Stargate Atlantis Rewatch: The Lost Boys
Yay! Super Ford's back! (Photo from GateWorld.net)
The Lost Boys
Excerpts written by Robert C. Cooper
Written by Martin Gero
Directed by Brad Turner
Guest starring Rainbow Sun Francks (Aiden Ford), Kavan Smith (Major Lorne), David Nykl (Dr. Radek Zelenka), Aaron Abrams (Kanayo), Paul Anthony (Jace), James Lafazanos (Wraith), Andee Frizzell (Hive Queen)
WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND!
Summary
Super Ford returns and forces the team to help his Wraith juice-enhanced gang blow up a hive ship. (Part 1 of 2)
General Impressions
This episode and the next deceived me into thinking we’d get a lot more Super Ford throughout the series, but no. Just these two episodes then Normal Ford appears in a flashback in the first episode of season five to guilt trip Sheppard. Oh well.
This episode explores drug addiction and how far friendship and loyalty can be stretched before breaking. The team still want Ford to come back to Atlantis with them and be cured, and Ford even expresses a desire to go home at one point before revealing it was all a trick. He wants Sheppard to trust him but everything he does ensures that Sheppard won’t trust him. He’s completely misguided.
The Good
Ford’s recap of how he got off the Wraith ship. It’s cool and creepy at the same time. The way his gang chains up the Wraith and keeps them for their supply of the enzyme is just like the way Wraith keep humans prisoner to feed on later. Creepy parallel.
I honestly couldn’t stand Ford after this episode. Everything he did to Sheppard’s team was disgusting and evil. You don’t force drugs into people’s systems. You just don’t. It’s a horrible violation, and I found it very hard to watch when Ford’s guys were forcing injections on Tayla and Ronon. That’s the visceral reaction the writers were surely going for, but if they weren’t it was definitely a happy accident. Strong emotional audience reactions are good.
I believe I’ve mentioned previously just how much I love the design of the Wraith ships, especially the darts. If I could have any small ship from the Stargateverse it would be a Wraith dart. I love how they look like they’re made of bone, and the gooey sound the cockpit canopy makes when it’s raised and lowered. I’d love to know what it’s made of and how it does that. It always astonished me that the expedition never tried to find a way to adapt the culling beam technology for their own use. Imagine how useful it could be for transporting people and materials. If nothing else, I can’t believe they never commandeered a bunch of darts just to have that technology, if for no other reason. Wraith tech might be inferior to Ancient tech but it’s still pretty advanced and like nothing our team has.
The Bad
I didn’t like this episode that much, yet I can’t put a finger on what made it drag for me.
The Awesome
Crazy puppy Super Ford. The contrast between his need to be accepted by his former comrades and the evil of him forcing the Wraith enzyme on them is incredibly disturbing. When he tells Sheppard he wants to go home it’s just so sad—until he reveals later that he was lying in order to trick Sheppard. I sympathize with him but at the same time hate him for what he does to his former team. Ronon and Tayla fighting each other over food then trying to convince Sheppard that the enzyme is a good thing erases most of the sympathy I had for Ford. Rainbow Sun Franks was awesome.
I think Super Ford is interesting and could have had a great journey as a character if they hadn’t put him on a bus after the next episode. He could have turned up a few more times, finally got dragged back to Atlantis and maybe Earth for detox and then fought to get accepted back into the Stargate program, though he would more likely have faced disciplinary action and been banned from returning to the Pegasus galaxy. It would have been interesting, but no. Put on a bus. Pity.
Rating
6 out of 10. The exploration of drug addiction and the way it changes a person is interesting but doesn’t really carry the episode. Rainbow Sun Franks, on the other hand, does.
