Citizen Joe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “Citizen Joe” | |
|---|---|
| Stargate SG-1 episode | |
 |
|
| Episode no. | Season 8 Episode 15 |
| Guest stars | Dan Castellaneta as Joe Spencer Deborah Theaker as Sharlene |
| Written by | Robert C. Cooper |
| Directed by | Andy Mikita |
| Production no. | 815 |
| Original airdate | January 18, 2005 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "Full Alert" | "Reckoning (Parts 1 & 2)" |
| Episode chronology | |
"Citizen Joe" is an episode from Season 8 of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1.
[edit] Plot
The episode opens with Jack O'Neill walking into his kitchen, talking on the phone to Samantha Carter about his "world famous omelette", when a man O'Neill has never met bursts in with a gun claiming that O'Neill has ruined his life. The viewer is then taken to a flashback 7 years earlier where Joe, the man in O'Neill's house, is at a garage sale and picks up a mysterious black stone. When he does, he receives a vision of SG-1 going through the Stargate against orders in the season 1 episode "Within the Serpent's Grasp". He buys the stone and, as the episode progresses, continuously receives more and more visions of the exploration team.
Joe, unable to create or tell amusing jokes or stories of his own, tells of the visons he sees as if they were stories he had conjured out of thin air. To start with, he tells these visions to his son and the customers in his barbershop, entertaining them where he had previously been nothing but a bore. Later, at the suggestion of his wife, he starts to write them down and send them in to various magazines (all of which reject them) instead of telling each and every individual the tiniest of details relating to SG-1. As the episode goes on, skipping ahead in years, the people he tells start to get tired of the tales of SG-1 and, eventually, they stop coming to his barbershop. Despite his wife's urging, telling him to stop writing the episodes down, he continues to type and becomes convinced that the visions are actually happening. After years of too-intense focus on SG-1, long since passed into obsession, his wife leaves with their son. At this point he tries to find evidence that what he has been seeing is real, collecting data on mysterious stellar phenomenon and unexplained deaths, but is unable to contact Colonel O'Neill. Eventually, he tracks down where O'Neill lives, bringing the viewer to the opening scene.
It is then discovered that the reason Joe has been seeing the visions, flashes of the life of Jack O'Neill, is because of an Ancient long-range communication device brought back from the same world as the quantum mirror. The device, which was activated by O'Neill when he touched a mysterious black stone in Daniel Jackson's lab, connects two minds together telepathically and Joe, who possesses the same Ancient gene as O'Neill, activated the companion device when he touched the stone at the garage sale. That stone, we find out, was discovered by the grandfather of the garage sales operator and had been found at a dig in Egypt. When Jack had been on the base, writing his mission-reports of their off-world adventures, the stone in Daniel's lab transmitted his thoughts to Joe. It turns out that O'Neill had been seeing visions of Joe's life all along at the same time, the two devices working in tandem. He just never said anything because he found it relaxing. O'Neill then assists Joe, whose entire life is in shambles, by talking to his wife.
[edit] Notes
- On the European and Australian DVD releases of Season 8, this is the 18th episode, not the 15th. The previous episode to "Citizen Joe" is "Threads" and the next episode is "Reckoning Part 1" on those DVDs.
- It's revealed that the show-within-a-show Wormhole X-Treme! was canceled after one episode because of low ratings.
- In his phone call to Carter, Jack mentions he has a meeting with a Johnson from the CIA about the Kinsey incident. This is most likely Kerry Johnson, who later becomes Jack's girlfriend in "Threads".
- While Joe and his employees are reading through his rejection letters, one of them exclaims "They rejected 'Hathor'? But it was gold!" This is most likely a joke by the producers, who once said that they wish they had never aired that particular episode.
- Amanda Tapping (Samantha Carter) is clearly pregnant here and wearing long shirts/black tops on black chairs, etc.
- Jonas Quinn (Corin Nemec) is mentioned in this episode for the first time since "Death Knell".
- Dan Castellaneta, who guest stars as Joe Spencer, is the voice of Homer Simpson on The Simpsons, which has been established as O'Neill's favorite television program. Joe also mentions that he sees O'Neill's analogy of Burns as Goa'uld. Richard Dean Anderson would guest star on the Simpsons episode Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore the following year.
- This is the second week in a row that O'Neill's house has been broken into, the previous instance caused by ex-vice president Kinsey in the previous episode. Joe himself suggests that, to prevent further invasions, Jack might try locking his front door.
- Joe says that Armin Selig was killed by the NID. His murder, which occurred in "Secrets", had remained unsolved to this point. Since Joe was privy to all of Jack's mission reports, not just the events that occurred on-screen, it's possible this was resolved offscreen at some point. In addition, it is possible that Joe was the one who told Armin about the Stargate in the first place.
- Bruce Woloshyn (digital effects supervisor) appears in a cameo as the garage sale homeowner who sells Joe Spencer the Ancient stone device.
- This episode's title is an obvious nod to Citizen Kane.
[edit] External links
- Official Stargate SG-1 site. MGM. Visited June 8, 2006. Most of site requires Flash.
- Screenplay (PDF). Distributed by MGM. Prepared by Line 21 Media Services Ltd (2004-11-29). Retrieved on October 29, 2006.
- Episode guide from Skyone. Visited June 4, 2006.
- Summary from SciFi. Visited June 4, 2006. Requires Flash.
- Summary from GateWorld. Visited May 4, 2006.
- Review from GateWorld. Visited May 4, 2006.
- Notes from rdanderson.com. Visited May 4, 2006.
