniel has used the memory-altering Reole chemical to convince Lord Yu that he is his
loyal servant, and none of the other System Lords know who Daniel is.
Now, he’s about to uncork a vial of symbiote poison that will wipe out
the entire Goa’uld leadership.
Then, the doors to the meeting hall open and in walks a familiar face: It’s Osiris, who
has taken as its host Sarah Gardner ... Daniel’s old college girlfriend.
She doesn’t rat him out to the others, and in the final scenes she confronts Daniel in
private about what he is doing there.
Meanwhile, in the tunnels beneath the surface of Revanna the Tok’ra HQ has been bombed
into oblivion, leaving SG-1 and their allies trapped.
It’s a double cliffhanger of sorts, but this one ranks on our Top 10 list because
Osiris is so awesome and surely about to expose Daniel right in the middle of a nest of vipers.
Number 8: True Believer “The Fourth Horseman, Part 1” (Season 9)
The newly formed Free Jaffa Nation are trying
to figure out what they want to be.
The Goa’uld sold them and their ancestors a bill of goods, pretending to be gods and
using the Jaffa people’s religious faith to manipulate them into servitude.
Now the Goa’uld have been cast down, and the Jaffa are free to create their own government.
They have a strong leader in Gerak.
So what does Gerak do when the Priors of the Ori come knocking?
He ends up ... kinda liking what he hears, actually.
Gerak reads the Book of Origin, and decides that what the Jaffa need most to unite them
as a people after the Goa’uld were exposed as false gods is just some different gods.
He converts to Origin, and submits to being converted into a Prior himself.
In this cliffhanger moment at the end of Part 1, Gerak’s transformation into a Prior
is revealed.
He steps into the meeting hall on Dakara and declares that it is the destiny of all Jaffa
to follow Origin.
Not only had Gerak sold his soul to the Devil and traded one false god for another, but
one of our team’s closest allies is now threatening to join forces with the enemy.
Number 7: Millions of Light Years “Exodus” (Season 4)
So we’ve got this cool idea.
Hear me out: We’re going to use a spy as a double agent against his will to lure Apophis
and his giant fleet of ships to come destroy the Tok’ra homeworld.
Then, after all the Tok’ra have escaped, we dial up the Stargate to a black hole and
dump it into the sun.
Now here’s where things get interesting: the stellar matter gets sucked through the
wormhole, the Vorash star becomes unstable, and explodes ... wiping out the enemy fleet
before they know what hit them.
It’s an audacious plan to end SG-1’s fourth season, after Apophis has seized the forces
of both Sokar and Heru’ur and is poised to conquer the galaxy.
And everything pretty much goes to plan (except for Teal’c being shot and presumed dead,
of course): the star explodes, Apophis’ fleet is wiped off the map, and SG-1 and Jacob
Carter escape with their ship just ahead of the shockwave.
But the energy from the explosion has an unforeseen effect on their hyperspace window.
And when they drop out of hyperspace they see that things have gone very, very wrong.
The plan worked, but now in only a matter of seconds they have traveled over four million
light years – all the way to another galaxy.
It’s going to take them 125 years to get home.
And to make matters worse, Apophis is here too.
The fleet was destroyed but Apophis’ mothership made it into hyperspace in time.
The massive ship looms above out heroes as we fade to black.
Enjoy your summer.
Number 6: Someone’s Gettin’ Goa’ulded “Out of Mind” (Season 2)
One of the more memorable villains introduced early on in the series was Hathor, the sexy
Goa’uld queen and once the consort of Ra himself.
After a failed attempt to take over Stargate Command and breed a new army of Jaffa, Hathor
escaped through the Stargate.
Of course, OF COURSE she would be seen again.
At the end of Season Two Jack O’Neill, Samantha Carter, and Daniel Jackson awaken from stasis
to discover that the year is now 2077.
Everyone they know is dead, and the new folks in charge have a lot of questions for them.
Except ... not really, because this is all fake and Hathor is behind it.
She’s recruited some new help and built a facsimile of the S.G.C., which honestly
is a really elaborate and overly theatrical way to try and acquire intel
about the state of the galaxy.
With her ruse exposed and Jack saying some really unkind things about her breath,
Hathor decides to take things up a notch.
She has a mature Goa’uld symbiote who is ready to take a host.
Which one will it be?
Will Jack O’Neill step up and take one for the team?
Will it be Major Carter, who has already been an unwilling host once before?
Or will it be Dr. Jackson, who Hathor kinda seems to have a thing for?
This is the moment that ended the season.
It’s a moment filled with tension, as one of our beloved team members
is about to get Goa’ulded.
And props to the writers for paying this off and not letting SG-1 just slip out
of the situation.
When the third season picked up, Jack O’Neill himself was forced to become a host.
Number 5: Replicator Survivor “Nemesis” (Season 3)
The Replicators hijacked Thor’s mothership and tried to infest Earth, but were handily
defeated by SG-1 when the team crashed the ship into the atmosphere and destroyed it
... or so they thought!
The third season finale ends with wall-to-wall action, as the team uses Asgard technology
to beam up their own Stargate and escape certain death.
While fending off a swarm of techno-bugs they detonate an explosive device on the ship’s
deceleration drive, crashing the ship and destroying every Replicator on board before
they can reach the surface of Earth and gain a foothold.
That was the plan, anyway.
The viewer is left assuming that SG-1 safely escaped through the Stargate, and just needs
the S.G.C. to set up the beta gate so they can dial home again.
All’s well that ends well, right?
In the final shot of the episode we see that the plan was only mostly successful,
as a single Replicator crawls out of the ocean and onto a piece of debris from Thor’s ship.
Let’s just hope he doesn’t find a submarine to infiltrate and a poor Russian sailor’s
face to jump on ...
Number 4: “We’re All In Very Big Trouble” “There But For the Grace of God” (Season 1)
OK, we’re fudging on the “cliffhanger” definition just a tiny bit here.
The next episode doesn’t immediately resolve this final moment of SG-1’s first
parallel universe story.
Instead this sets up the next three episodes, as Daniel tries to convince everyone else
that Apophis is about to invade Earth.
The Quantum Mirror sends Dr. Jackson to a parallel universe, where alternate versions
of his friends are engaged in a futile struggle against a Goa’uld invasion.
Humans have been going through the gate and getting into trouble for less than a year,
and now Apophis has shown up in a mothership to attack this Earth and enslave its people.
And Evil Teal’c, still First Prime of Apophis, is leading the charge.
Daniel gets the address that the attack was launched from, and makes a narrow escape back
through the Stargate – with Evil Teal’c shooting him with a staff weapon as he goes.
A gravely wounded Daniel crawls back to the Quantum Mirror and zaps himself back to his
reality, where he gives his own team a dire warning: “We’re all in very big trouble."
"They’re coming.”
Now, our SG-1 has gotten under the Goa’uld’s skin as much as any alternate reality.
And Daniel is convinced that the enemy is about to attack Earth directly here, too.
Turns out ... he was right.
This was a fantastic start to the invasion arc that ends the first season.
Earth is in the enemy’s crosshairs.
Number 3: Earth Under Siege “Within the Serpent’s Grasp” (Season 1)
Now we’ve reached the Top 3 greatest cliffhanger moments
in Stargate SG-1 history.
And that same Goa’uld invasion brings us to Number 3.
With Stargate Command defunded by Senator Kinsey and ordered shut down immediately,
SG-1 defies orders and goes through the Stargate to the address Daniel brought back
from the other reality.
It brings them not to a Goa’uld-controlled planet, but to a Stargate
on board the very attack ship that is now headed to Earth.
In command is Klorel, son of Apophis, who has taken the Abydonian Skaara as his host.
The team sets explosives all over the ship, and they don’t expect to survive its destruction.
At the end of the episode Klorel is dead, and the one thing the team has going for them
is that it should take the ship at least a year to reach Earth.
But in the final moments Earth itself appears out the viewport.
The ship has arrived much quicker than expected.
The death gliders are preparing for launch, and all that’s left is to push the button
and blow up the ship they’re on ... and Earth will be saved.
As the camera pulls out on this last shot, we see that things are even worse
than our team knows.
The mothership is not alone.
A second Ha’tak vessel, bringing Apophis himself, is also there for the invasion.
Even if SG-1 blows themselves up right now, it’s not going to save the Earth at all.
The scene fades to black on SG-1’s first season, and its first real two-parter
since the pilot movie.
Season Two would not disappoint, as Master Bra’tac joins the team in destroying both
motherships, dealing a major blow to Apophis.
This direct attack on Earth was a story that the show had to tell, and when it finally
came down to it the story was done so well.
Number 2: This Guy Won’t Stay Dead “Jolinar’s Memories” (Season 3)
Apophis was SG-1’s first great villain, an ever-present foe throughout the first two
seasons of the show.
But as viewers got to know other Goa’uld power players out there in the galaxy, we
learned that Apophis has plenty of enemies other than SG-1.
Ultimately it’s Sokar who gets him: Apophis is tortured by his fellow Goa’uld
but escapes to Earth, where he dies.
To stop Sokar’s assault on Earth’s Stargate, the team gives in
and delivers Apophis’ body to Sokar.
The cliffhanger is Apophis’ shocking return, at the mid-point of Season 3.
It’s our pick for the Number 2 greatest cliffhanger in all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1.
This one works so well because it has been so long since Apophis’ death the previous year.
Throughout the first half of the new season the writers made frequent reference to Sokar,
building him up as the likely new Big Bad.
Just a few weeks before “Jolinar’s Memories” aired, viewers were even reminded about Apophis’
death, as SG-1 used a recording of his final moments to convince a group of eager young
followers that he’s not a god, but is really and truly dead.
Whelp, so much for that.
After SG-1 fails to escape from Sokar’s prison moon of Ne’tu, the local First Prime
badass Nao’nak kills the warden, captures SG-1, and takes off his mask
to reveal his true identity: It’s Apophis.
Sokar used a sarcophagus to revive his enemy from the dead,
so that he could continue to torture him.
Now Apophis is looking to turn the tables ... and he has our heroes
right where he wants them.
We really love this Apophis reveal.
But there’s one more cliffhanger from Stargate SG-1 that’s even better.
Our Number 1 pick leaves everything on the table, with most of SG-1 on the edge of death
and the whole galaxy ready to fall.
Number 1: The Ori Invasion “Camelot” (Season 9)
It’s all come down to this.
After a year of harassing the planets of the Milky Way Galaxy with Prior sermons, plagues,
and giving advanced weapons tech to bad actors, the followers of the Ori are ready to invade
with a fleet of advanced warships.
All peoples everywhere will convert to Origin, or die.
Earth’s growing fleet of deep space carriers are armed and ready for battle
at the newly formed Supergate.
Joining the Odyssey (under the command of Colonel Paul Emerson) is the Korolev,
with a Russian crew commanded by Colonel Chekov.
But more than this, we’ve assembled an unlikely alliance of races from SG-1’s past:
there are Goa’uld motherships, piloted by Tok’ra and Free Jaffa.
Kvasir brings an Asgard ship into the battle.
And Teal’c even convinces the cutthroat Lucian Alliance to bring several of their
ships to try and hold the line against the Ori.
Carter dons an EVA suit to try and hack the enemy Supergate, but it’s too late:
the Supergate activates in a spectacular sequence, and four Ori warships stream through.
The coalition ships open fire, and it’s an all-out war to prevent the incursion
into our galaxy.
But none of these ships – human, Goa’uld, or Asgard – can stand up to the might
of the Ori fleet.
Our weapons are no match for their shields, and within minutes the coalition fleet is decimated.
After all, the Ori’s worshipers have gotten technology from ascended beings who are basically
as advanced as the Ancients.
The Korolev is destroyed, but in the cliffhanger the audience isn’t shown
whether it was the Korolev or the Odyssey that exploded.
Daniel and Cameron were on board the Russian ship, and their fates remains uncertain.
Carter is floating in space in a suit in the middle of a shooting war.
And, then, as the guns fall still and the enemy ships move through the debris,
we push in on one of them for the final shot.
Vala Mal Doran stands on board, watching helplessly as her friends get slaughtered.
And her child, the immaculately conceived spawn of the Ori we’ll come to know
as the war criminal Adria, is about to be born.
SG-1’s ninth season ends with one of the most spectacular space battles
in Stargate history.
There are so many loose ends here, and so many characters whose fates
are left hanging in the balance.
But what makes this the show’s greatest cliffhanger ever is that the stakes are so high.
It’s not just Earth or SG-1 on the line, but the whole galaxy.
Even our most powerful allies, even joining forces with our enemies,
can’t slow down the Ori invasion.
After an entire year of build-up, the show’s new antagonist was finally here in full force.
And we had no way of stopping them.
Those are our picks!
Which cliffhangers are your favorite from Stargate SG-1?
If we didn’t mention them just drop them in a comment below.
And also let us know if you want to see this same kind of list for Stargate Atlantis or SGU.
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