After breakfast, Carter leads a mission briefing, showing the team images of solar activity on planet P4X39, which looks suspiciously like the planet the team just visits. The always-perceptive Teal’C is also aware of this, interrupting Carter to ask if they have been previously briefed on this mission.
With obvious relief, Jack agrees. However, Carter, Jackson and Hammond have no memory of the previous meeting or mission and seem skeptical about the others' sense of deja vu.
Just then, a Stargate klaxon breaks up the meeting. Jack announces that SG-12 will be coming through the gate and one of them will be injured. When this turns out to be accurate, the rest of the team begins to believe. Hammond postpones the upcoming mission.
After being checked out yet again by Dr. Fraiser, Teal’C and Jack discuss the events of the mission with Daniel: there was an electrical discharge and a beam of light and then Jack was back eating his fruit loops.
No thwarting the past
Later, Daniel stops Jack in the hall and asks him about the layout of the ruins but a passerby bumps into him. Distracted, he drops his books. The conversation never happens.
Carter comes into the commissary to console an understandably depressed O'Neill. They talk tech about the beam they told her about, and she says she'll run some simulations. After what looks like a bit if sexual tension, she leaves.
Back at the infirmary, Fraiser gives Jack and Teal'c a clean bill of health. The gate klaxon sounds again, so all personnel adjourn to the gate room. The wormhole opens and the electrical energy surrounds the gate. Hammond exclaims that he has never seen anything like this but Jack responds that they have.
Suddenly Jack is back in the commissary eating his fruit loops. He is obviously annoyed.
Another day in paradise
At the mission briefing, Jack interrupts Sam by emphatically stating that they have "been here and done this." He says they will believe him when SG-12 comes through the gate, which they do.
Fraiser examines Jack and Teal'c again. O’Neill tells Hammond not to bother to postpone the mission, since that didn't work last time.
Daniel bumps into Jack in the hall and they start the same discussion about the layout of the ruins. Jack lets the passerby bump into Daniel again. The conversation ends.
Jack and Teal’C ask Hammond to go back to the planet to try to stop this endless day.
They walk through the gate and finds Malakai working on the altar. Jack holds him at gunpoint but he seems to know nothing, although he has a weapon in his backpack. The machine starts. O’Neill tells Samantha to turn the altar off, but Malakai responds that "Major Carter" can't turn the machine off -- it's activated by the planet's magnetic field.
Smelling a rat, O’Neill wants to know how Malakai knows Sam’s name, forcing the alien to admit to having caused the time loop.
He won’t stop the process. Suddenly electric pulse, then fruit loops.
Let's try it again
At the briefing briefing, Jack stops the meeting before it really begins and explains their situation.
The doctor examines Jack and Teal'c again. Afterwards, they stop Jackson in the hallway before he gets bumped into. They discuss the translation of the altar symbols. Daniel sets up a meeting with Sam.
As it turns out, Carter comes up with an idea. Since Jack and Teal’C observed the electric gate event on both Earth and the alien planet, she postulates that the gate translates the effect. If so, they can just dial out right before the loop restarts, causing a busy signal on the alien planet and remove them from the effect.
Cut to the gate chamber, where they try to dial out to no avail. The time comes -- the wormhole activates and charges with energy, and then fruit loops.
Is it mind or Memorex?
In Jack's next discussion with Daniel, he tries to tape the conversation but the next time, the tape comes up blank. He and Teal'c decide to use their own minds as recording devices.
Carter explains her new theory to Hammond. She explains that the alien device connects to 14 Stargates simultaneously, creating a massive subspace bubble that causes all of these worlds to experience the loop effect
Jack and Teal’C struggle to memorize the translation of the alien writing. Obviously frustrated, they discuss their mutual discomfort at being caught in the perpetual loop.
Over several loops, they begin to learn the text, even though it is obviously boring. As a distraction, they learn to juggle.
Jack's day off
Jack finally decides to take a break -- if they don't solve this soon, he announces, he's going to lose his mind.
A few loops later Daniel asks Jack how many loops he has been through. Jack tells him that he has lost count. Daniel replies that it must be frustrating but that it would also be an opportunity -- you could do whatever you want because you wouldn't have to worry about consequences.
After this little revelation, Jack and Teal’C excuse themselves to goof off, riding bikes through the complex and hitting golf balls through the wormhole. Jack gives Carter a kiss.
Back in the briefing room, Daniel goes over the translation that is finally completed. He explains that the machine is an artifact of the original makers of the gate, who were going to use it to send scientists back in time to avert a disaster that will wipe out their race. The problem is that the device did not work as intended -- instead, all it did was loop every 10 hours.
At the end, the ancients gave up and accepted their fate.
So what's up with Malakai, anyway?
Our team gates back to the alien world looking for Malakai.
After Teal’C is knocked out by walking into a force field, the alien archaeologist emerges from hiding and announces that he won't let the team break the loop.
As it turns out, his wife died 12 years ago and he is trying to use the device to go back in time to spend a few more moments with her. A noble if selfish motivation, but misguided -- Daniel explains that the machine never worked, the ancients couldn’t make it work and gave up.
Jack convinces Malakai that he understands what it’s like to lose someone that close -- he lost his son. Malakai relents and stops the loop.
Back on Earth, Jack eats his first oatmeal in a long time. Carter says the Tok’ra just contacted them to say they have been cut off from SGC for three months.
Daniel asks if they did anything crazy while they looped because of the lack of consequences. Jack just looks knowingly and eats his oatmeal.
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