In this review, I revisit “The Torment of Tantalus”, a Stargate SG-1 episode that blows a giant hole in what we thought we knew about the history of our Stargate. Apparently, when the Pentagon boxes up its files, it really forgets all about them.

Here we meet Ernest Littlefield, the man who got the gate to work fifty years before Daniel ever figured it out, only to be left behind and forgotten. And yet, despite that truck-sized plot hole — and the realization that Catherine’s life was largely built on a lie — this episode still works. Because underneath it all, it’s a story about reconnection, and the torment of having real "meaning-of-life stuff" within reach but being unable to share it.

Along the way, I get into how this revelation turns much of our Stargate lore upside down, why I still have a soft spot f ...