Stargate: SG-1 has been coasting for some time now offering us stand alone, go nowhere episodes or re-hashes of previous stories. It has been relying on the significant charisma of its central cast and the fondness which the audience has built up for the characters they portrayed.

With Full Alert, SG-1 finally kicks itself back into high gear. This isn't the greatest SG-1 episode every by any means, but it feels like what's happening matters again.

Not only does the story pull together the threads of a long-running conspiracy and tangle them all up in a new fashion but it manages to convince you that there is a real danger involved.

Yes, we know they aren't going to destroy the world. Well, unless its a parallel universe. But for 45 minutes they had me contemplating the potential for a major shift in the Stargate world. That the shift never happened is irrelevant. With episodic television like SG-1, change almost never happens. It's all about creating a compelling illusion that this time it might. And the episode managed that.

At this point in its life-span, SG-1 will probably never reach the creative highs it did in some of the earlier seasons, but at least for this week they aren't coasting any more.