Tin Man (Stargate SG-1)

"Tin Man" is an episode from Season 1 of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1.

Plot summary

SG-1 arrives on P3X-989 and finds themselves in a huge complex and are, moments later, knocked unconscious by a mysterious light. They wake up dressed in new clothing and lacking their equipment, and soon meet a strange character named Harlan who claims that SG-1 are now "better." Harlan takes them through the complex to retrieve their equipment and then prepare to leave, ignoring Harlan's strenuous protests that they must stay.

The team returns to Earth where they eventually find out they are robots. They are confined on Earth until they convince General George Hammond to allow their return to P3X-989. Upon arrival, Harlan confesses to making them into robots but is not willing to "transform them back" to their human form.

Harlan himself is in fact also a robot, the last member of an extinct race that was programmed to keep the giant facility on P3X-989 running. After helping Harlan to solve a malfunction in the facility they eventually find out why Harlan refuses to change them back; SG-1 wasn't transformed into robots but have been duplicated from the real SG-1 team, which is restrained and kept prisoner by Harlan. Harlan confesses his plan in which he would eventually release the real SG-1 team so that they would not know of their robot duplicates. He hoped that the robot SG-1 would remain with him and help maintain the facility.

After a small period of confusion between the real and robot SG-1 team, the robot team decides to stay with Harlan and bury the Stargate while the real SG-1 team returns home, despite the hesitancy of the robot Jack O'Neill, who naturally sees himself as human even though he knows he is not.

Title reference

The title (and the plot of a bewitched person trapped in a metal body) is one of many Stargate references to the Wizard of Oz.

Series continuity

The robotic SG-1 team reappears in the season 4 episode "Double Jeopardy."

By Season 9, Stargate Command has at some point recovered an android body from P3X-989. S.G.C. scientists have modified the android, and hope to one day program it with the knowledge and memories of all S.G.C. personnel. They are currently in need of funding for the ambitious project.

External links

"Official Stargate SG-1 site". MGM. Retrieved 2006-06-08. Most of site requires Flash.
"Screenplay" (PDF). Distributed by MGM. Prepared by Casablanca Continuity. Retrieved 2006-10-28. Also see Google's cache.
"Summary". SciFi. Retrieved 2006-06-05.