Jack tries to teach a very serious alien girl the joys of childhood.

In what appears to be an archaeological dig, many children dressed in white garb and turbans busily clean a ruin under the tutelage of one Daniel Jackson.

A nearby Stargate suddenly activates with its tell-tale "water jet" effect and Teal'C and Jack O'Neill walk through. Looking around, O'Neill makes a crack about child labor laws, but Jackson explains that the children are "Urrone" -- a type of apprentice on this planet, Orban -- and goes on about his recent discoveries.

The only adult in the Orbanian group, a pleasant-looking fellow named Kalin, then shows up, followed by a young girl carrying a small box. Kalin offers to exchange information on the alien Goa'uld with O'Neill and Teal'C, who agree to take him back with them to Earth.

The group returns to meet General Hammond and Samantha Carter back at Stargate Command. The girl gives the box -- an Orbanian reactor -- to Carter, an act which completes the exchange of information as far as Kalin is concerned.

On the surface, this was a well-paced and moving episode that stood on its own quite nicely. The use of children as a commodified resource inspired the anger in my stomach and lump in my throat that the series' creators were undoubtedly hoping to evoke.

I also found the passing of Merin’s knowledge of play to the other children to be quite touching, but the feeling didn't last long before I started thinking about how viable this would be.

First, Urrone children don’t receive nanites from their colleagues who undergo the Ovarium, so how could they learn from Marin's experience?

Moreover, I find it difficult to accept that it takes millions of nanites to help a Urrone learn, but just one to pass that information on to other Urrone -- or why the creators of this technology seemed to consider brain damage to be an acceptable side effect of the process.

Otherwise, the episode was good so long as the viewer can manage to suspend disbelief. I wish the writers would have done their research more diligently and thought through the ramifications of their alien devices a bit more thoroughly.