Stargate Atlantis Rewatch: Rising (Parts 1 & 2)

The city of Atlantis (photo from GateWorld.net)

WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!

Rising (Parts 1 & 2)

Written by Brad Wright & Robert C. Cooper
Directed by Martin Wood
Starring Richard Dean Anderson (Jack O’Neill), Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson), Joe Flanigan (Major John Sheppard), Torri Higginson (Dr. Elizabeth Weir), David Hewlett (Dr. Rodney McKay), Paul McGillion (Dr. Beckett), Rainbow Sun Franks (Lt. Aiden Ford), Robert Patrick (Colonel Marshall Sumner), Rachel Luttrell (Tayla Amagan)

Summary
An international expedition from Earth travels to the city of Atlantis that rests on the bottom of the sea on a planet in the Pegasus galaxy. As the shields holding back the water begin to collapse, a team is sent to find an alternate home only to have several members of the team captured, along with a group of natives, by alien ships. Major John Sheppard launches a rescue mission and inadvertently awakens a deadly ancient enemy.

General Impressions
I’m one of those people who like the introduction of new characters or learning new things about existing characters. My favorite film and book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is Fellowship of the Ring for this very reason, and it’s also why I like pilot episodes so much, especially when they’re done well like this one. I liked Sheppard immediately. This was helped along by him being introduced with Jack O’Neill, one of my favorite characters from SG1, and the fact that Joe Flanigan is awfully cute. I loved the character of Rodney McKay in the SG1 episodes he was in but thought they had him be a bit too angry in this pilot. Fortunately, he lightens up in subsequent episodes. I like Torri Higginson’s Dr. Weir better than Jessica Steen’s Weir (SG1 season 7). Lt. Ford was really likeable, too, though he didn’t make as strong an impression on me as Sheppard and Tayla Amagan, the leader of the alien allies the team meets and has to rescue from the Wraith.

I thought they beat us over the head with the fact that Sheppard is a rebel, and his superiors don’t like him because of this one time that he disobeyed orders. One time he does this, and they hate him. I think we’re supposed to infer a pattern of behavior to account for such distaste, but it’s never explicitly stated.

I want to live in Atlantis, which I’m sure is just what the set designers intended. The city is its own character and it’s all shiny and chock full of potentially dangerous technology for our heroes to discover and get themselves into trouble with. It looks simply awesome. And it got to the Pegasus galaxy by flying there, so it’s a spaceship, too. As Dr. Jackson tells an incredulous O’Neill, “Well keep in mind this is the race that built the Stargates. They did everything big.”

The Good
Exposition is mostly delivered via action and brief exchanges. Lots of exposition is necessary in a pilot to introduces characters, settings and conflict. Rising mostly does a good job of not dumping massive amounts of information on viewers via one or two characters lecturing the others (and us). The times this is done are mostly unavoidable: Dr. Jackson and Dr. McKay trying to explain where Atlantis is and how we can get there in an effort to convince General O’Neill to greenlight an expedition. The other big data dump comes from a hologram left behind by the Ancients, which explains what the Ancients were doing there and why they left. It conveniently leaves out the name of the terrible enemy that drove them from Atlantis, as well as what they look like, so the team doesn’t make the connection when the Athosians tell them about the Wraith later.

The Bad
The usual Stargate handwaves are in play here. All of the aliens speak modern English, though the Athosians don’t use contractions (i.e., don’t, can’t, won’t, etc.). Even the Wraith and the exposition hologram lady speak English. We’re expected to just overlook the fact that people from Earth can strike up a conversation with people from another galaxy and encounter no language barrier whatsoever. However, the words that display on the screens in Atlantis are in the Ancient hieroglyphs, while the Wraith have their own written language that is definitely not English. We are also expected to accept that there are planets all over two galaxies that have the same flora and fauna that can be found on Earth.

Redshirts. Not as egregious here as in later episodes (especially in the last two seasons), but you can play a little spot the redshirt in this pilot. Of course Sheppard is the hero and is meant to be in charge with Weir because Weir keeps exchanging looks with him even though Colonel Sumner is the guy in charge. And then there’s that male Athosian who shadows Tayla and gets captured with her by the Wraith. Both he and Sumner get fed on.

The Awesome
Special effects. No expense was spared here. The crown jewel comes midway through the episode when the city frees itself from the bottom of the sea and rises to the surface. We see it from outside the city with the shining towers breaking through the waves, water sheering down their sides, and from inside the city as the water level drops and sunshine pours in through the stained glass windows. The scene is shown from a variety of angles and milked for all it’s worth. It is also used in the title sequence until they switched to a truncated title sequence in the fourth season.

The Wraith and their creepy hive. The Wraith are scary and formidable. We know this because they don’t get any lines for their first few scenes. They just scowl, snarl and hiss, grabbing people in the way a butcher grabs a slab of meat. They wear black leather and goth silver jewelry and have flowing white hair and tattoos. The thuggish warriors are even creepier with their faces always hidden behind masks. Then we meet the Wraith Queen (Andee Frizzell), who is tall and sexy in a slinky white gown and in the process of interrogating the Colonel Who Must Die So Our Hero Can Be In Charge shows us why the Wraith are so terrifying: They literally suck the life out of humans. They’re even immortal and incredibly difficult to kill. I can imagine the Ancients who fled to Earth telling stories about the Wraith and those stories over time becoming the basis for our vampire legends.

Rating
9 out of 10. I loved this pilot but could have done without being constantly reminded how much Sheppard’s superiors hate him. I also wish they hadn’t killed off Colonel Sumner. Sheppard and Weir get along too well, and Sumner would have provided some tension. We never really get a permanent expedition head who doesn’t give Sheppard whatever he wants. Big points for impressive SFX and a memorable enemy.