General Hammond summons Colonel Jack O'Neill out of retirement to embark on a secret rescue mission. O'Neill confesses that he disobeyed orders to destroy the Stargate on Planet Abydos, and that scientist Daniel Jackson may still be alive. Arriving on Abydos with his team, O'Neill meets up once again with the scientist, who has discovered a giant elaborate cartouche in hieroglyphics. All signs point to the fact that this is a map of many Stargates that exist throughout the galaxy - a development that makes the dream of the SG-1 team to travel throughout the universe in time a reality.

Stargate SG-1 (often stylized in all caps, or abbreviated SG-1) is a military science fiction adventure television series within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 science fiction film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. The television series was filmed in and around the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The series premiered on Showtime on July 27, 1997 and moved to the Sci Fi Channel on June 7, 2002; the final episode first aired on Sky1 on March 13, 2007.

The story of Stargate SG-1 begins about a year after the events of the feature film when the United States government learns that an ancient alien device called the Stargate can access a network of such devices on a multitude of planets and in space. SG-1 is an elite United States Air Force special operations team, one of about 20 teams from Earth who explore the galaxy and defend against alien threats such as the Goa'uld, the Replicators and the Ori. The series draws upon Egyptian, Greek and Norse mythology, as well as the legend of King Arthur.