Writer Damian Kindler and director...

Writer Damian Kindler and director Peter DeLuise (Dom's scion, of 21 Jump Street fame) indulged their obvious fondness for Star Trek's "Amok Time" episode for this tale that landed Mitchell in the clutches of a Jaffa warrior sect that follows the Ori. Forced to bolt through the Stargate in a hurry, SG-1 had to leave the wounded Cameron behind. On the positive side, Mitchell's foes nursed him back to health. The bad news was they did this just so he could be trained to fight in a ritual clash to the death. Mitchell's quandary recalled that scene in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory when Private Arnoud received a skull fracture and was bandaged up just so he could be shot. (By the way, Arnoud and his two fellow comrades "died wonderfully," according to the French general who executed them to save his own butt, but I digress.) No, Kindler and DeLuise aren't Kubrick, but who is? Obviously Mitchell had to squirm out of this jam alive and well, but how were K and D gonna pull it off? Answer: Reach into the well marked "Roddenberry." Mitchell persuaded Jolan (Eve's Jason George) that the Ori were pulling a fast one on his people ("We've never needed proof of a god's existence in order to believe in them"), so when the climactic clash arrived, Mitchell was dosed with a mickey and feigned death. (Kudos to Ben Browder, for handling his own martial-arts stunts.) Seven hours later, Mitchell revived ("Well done, Bones"). Jolan didn't get the reference. I don't get where you draw the line between homage and rip-off. As Red Skelton once observed, "Imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery, it's plagiarism!"