"Baal has stepped into Anubis' power vacuum, taking over his powerbase of super-soldiers," co-executive producer Joseph Mallozzi told GateWorld. "He's kicking butt, and the System Lords are reeling and they go to us for help, because we have a common enemy. We'll see Yu and we'll see a couple of new System Lords: Camulus and Amaterasu. Yu has fallen on hard times, and his First Prime does a lot of the speaking for him.
"So these three representatives come to convince us to help them take down Baal. But, of course, we have problems of our own -- the biggest being that we can't use the weapon. We've used up all the energy (or most of it), and O'Neill is the only one who can use it."
"The System Lords noticed that we wiped out Anubis' fleet in five minutes or less," co-executive producer Paul Mullie said, "and the other System Lords are interested in how we managed to do that. That's one issue that has to be dealt with." But the arrival of the System Lords and the threat of Baal is just one side of the story.
SG-1 goes in search of their long-absent allies, the Asgard, in the hope that they can save Colonel O'Neill's life from the knowledge of the Ancients that has taken over his mind ("Lost City"). What they discover is that the highly-evolved Replicators -- left in a time-dilation prison in Season Six's "Unnatural Selection" -- have escaped. And the Asgard are about to launch yet another plan to try and stop them.
Fifth (Patrick Currie) discovers that he has been betrayed, in Season Six's "Unnatural Selection."
Patrick Currie guest stars in the episode as the Replicator "Fifth," who took a liking to Major Carter in "Unnatural Selection," only to be betrayed by her. Actress Amanda Tapping ("Samantha Carter") endured gruelling torture scenes for this episode.
"Fifth realized we had betrayed him, and he was literally reaching for that device when they got 'frozen' -- or just really slowed down -- in time," Mullie said. "And the Asgard figured out that it was only going to take them, in real time, a couple of years to reach that device and turn it off. For O'Neill's sake we go seek out the Asgard, and we happen along just when their new plan for dealing with the Replicators is about to fail miserably."
The premiere will also see Jack O'Neill replace Dr. Elizabeth Weir as commander of the S.G.C. O'Neill will be promoted to the rank of brigadier general, leaving Carter in command of the SG-1 field unit.
"New Order" airs July 9 on The SCI FI Channel in the U.S., and also sets the stage for the July 16 world premiere of Stargate Atlantis.
