Season 7, Episode 1: Fallen
on July 15th, 2011 at 6:53 amOriginal Air Date – 13 June 2003
The opening scene of “Fallen” shows us an unknown dark world with thunderstorms in the sky. We see three natives walking by, but they suddenly see a burst of light. They go to the place where they saw it and find Daniel Jackson lying naked on the ground. Back at the SGC, Jonas is in his office, trying to find the location of the Lost City from the tablet. He discovered that it is actually called “City of the Lost”. He thinks that the coordination of the planet is the last on the list of ones which Jack had downloaded from the Ancients memory. They go to the planet and discover Daniel among the locals, but he is actually suffering from the amnesia. Jack tries to come out clean with what happened to Daniel, but he has a tough time accepting what he hears.
This was the perfect episode to follow the world shattering “Full Circle”. The thing making it perfect is that it actually continues the story, but it takes a whole different approach. Where the finale was turbulent and packed with danger, “Fallen” is more of a microcosm type of episode, as it focuses on Daniel. On top of the fact that Daniel was very much missed by yours truly, there is quite a lot of emotional weight on top of his character. He discovers details of his life, but begins with painful memories as he first remembers Sha’re and how much he loves her…and that she is dead. The majority of the time, he seems like he lost all that hope which his character previously had, but somehow we still see flames in his eyes and a wish to fight. This amount of emotional radiation is only for praise, as Michael Shanks really performed in an excellent manner. Also the writers made such a script that they gave space to Daniel to regain his memory both alone and with interaction with others.
Not all in “Fallen” is about Daniel however. Once again we get to see Yu and Anubis, as well as hearing the dread news that Anubis is decimating the other System Lords thanks to the assembled Eye artifacts. The counter attack on Anubis is quite thrilling and has some very cool action scenes. Both this episode and “Full Circle” really managed to create such an explosion in the show that we can only ponder what more epic tales await us…but wait, this one isn’t over yet!
