So.......theyb stayed in the past because Sam was worried about killing a few Jaffa, and instead come blasting out of Ra's gate in an Ancient timeship. Yeah, much more subtle. But i guess there wouldn't have been much of an episode if they just killed the Jaffa and went home. And that deer in the headlights look Sam is affecting is extremely annoying.

Is it just me - or should this last timeline have a couple cloaked jumpers sitting around egypt for the past 5000 years from the previous loops?

havent any of you watched bill and ted's excellent adventure? Back to the future? It pretty much laid down all the science. All you need is a vessel to create a time distortion around you, and a few button presses and lever pulls later and youre back in time, same consciousness, same person. Of course, you could affect history or even meet yourself in the past, in which case you'd essentially be dividing by zero and tearing a hole in space-time, but since its tv they ignore the inconvenient details. What really makes no sense about time travel (especially moving backwards) is that the time traveller can die in the past, only to be born later in an altered world and perhaps never time-travelling, thus creating a paradox where they have lived a life that could not have existed (when they warped back in time) and yet still influenced the future.

what i dont get about this episode, is that if they took the jumper back once, then again, the episode in which they acquired it wouldnt be affected, leaving them to forever repeat this plot, since most assuredly there would be some dire reason to use it to time travel, since most timelines would probably include them finding the jumper in the first place. oh wait... i do get it after all ha!personally i love the time travel thing, its interesting to discuss. once you understand that theory with the threads its very simple, really. there was something in this episode that didnt make sense, but i lost it a few seconds later (i was typing a reply to Mr Davies at the time) :(