Stargate Atlantis Rewatch: Underground
Underground
Written by Peter DeLuise
Directed by Brad Turner
Guest Starring Erin Chambers (Sora), Ari Cohen (Tyrus), Colm Meaney (Cowen), Craig Veroni (Grodin), Darren Hird (Cocooned Victim)
WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!
Summary
Sheppard’s team meets a people who are not what they seem and rope the team into a dangerous mission against the Wraith.
General Impressions
Ah the Genii. Simple folk, as Tayla tells us at least three times in the first five minutes of the episode. That alone should tip the viewer off to the fact that the Genii are the opposite of that. These people turn out to be a real pain in the ass, not just in this episode but throughout the series. Once again it’s Rodney who ferrets out the truth using the all powerful hand held scanner, which is showing him strange readings. This leads him and Sheppard to a sort of Cold War-looking underground facility where the Genii really live. The “Amish world”, as Rodney calls it, exists to fool the Wraith.
Here we meet a new enemy, one with technology that is close to our own (in the 1950’s). Such people would make terrific allies, except for the part where they keep betraying us and trying to steal our stuff. In this rewatch, I caught something I missed the first time around: Cowen tells the team that the Genii were once a great federation of planets, but the Wraith had beaten them down to this small, hidden population. I got the impression that the Genii want to reclaim their former glory. This explains much.
But, oh good Lord, these people are making an A bomb. We know how well that turned out on our own planet, don’t we?
The Good
The Genii are an interesting civilization. I’m once again impressed by the world building this show does. Both faces of Genii civilization are fleshed out well. We get to see how another culture is trying to defend itself from the Wraith, seeing once again how resourceful humanity can be. The thing is, they’re up against an equally resourceful enemy that happens to be more technologically advanced. The deck is obviously stacked against the humans.
Sheppard seems to be on a galactic confession tour in which he’s forced to tell people who were expecting to have at least another 50 Wraith-free years that he kind of woke up every Wraith in the galaxy, so the cullings are probably going to start in earnest, like, any day now. But we also see that our guys are willing to take responsibility and stick around to form alliances and clean up the mess they made. As Tayla tells Sora, “Perhaps this new alliance will help to open your eyes — that we can only stand against the Wraith if we do so together.” I get the impression that the various civilizations of the Pegasus galaxy have been in “every man for himself” mode for thousands of years, probably avoiding military alliances out of fear of retribution from the Wraith. Our heroes act as a catalyst, shifting the mentality in the direction of “together we stand, divided we fall”.
We also learn in this episode that the Wraith store snacks (humans) in cocoons on their hive ships. They cull more than they need for one feeding, like humans storing grain in silos. Creepy.
The Bad
Tayla repeatedly telling everyone that the Genii are “a simple people”, which in TV land always means, “they’re really not”. It was predictable.
Yet another Stargate handwavy example of “every technology is compatible with every other technology, no matter how alien”. Rodney’s Ancient-made hand held scanner proves to be just the thing for hacking into Wraith systems and opening bulkhead doors. Apparently the scanner is also a multipurpose computer. Who knew?
The Wraith database hacking thingie. This is actually a Stargate trope, technology with miraculous powers that conveniently solves the big problems. Here it’s a device to show them where every hive in the galaxy is. In season four we get one of these that shows us where all the Replicator ships are in the galaxy. The miraculous, godlike alien hard drive. Don’t even get me started on SG1 (cough Ark of Truth…cough Merlin’s Ori killer).
Rodney just rattling off recipes for building nukes to the Genii whom he barely knows and were only minutes before pointing guns his face. And Sheppard lets him. Nice job heroes.
The Awesome
The double double-cross at the end of the episode. The Genii think they’ve got the drop on Sheppard’s team, but he’s planned ahead and decloaks a double-cross of his own.
Secret lairs are always awesome. Batman has one, and look how awesome he is. The Genii have a Soviet Blockesque secret lair, complete with nukes in development. Their entire civilization even has a secret identity.
Rodney. Again. He built a nuke for his sixth grade science fair exhibit, which got the attention of the CIA, who thought he was part of a some kind of teen weapons ring. Also his snide comment that every kid in his high school chess club knew how to build a nuke. That’s one hell of a chess club. I’m with Sheppard, “They let you do that in Canada?”
Rating
7 out of 10. This was never one of my favorite episodes, mostly because of Tayla hitting us over the head with how “simple” the Genii are, Rodney spilling nuke recipes to strangers, and the Wraith hard drive that shows us where every Wraith ship in the galaxy is but apparently the ones the Wraith have don’t show them where Atlantis is for a whole year. However, points for good world building and an interesting enemy that’s less invincible than the Wraith. These guys we can beat.
