When 1969 begins, SG-1 is set to go off on a mission through the stargate--but all O’Neill, Daniel and Teal’c are presently doing are waiting in the gate room while Sam’s busy making adjustments on the computer. Yet once she’s done, and just before she can rejoin her comrades, Sam has a slightly odd encounter with General Hammond, who inquires about a cut on her hand. When Sam assures him that it’s nothing big, Hammond then gives her a folded up sheet of paper. He instructs Sam not to open the paper until they get on the other side of the gate. As strange as his behavior may be, Hammond’s still the commanding general, and so Sam places the note inside her vest and joins her comrades on a trip through the wormhole.

However, instead of an alien planet, SG-1 emerges back in the gate room--just before the stargate, and its surrounding environs, disappears. The SG-1 team finds themselves looking at the butt end of a titan rocket, which is about to test fire in the confined space they’re locked in. Teal’c shoots the rocket with the zat, saving them all--yet they still face a far bigger problem: O’Neill, Sam, Daniel and Teal’c have all somehow been teleported back to the year 1969, and the folks at Cheyenne Mountain think they’re Russian spies (it probably didn’t help matters much when Daniel responded to a question spoken to him in Russian by one of the Air Force officers). SG-1 find themselves now under arrest some thirty years in the past, but help comes from an unusual source.

1969 is enjoyable to watch--and not only because it’s one of the first Stargate: SG-1 episodes to really break away from the standard storylines by offering something different, but also because it also has some fun while doing so. While tracking down the whereabouts of the stargate, which is locked away in storage, SG-1 manages to kick back and enjoy the period they’re in, and Brad Wright’s script offers plenty of fun moments. Just after escaping captivity, SG-1 tries to hitch a ride by having Sam do her best Claudette Colbert impersonation: standing by herself on the side of the road with her thumb out…only nobody stops for the poor woman (then again, the olive drab military outfit she wears isn’t very flattering, anyway).

But by getting the proper clothing, SG-1 eventually blend into their surroundings well enough to try and decipher Hammond’s cryptic message, which consists of two times and dates. Aaron Pearl, who plays Hammond as a young man, is eerily good. Not only does he look like a young Don Davis, but he even expertly mimics Hammond’s speech and behavior. And it’s fun seeing O’Neill, Sam, Daniel and Teal’c clad in the "mod hippy" garb of the late 1960s. 1969 has become a pivotal episode in that it has been referenced several times in later SG-1 shows, and while it’s not the last time SG-1 has traveled through time, it remains their most fun time travel adventure.