Tin Man (Stargate SG-1)

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“Tin Man”
Stargate SG-1 episode

Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 18
Guest stars	Jay Brazeau as Harlan Teryl Rothery as Dr. Janet Fraiser
Written by	Jeff F. King
Directed by	Jimmy Kaufman
Production no.	118
Original airdate	February 13, 1998
Episode chronology
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Episode chronology

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

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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 and meet a strange character named Harlan who claims that SG-1 are now "better." 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.

[edit] Notes

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 PX3-989. 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. It is unknown whether the android body is one of the SG-1 duplicates who were killed saving the planet Juna from Cronus (Double Jeopardy), or if Harlan has otherwise provided them with access to Altairan android technology.
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.
This episode shares its title with a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.