Stargate SG-1/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Tear Jerkers in Stargate SG-1 include:

  • The ending of "Fire and Water", where Nem uses his memory machine on Daniel Jackson to find out the fate of Omoroca (his mate) from ancient Babylonian texts.

Daniel: And in that place there was Omoroca, a woman who came forth from the heavenly egg, who walked among men by day. But at night she would retreat to the sea to sleep - one of the beings called Ohnes. The god Belus came down onto Babylon unto the place of Omoroca... and cut the woman asunder!"

  • The death of Charles Kawalsky, a character who survived the film dies in such a heart-wrenchingly senseless way.
  • Sha're's death at the hands of Teal'c is uber heart-wrenching to watch.
  • The death of Doctor Janet Fraiser, that is all.
  • Stargate SG-1: The second half of the "Heroes" two-parter. The whole episode revolves around the death of one character. The audience is led to believe it's one character. At the end, it is shown, in startlingly undramatic and completely heart-shattering frankness, that it was someone else.
    • Even if you know he gets better, watching the episode where Daniel dies of radiation poisoning is still incredibly heart-rending.
    • The season 1 episode, "Torment of Tantalus". Earnest, having been alone on a world for 50 years with no human contact, hugs Daniel and says, tearfully, "About time."
    • Daniel Jackson's funeral in "Fire and Water".
    • More of Daniel: when he temporarily is schizophrenic in the episode Legacy, the team comes and visits him while he's institutionalized. He looks up at them and tearfully whispers "They took my glasses..."
    • Even though they got out, Daniel blowing the sub that Jack and Teal'c were on in Small Victories. Then, inversely, Jack blowing up a ship that he thought Daniel was on in Scorched Earth.
    • The scene with his parents in Gamekeeper, absolutely every moment of Forever in a Day, him being left behind at the end of season one (although Jack's face just made it worse; Daniel seemed pretty calm about the whole thing), etc.
    • Teal'c accepting that he should be executed in Cor-Ai.
    • The look on Daniels face in Children of the Gods, when he realizes that Shar'e has been taken as a host.
  • Subverted in the third episode - Kawalsky, who the viewer would have thought was going to be a major character, is dying in a hospital bed. The music takes a distinctly mournful tone. Jack, with the saddest, most genuine look of sorrow on his face asks him, "If you don't make it... can I have your stereo?" Kawalsky, and the viewer, choke out laughter.
  • Sam gets one in "Singularity," when she is ordered to leave Cassandra in the reactor silo, since the Goa'uld bomb in her chest is about to go off.

Cassandra: You promised you wouldn't leave me. You promised.
Sam: I know... but I have to. Do you understand? (choking back tears) Just remember, you're very brave...

    • The look on both their faces as Sam closes the blast door, Sam crying her heart out on her way back up the elevator, and then turning the elevator around and going back to wait out the timer with Cassandra is one uninterrupted seven-minute stretch of tear-jerking.
  • The end of "Tin Man", when androids who, essentially, have the minds & identities of SG-1, agree to live in exile.
  • Jack and Daniel's conversation in Abyss while Jack was being tortured by Ba'al and Daniel was dead. It alternates between hilarious and heartbreaking.
  • In Unending, Landry's death in the time dilation field and Mitchell standing on the bridge.
    • In the same episode, Vala crying during that conversation with Daniel, even though it ended well for both of them.
    • Thor at the beginning. His entire race is about to die, and his one regret is his inability to help the humans more than he already has. Selfless to the end.
  • The beginning of season seven, when Daniel returns from the dead doesn't remember his team. There's this moment where he just sort of shrugs, says they don't look familiar, and walks past them. The look on Jack's face is plainly heartbreaking.
  • Cold Lazarus. The crystal version of Jack searching for Charlie... I tear up every time. And it was beautifully acted by RDA.
  • Lost and Found, when Re'tu Charlie asks if Jack can be his dad... sniff.
  • The end of Window of Opportunity. When they are trying to get the guy to shut off the machine, he says that he wants it so he can see his wife again.

Jack: I lost my son! Believe me, I know. And as much as I miss him, I could never live through that again.

  • When Jack is under the influence of Apophis' hallucinogen and he sees Charlie.
  • How about the look on Fifth Replicator's face end of Unnatural Selection when he realizes Carter and the others are leaving without him.
  • "Lost City" closing with Jack frozen in the Ancient outpost.
  • The season 1 episode "Torment of Tantalus". Ernest, having been alone on a world for 50 years with no human contact (the Stargate lost power and closed just after he went through, his bosses assumed he was dead and never went after him), hugs Daniel and says, tearfully, "About time."
  • Skaara's brief return to consciousness after a year as host to a Goa'uld in the first season finale is pretty painful. "O'Neill, are you still my friend?" Sob.
  • Season 5's "Meridian". Before Daniel got better, this episode was a real soul-crusher for the fans.
  • The seventh-season episode "Heroes". The in-show tribute video at the end actually did bring tears to General Hammond's actor, a former Vietnam-era army sergeant. And for the regular viewers... fan-favorite regular Dr. Fraiser is killed instantly while treating a wounded airman during an offworld firefight. Her memorial service consisted of a list of names of people she saved during her time at Stargate Command.
  • In the series finale, when Sam says goodbye to Thor for the last time, just before the Asgard hasten their impending extinction by committing mass suicide.
  • Basically half of the entire episode "Cold Lazarus" would qualify, where we see how much the lives of Jack and his ex-wife were impacted by their son's death.
    • There's a really powerful moment where the crystal-energy doppleganger visit's Charlie's room and relives Jack's memory of his son's death, and comes out the other end a sobbing, shaking wreck. Especially potent when later on, the crystal Jack says that physical death doesn't have the same meaning to its kind, so it's experiencing a grief that it never even comprehended before.
  • There is one seven-minute stretch of the episode "Singularity" - in which Carter is ordered to leave Cassandra behind to die, only to turn around at the last minute and stay with her until the end - that consists almost entirely of Amanda Tapping reaching into viewers' chests, ripping out their hearts, and grinding them into a bloody pulp. She is just that good.
  • The destruction of Prometheus in "Ethon", complete with Pendergast's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • "Serpent's Song" has a gutwrenchingly beautiful moment where Daniel is comforting the poor, thousands-of-years-old scribe who was Apophis' host by telling him that he will give him the final rites and that he will see his wife again after he dies.
  • For fans of Stargate SG-1, Samantha Carter's farewell to the show - and Amanda Tapping's, to boot - likely induced quite a few tears. Carter was a mainstay of SG-1 through the show's entire run, and her transfer brought home the fact that the longest-running science fiction show in American television history had just come to an end.
Back to Stargate SG-1
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Stargate_SG-1/Tear_Jerker?oldid=1994973"